Absorbent Bed Protection
For people with nocturia and many people with incontinence, night-time can be when the problem is at it’s worst. As well as using the right incontinence pad or pants at night using absorbent bed pads is also important to maintaining a good night’s sleep and also protecting bedding. By providing secondary protection against leaks there is less likelihood of waking and also increased comfort. Absorbent bed pads are available in either washable or disposable versions.
Washable products can be cheaper over time as they can be washed and re-used. Many people buying washable bed pads buy three, so if they have one being washed they’ve got one in use and one spare just in case.
Alternatively disposable bed pads offer greater convenience and are ease of use, especially if only used as a back up.
As well as our existing Tena Bed Disposable pads, we’ve now just added an excellent range of low cost Lille Bed pads to our disposable bed pad range. These are highly absorbent and yet offer great value from only 16p per pad.
New website navigation
Last month we updated the way the you “navigate” the products in the website to make it easier to find the incontinence products you are looking for. The idea being that as well as the different categories appearing on the left hand side of the page, when you clicked on a category (i.e. Bed Protection, Disposable products, etc) the sub-categories (i.e. Disposable Bed Pads, Washable Bed Pad, etc,) appear in the centre of your screen with pictures to assist your search. We’d welcome any feedback on this so please email me at colin@allanda.co.uk with any comments you might have whether they are good or bad. Thanks
Discussing Incontinence can help.
Discussing incontinence – something that can be uncomfortable for many of us, and even talking about it with close family and friends can be difficult, so it’s not surprising that talking to someone you hardly know can be quite frightening.
Therefore it’s not surprising that many people who experience continence or bladder issues don’t discuss it with their doctor or any health professional, especially as many just don’t realize incontinence is a medical condition, often thinking it’s a natural part of aging or a natural part of having children.
But getting beyond these concerns can have a wealth of benefits for those who decide to discuss the issue with a health professional, be it a doctor, practice nurse, district nurse or pharmacist. He or she can help explain the biology of incontinence and are best placed to discuss treatment options tailored specifically to your needs.
But in addition to getting the treatment you need and finding success managing your symptoms, one of the biggest benefits is that talking with someone else can also have a positive mental affect. Those who have been diagnosed often report feeling higher self-esteem, as this is related to making progress on actively trying to tackle the condition.
A Need to Focus on the Impact of Incontinence
A new study of incontinence in Australia has identified risk factors and burdens of incontinence in the older population.
The study authored by Professor John McCallum, is entitled: Risks and Burdens of Incontinence in an Older Community’ and was released at the 16th National Conference on Incontinence.
Professor McCallum says: “Incontinence is responsible for about one-fifth of healthy years of life lost after the age of 75 and it is a terrible burden on the individual and the family.”
“This is the same impact on healthy years lost as dementia and combined sight and hearing loss – so incontinence is a big issue and it does not receive the attention it deserves. There is a taboo about incontinence which we have removed in our discussions of dementia.”
“Depression and disability are associated with incontinence but they don’t predict it in the longitudinal study – so they are more consequences than the causes of the condition.”.
Professor McCallum says: “It is high time that incontinence received as much attention as some of the other ‘glamour’ diseases of ageing. Both its prevalence and its burdens surely deserve this. We need to make serious sense of late life incontinence and do something about preventing it and reducing its impacts.”
District Nurse & Continence Advisor Literature
We get quite a lot of requests for copies of our Carer’s leaflet and latest catalogue from health professionals, especially Continence Advisors and Community based Nurses. We’re always happy to provide copies of these so if you are a health professional and after larger quantities of literature, please just email us at info@allanda.co.uk with details of which literature and what quantities you’re after and we will send it out to you.
Maintaining Healthy Skin
Urine is irritating to the skin and can cause damage to both the skin and the tissues underneath. The result may be redness, a rash or sores.
These sores are much easier to prevent than cure. If you notice redness or sores on the skin, you should seek medical attention.
Sores can quickly become serious, reaching down into muscles, tendons and potentially to the bone if not treated. It can take months for new tissue to grow and a deep sore to heal.
A few tips to help you prevent skin problems due to incontinence are:
• Examine the skin on a daily basis for signs of skin break down.
• Discuss with your doctor, nurse or continence advisor if the skin appears to be pink, bright red, burned, irritated or chafed. Often, if caught early, the treatment can be simple and quite effective.
• Change incontinence products as soon as they become wet to keep the skin as dry as possible.
• A regular bathing routine is also helpful to assure delicate skin is clean and free from irritants.
• Use an appropriate product for washing skin.
• Avoid using talcum powder. It traps moisture in skin folds.
• If the person you are caring for is confined to bed, moving them frequently helps avoid pressure sores caused from lying on one spot too long.
• Keep bedding clean, dry and free of wrinkles. Wrinkled sheets may cause skin friction and irritation.
• Use soft, padded mattresses or chairs.
• If incontinence episodes occur in bed, use a protective mattress cover and absorbent bed pad (either washable or disposable) underneath a fitted cotton sheet.
• If using incontinence pads or pants, make sure they aren’t too tight or rubbing against the skin and irritating it.
Study Finds Link Between Hysterectomy and Incontinence
A recent article written in the medical journal “The Lancet” reports on the findings of a study done at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden showing that women who’ve undergone a hysterectomy have more than twice the chance of needing treatment for stress urinary incontinence (SUI). The study was based on analyses of more than 165,000 women who had had hysterectomies and almost 479,000 women who had not.
Hysterectomy is the most common gynaecological operation in the world and is often performed as a cure for relatively benign medical problems.
The research found that the highest likelihood of incontinence surgery was within five years of the hysterectomy, but the risk remained high throughout the patients’ lives. The risk increased most for women who had a hysterectomy before their menopause or after having given birth to several children.
As the large “baby-boomer” generation grows older and faces more medical decisions like hysterectomy, the numbers of people with incontinence will likely rise as well.