Accessible Bathrooms

Anyone with infants or small children can relate to the disastrous feeling upon entering a bathroom to find no changing table available. Although over time more and more of these have appeared in women's bathrooms, Dads sometimes need to change diapers, too. Their choices? A knee balancing act, a public bench, or eek! the floor of the men's bathroom - or any bathroom, for that matter. The same is true for caregivers with a loved one with incontinence. Imagine the chagrin of dripping or messy pants while out shopping with no family accessible bathroom. Yes, the twosome can jam into a single stall or wiggle into a handicap accessible stall, but what if the caregiver is female and the care recipient male? Then what? Women tend to gawk or squawk as a man is led by the hand into the secret potty realm; men tend to look puzzled and embarrassed. Regardless of reception, changing an adult's pants is difficult, messy, impossible in cramped quarters, and a heartbreak.
You might wonder, Why not just stay at home? Why not just leave the loved one in the car? Why not buy adult diapers? While each of these is a potential solution, to maintain a sense of normalcy and purpose, it is important for caregivers to get out; it is equally important for care recipients to maintain a semblance of former routines. While in later stages of dementia adult diapers can be "snuck" on, in the early stages a formerly dignified and independent individual is now faced with the humiliation of wadded bundles of padding bulkily sticking out of pants hat odd angles. Who wants this?
One solution is, of course, education. the public needs to realize the value of trips out and the need for restroom stops. Family bathrooms are a super solution. And if space and adequate room do not exist, informed business owners and employees who assist the caregiver and clear the bathroom area are needed and much appreciated. Being kind is the right decision.