My father is no longer able to stand, and he cannot roll on his side, or he has serious breathing difficulties (he has lung cancer). Do you have any advice as to what we can do? Until recently, we could get the diapers on him standing, but he's no longer able to stand, and we've been struggling to hold him up to get them on, and it hurts us and him. I know there's the standard method, lying down, where you roll your patient from side to side, but my father cannot breathe (because of his cancer), when he's lying on his side. Can anyone please help?
Another thought, using a catheter for urine would help cut down on the number of changes.
If you are trying to care for him at home, it may be time for a facility hospice, were there would be sufficient staff to attend as mother nature calls. The catheter suggestion is very good as well - all this jarring must be very uncomfortable to the patient.
Best of luck
The only other thing I can suggest is using bed-pans and bottles on a fixed schedule, and plenty of absorbent pads on the bed; but obviously that will only work if your father retains any sense of urgency when he needs to go.
Do you have a hospital bed for your father, so that you can change his lying position easily?
They go around each thigh and have loops on the top. The loops are then attached to a Hoyer Lift. the Hoyer is then raised and that raises the lower half of the body. I found that raising my husbands legs while lowering the bed a bit gave me enough room to pretty quickly change him.
There is a Youtube video that demonstrates how they work. I purchased the straps through Amazon as it was a little less expensive than other places that had them.
Hope this helps.
I understand that he still won't be able to breathe when he is on his side, but hopefully this is a quicker method. You could also consider a catheter, which would make all of the above a moot point.
Maybe this will work for you.
They do make standing lifts but they're expensive - you have to buy them outright unless you are in Canada. They aren't supplied by anyone in the USA.
If you can't find the side tape adult pants, then get the regular ones and slit the side and use a carpet tape or duct tape or even packing tape to secure them. Also use a separate super absorbent liner pad inside the pants, it can be peeled out and replaced inside the pantie if the pantie itself did not get wet. This is also a cost effective option if you are going through a lot of panty changes each day.
One caretaker on a tight budget buys the panties, and a lot of the super absorbent liners. She put some plastic wrap in the absorbent part of the panty, then adhered the super absorbent liner to the plastic wrap, then tucked the plastic wrap through the leg openings to secure it in the proper place, so when her bedridden mom needed a quick change she slid the panties down pulled out the saran wrap and pad and replaced with fresh.
Any BM always got a complete fresh panty and liner etc, but this worked well for urine situations which were very frequent for her mom and very expensive in the cost of panties. (she has since added Ditropan (oxybutin) to her mom's daily medications which has reduced the number of urination incidents each day. She went from 8 to 10 changes a day to 4 or 5 a day.
If you have to change him in bed, use a slip sheet under the pad to apply as quickly as possible. As a nurse, I found this to be the quickest. Have two slip sheets incase one gets soiled. It won't kill him to roll over for a short time. It is more the fear/ panic that affects them when rolling. Stay calm or he will feed off your fear.
I agree a bedrail would help him to feel more secure as he pulls himself over to help ( if able)