How To Clean The Tub/shower After A Chemo Patient
Preparing the Home
During and later cancer treatment, your loved ane may find life at home becomes increasingly challenging. If your loved one is experiencing mobility bug, peripheral neuropathy, pain or weakness after handling, the post-obit changes to the habitation may make life easier and safer for your loved one:
- Put items in easy-to-reach places. For example, put clothing in baskets or drawers instead of on high shelves or in closets.
- Lower the patient'south bed or go a step stool to brand getting into and out of bed easier.
- Continue stairs and hallways well lit.
- Become rid of slippery rugs that can slide or agglomeration up causing a tripping hazard.
- Add a shower seat and hand-held shower head to make bathing easier.
- Apply nonslip bath mats, both in and outside the tub/shower. Add a safety bar or hand grips to reduce the gamble of falls.
- Find a raised toilet seat or commode.
- Employ nonbreakable dishes and cups for food.
- Stock the pantry, refrigerator, and freezer with healthy nutrient choices.
- Move comfortable, like shooting fish in a barrel-to-wear clothing to the front of the closet.
- Go on throw blankets and actress quilts in an attainable location. Cancer patients can exist more susceptible to cold.
- Talk to the healthcare team nearly whatever pets in the patient'due south abode. Being around animals, including pets, may increase the risk of infection for your loved one. You may need to take special precautions to reduce this take a chance
Depending on your loved one's diagnosis, handling, and wellness, you may need professional help to make larger or structural changes to his or her home. For example, if your loved i is wheelchair bound, you volition need to add together a ramp to the entrance of the domicile.
Meet Worksheet ten: Grocery Listing
Protecting a Weakened Immune Arrangement
Cancer patients, especially those undergoing chemotherapy or a stalk cell transplant, are at higher hazard for infection considering the immune arrangement is weak. If a patient with a weakened allowed organization does catch a cold or an infection, his or her body will take a more hard time fighting information technology compared to a healthy person.
The post-obit tips can help you and your loved one avert infections:
- Avoid crowds and friends or family unit members who are sick.
- Wear a mask in crowds or in an emergency room waiting surface area.
- Make sure to warning the emergency room staff that this person is a cancer patient with a compromised allowed system.
- Make clean cuts and scrapes immediately with warm h2o, soap, and an clarified. If the patient is at risk for bleeding problems due to a depression platelet count, ask the healthcare team how to intendance for cuts the correct way.
- Avoid activities that put the patient at run a risk for cuts or injury.
- Practice practiced hygiene and personal intendance.
- Practise good food safe.
- Ask the healthcare team which vaccines or boosters the patient needs.
- The caregiver and other people living in the domicile with the patient should get a flu shot and updated vaccines, if needed, besides.
- When they get the flu vaccine, cancer patients, caregivers and the other people living in the habitation who have contact with the patient should receive the influenza shot, non the nasal spray vaccine because the spray contains the live flu virus. Flu shots are made of the dead virus. The alive virus can be dangerous for immunosuppressed patients.
- If you do receive a live vaccine, you should not be well-nigh the patient for a menstruation of time.
- Properly care for and make clean the patient'south catheter or port.
Contact the healthcare team immediately if you observe any of the following signs of infection:
- A temperature of 101°F or higher or 100.four°F for longer than an hour
- Chills
- Persistent coughing
- Tenderness at a site prone to infection, such every bit the expanse around the anus or the nasal sinuses
- A sore pharynx
- Pain when urinating
- Frequent diarrhea or loose bowel movements.
Run across Worksheet nine: Immunization Record
Cleaning the Home Safely
You lot may need to help to keep the house clean. A make clean home lowers the risk of infection for the patient.
Many household cleaners comprise toxic ingredients. Always follow the directions on the product's bottle or box. Cleaners that are not properly wiped or washed away could irritate the peel or be accidentally ingested. Strong fumes can irritate eyes and make animate difficult. Patients undergoing chemotherapy may also be sensitive to the strong smells of cleaning products.
Yous don't accept to spend a lot of money for safe cleaning supplies. Vinegar and blistering soda are nontoxic items that near of us already have in our homes, and they make effective and affordable cleaners.
- Mix baking soda and water into a paste to make clean the oven and tackle toilet stains.
- Mix vinegar and water to make clean mirrors, windows and floors.
- Mix ½ cup vinegar, ¼ cup blistering soda, and ½ gallon of h2o for a safe cleaner.
The following cleaning tips volition aid to keep yous and your loved one prophylactic:
- Avoid products with chlorine, ammonia, synthetic solvents and artificial fragrances and dyes.
- Utilise fragrance-complimentary laundry detergent.
- Avert droplets cans.
- Clothing gloves when cleaning.
- Open up windows and doors while cleaning or run a fan to permit out strong fumes from cleaning products.
- Do not mix bleach with ammonia or vinegar. This tin can produce deadly gases.
- Instead of aerosol air fresheners use oils or wax warmers instead. If the patient is sensitive to smells or if strong odors trigger nausea, it may be best non to employ any blazon of air freshener.
See Worksheet 11: Task Chart
Hygiene and Personal Intendance
Good hygiene and personal care helps to lower the risk of infection in immunosuppressed patients.
As a caregiver, wash your hands with soap and warm water frequently, especially before handling nutrient or profitable your loved one with any tasks. Encourage visitors to the habitation or people interacting with the patient to do the same. You can also use liquid or gel hand sanitizer to keep hands clean.
Your loved one may also need to modify his or her hygiene habits.
Read the PDF, Caregiving During Treatment, for guidelines for proper skin, smash, dental, and hair care for a patient in treatment.
Related Links
- Download of order The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's free fact sheet, Dental and Oral Complications of Cancer Treatment Facts.
Source: https://www.lls.org/support-resources/caregiver-support/caregiving-during-treatment
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