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Constipation - Management
Goals
- For the individual and, for a constipated child, their parents:
- To understand the diagnosis and treatment options
- To agree a management plan and participate in it
- For adults and children:
- To clear faecal loading/impaction, if present
- To relieve symptoms, and (secondarily) to achieve a normal stooling pattern
- To agree a realistic target date with people with chronic constipation for withdrawing all laxatives. It may take months of treatment (with lifestyle, diet, or pharmacotherapy) before the person can be weaned off maintenance medications
- To identify and appropriately manage secondary causes of constipation (management of secondary causes is outside the scope of this CKS topic)
- For children with functional faecal soiling:
- To ensure self toileting and passing stools in appropriate places
- For parents, other family, any carers, and teachers to understand that soiling from overflow incontinence is involuntary (and not an act of defiance)
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