I've been working on a continuing care unit since Monday. This is a unit which provides nursing care to old people. It's pretty much like a nursing home so heavy work involved. I have to say that I wasn't really looking forward to doing this placement. I knew it was going to be heavy going and hadn't really expected much more than that. But you know, it's been really good.
Virtually every patient there has dementia in vary degrees of severity. Those that don't have dementia have chronic schizophrenia or depression. This sounds quite depressing work but really it isn't. The patients are very interesting and because of the top nursing and medical support they are getting their illnesses are under good control. I was expecting a lot of angry agitated patients because that was my only real experience of patients with dementia but it's not true. They are like the rest of us, they only become agitated and lash out when they are frustrated. But at this unit the nurses have gotten to know the patients and can tell what they are trying to communicate so can provide the necessary care which prevents the patients getting frustrated.
It's not always this good and because everyone is human the patients and nurses have their off days so there was an occasion where one of the had a bad day and was constantly looking for attention for what appeared to be very minor reasons e.g. calling for help to be moved in his chair four times within one hour. We couldn't find out what he wanted, we tried staying with him but he wanted to be left alone and when asked if he had pain he said yes but then denied it. It was very difficult as he couldn't speak and we had to rely upon what the experienced staff understood from his gesticulations and the cards he used. That was a tough day.
I managed to work with the same six patients this week so did get to know them a bit. They in turn managed to get to used to me so by the end of the week they seemed to become a little easier and relaxed with my presence. One of them even managed to remember my name for the whole day. *smile*
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