I consider it common sense not to shower each day. I am not alone in that.
There are very poor places in the world, where the people cannot afford the fancy and expensive things in our chemist shops, yet they seem to manage on the old fashioned treatments we have replaced with similar things with a hefty price on them, making millions for the manufacturers.
Try a week without using water, just wet wipes and cleanser, and dry with soft paper or towels if you really have to. Just because she has dementia is not reason to believe she needs showering each day. How dirty does she get?
People only need daily showers when they are working, travelling in trains with heaters under seats, and cars belching fumes.
I never saw fungal infection in the folds of skin on elderly people. It only happens when the skin is not dried properly and soap is used. If you use cleanser instead of water, you cannot get soggy skin with fungus.
Just think about it:
how dirty does a 94 year old lady get? Why use water? Wet wipes are better, or even cleanser which can be gently wiped away. Even in the groin area you don't have to use water every time. The pads are supposed to stay dry near the skin. White petroleum jelly is all you need. You see E45 on display in all hospital. They get it for next to nothing from the manufacturers and people think if the hospital uses it it must be best. Half of it is white petroleum jelly, whipped up by machines to make it lighter. It also has chemicals to keep it lighter, and not all of those are good for everyone.
Wet wipes or cleanser when the pad is changed - and the pamper type are better at that age than the pull ups, easier and less fuss to change. Most of those stay dry anyway, so cleanser or wipes are really all that is needed. You just have to examine the skin very carefully each day to make sure there are no breaks in it where infection can get in.
Put plenty of moistureiser on, Expensive is not always better. Half of E45 is vaseline - white petroleum jelly - whipped up to be lighter. Lighter doesn't make much difference to the body, whereas white petroleum jelly from the baby department in supermarkets with no VAT, is really much better.
Every time your mother is washed and dried, the precious skin cells which take so long to replace in elderly people are washed and dried away, and some people think the harder they wipe, the drier.
There is something else I find in caring for dementia patients: being given lots of apperient to make their bowels work. The sachets are very good, and it says on the pack they can take up to five a day. I have actually seen people forcing the dementia patient to drink it all up in orange juice, despite her shoving it away, and the carer saying she has to have that four times a day! You are tempted to say: 'would you like to be treated like that?'. Of course not. The elderly are very little different to the young, just more helpless.
One cause of malnutrition and weight loss in the elderly is that they are given so much powder laxative the food goes through them so fast the osmosis process doesn't stand a chance. Too much is is just like a 'dose of salts'. Food has to go through the body slowly, so that the good can be absorbed into the blood stream, but too often the kidneys and liver work overtime getting rid of the good, like chucking the baby out with the bath water.
Incontinence is a problem for many, but it needn't be. Wet wipes are kinder to old skin - and young - and drying the skin is not so traumatic. I have seen poor old bodies scrubbed dry and taking even more dead cells with it.
Our forebears must have got something right, or we wouldn't be here.
Sorry about the length, but I love caring for the elderly. I think it is a privilege to help someone into the next life peaceably, as important as the midwife helping babies into this one.