Although ostomy treatments are becoming more common for younger patients, most of those who receive the surgery are seniors. Therefore, we’d like to dedicate some brief time to ostomy care for older individuals. This covers four common components, which tend to cause the most difficulty, especially right after surgery.
Ostomy Care for Seniors – Tips for Managing Your Stoma
Daily Activities – One of the first things to do is to review some of life’s daily activities. While there may be other disabilities and limitations that force an elderly individual to cease certain tasks, ostomy care doesn’t necessarily require enormous sacrifices. It’s more about recovering from the surgery and figuring out how to resume exercise, work, intimacy, and everything else without loosening the pouches. You may have to be more deliberate about selecting a particular pouch system if you wish to participate in activities that cause sweating, which can affect the adhesive materials. Otherwise, this doesn’t have to slam the door on every normal lifestyle habit.
Dietary Considerations – Nutrition is the other big factor. Ostomy patients (of all ages) must remain hydrated and avoid anything that causes digestion difficulty. Some of the common culprits include beans, legumes, cabbage, hot peppers, and anything with seeds. For other foods, tolerance levels vary from one patient to the next.
Bathing – It’s somewhat tricky to bathe with a stoma, but not impossible. You should always make sure the area in and around it remains dry. Then again, if you use any oily or alcohol-based skincare products, then it’s important to keep them away from the stoma as well. Those make it harder to attach pouches properly.
Avoiding Accidents & Leaks – Since the nature of an ostomy differs from regular digestion and bowel movements, seniors (and their caretakers) must remain vigilant. The output flow will occur at a certain pace, which requires the patient to stay ahead of it by changing pouches often enough. It’s better to change too often than not enough because the latter leaves you vulnerable to accidents. Also, for new patients, it’s important to pay special attention to getting a tight seal around the pouch components to safeguard against leaks. This is, of course, something seniors should do with their nursing staff after the procedure.
Cymed MicroSkin – Easier Ostomy Care for Seniors with Patented Products
Another way to make life with an ostomy easier is to have plenty of effective pouches and accessories to manage the condition. Our MicroSkin brand includes safe and effective one-piece pouches, two-piece pouches, washers, seals, barriers, and more.
That’s how we at Cymed MicroSkin do our part to make ostomy management simpler for seniors and everyone else. If you’d like to learn more about anything we offer, contact us at 800-582-0707.