Submitted on Thursday April 5th, 2012
"Mom was up and down all night, agitated and crying. Turns out, she has another bladder infection!"
"Dad's in the hospital with pneumonia again."
Sound familiar? If so, the person you care for may be entering the final stage of his or her dementia. That makes your relative more prone to
- urinary tract infections due to incontinence, incomplete emptying of the bladder, and/or inadequate water intake;
- aspiration pneumonia due to forgetting to chew well and/or losing control of the swallow muscles;
- pressure sores due to lack of moving around and inability to tell others when and where pain is occurring.
Safeguards against these conditions involve very focused attention on your part.