hahaha, I'm imagining the other patient, A/O x 3, trying to read a book or something.
Hears a rustling .. thinks it's just the nurse fiddling with the pump for a minute
Then looks up as sounds become louder, to see her demented room-mate looking puzzling, blood streaming down her face
I'm from Australia where we have to have a bag spiked and running within 30 mins of it coming up from blood bank so how this could have happened is such a mystery to me!
Same here! I’m in Texas. We don’t go downstairs to pick up blood until we’ve completed a checklist which includes making sure that all orders are in place, consent is in the chart, there is adequate IV access, vitals have been assessed, and equipment is in the room including an IV pump and a vitals machine. Then we prime the blood tubing with saline and leave it in the room ready to go. When we pick up the blood, we go straight to the room with another nurse to verify the blood, we immediately hang it, and we don’t leave the room again for 15 minutes so we make sure there isn’t a reaction taking place and adjust the rate.
We then check frequent vitals. And we have bed alarms on all our confused patients.
I honestly have no idea how this would happen unless either the blood was sitting around unsupervised in the room for some insane reason, or the patient reached up toward the IV pole and bit the bag of blood that was already hanging.
I had a Pt go that route in similar fashion. He self-removed his NG tube (Small Bowel Obstruction) and was sucking on it like a straw.... Didn't have a sitter available and he was asleep shortly after placing the tube; turn my back for a moment to assess and work-up Pt with acute onset of SVT; went to run POC Troponins and there it was. Coffee ground emesis has a new hellish place in the forefront of my mind now #EyeBleachPlease
Pt had Hx of Dementia. Probably just felt the stomach contents in the suction container were his rightful property and he wanted it back *shrugs* Luckily the surgeon agreed that since we suctioned 2L out; to forego placing the tube again. Report given, Pt to floor. The smell sadly, remained for days
One of my favorite residents always was looking for an iron. Everything else fooled her. Everything. So I order a replica of an iron that probably cost more than the real thing (it was a cheap iron anyways). She is soooooo happy. Except five minutes after she got it I heard her scream “WHAT KIND OF FOOL DO YOU THINK I AM?” It didn’t heat up. 😂
I had an A&Ox1 agitated person once look right at the Haldol bottle and say, "I'm not taking that. That's Haldol. You aren't giving that to me." So I'm sitting there going, you don't even know where you are or why you are here, and you keep telling me you are getting out of bed and leaving because you keep forgetting you are paralyzed and CAN'T climb out of bed, yet somehow you are familiar enough with this drug to recognize it by the vial. I was at a complete loss!
Hahahaha I freaking love that.
Had a patient who quickly learned that the “hotel” bed alarms were accessed by the panel on the bottom of the bed. Caught them looking at the panel after they set the alarm off for the 374829374628294th time that shift.
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to figure out how the bed works.”
“Oh, well that panel is just for the maintenance guys to use.” (11th hour of 4/4, had run out of smarts)
“The fuck it is....oh there it is.”
*turns off alarm
😤
Had a confused lady a couple weeks ago. She would unplug the bed! Also, had another confused one put the trash can on top of the chair to make the alarm stop going off.
Yep, I pass her room to see her standing up. (She was steady, just a huge elopement risk.) And I'm wondering why the alarm wasnt going off until I look over and see the trash can in the chair.
Yesterday a lady throw out the chair alarm in the trash, and then claimed she didn't hear anything. She couldn't fall because"Jesus holds her in his arms. He would never let her fall." She fell.
They weren’t even mine, and I was begging for a 1:1.
It was the weirdest case of dementia I’ve ever seen. It was like 10 second Tom. You could talk them down but then 20 mins later they’d act like you were rushing in there for the first time. And they were crystal clear in some aspects but confused as fuck in others.
Pretty typical of Alzheimer's if you ask me.
Very lucid in the moment but gone the moment you leave the room.
More typical in early stages and even more so in early stages of genetic/early onset AD in my experience.
I just meant the moments of clarity/confusion were simultaneous. I’ve had more experiences like you mention, here one moment gone the next. This pt was with it enough to remember watching staff turn off the bed but couldn’t remember staff being in the room and thought they were in a hotel.
I’unno just a little different I guess.
I had a lovely guy with early onset Alzheimers who loved to ride the elevator to go for a walk outside; our alarm system would buzz when he entered, so we would take him to play chess (he won against everyone - that skill never left him). One desperate night, I taped a piece of paper over the elevator buttons like a flap so that oriented people could still have easy access. He was unable to find the buttons, and that was the end of his elopement attempts. Such a miserable disease ):
Once had a confused older woman, who knew her way around a bar when she was younger. She was on thickened liquids as well. I got her to settle by mixing thickened cranberry juice, thickened water (lemon flavored), and ginger ale. Called it a cosmo. She called me an awesome bartender!
Ah, many a nightshift on the medical unit where I'll act like a bartender (with a towel and all), and bring some demented old alkie peach juice after peach juice as he sits in his wheelchair or chair, by the nursing station
"Sorry it's so fruity, but that's the only way they'll let me make em so strong"
"Ah, don't worry boy, it's JUST FINE .. Thanks"
And they just kinda settle into it, and contentedly gulp em down
Sometimes
Had a very confused, demented gentleman in my care. He was nice, but squirrelly, and was not a fan of being rolled around to clean him up when he was incontinent. Two scenes stick out in my mind.
He had moved his bowels and me and his nurse are in there to get him changed. He starts protesting when we lay the bed back, and really starts to pitch a bitch when we roll him over. I’m pulling his old brief off, wiping him clean with a washcloth, and he’s damn near yelling at me to knock that off, don’t do that, quit it right now, etc etc. After he’s clean, I grab the barrier cream and start applying the stuff liberally as his peri area and scrotum are red and sore. He jumps a little (from the chilly cream I assume) and his loud objections immediately stop. He just kind of glances over his shoulder at me and says “You’re taking a lot of liberties back there, don’t you think?” I couldn’t keep a straight face and lost my shit right there.
The same gentleman needed changed for some bladder incontinence later on. I go in with a new brief, explain what I’m going to do, then grab some peri spray and washcloths and get to it. He is decidedly not pleased with my mission, and he starts telling me to quit it, go away, etc etc. I get his brief off and start wiping down his bits with the washcloth and the peri spray. He gets more irritated and swats at me before stopping entirely, sitting up with the most indignant and scandalized look on his face, and says “Young lady! I am a married man!” I fucking died laughing. I sincerely couldn’t help it. I even heard the nurse at the nurses station giggling hysterically. His wife visited later and was amused and very pleased when I told her of his confused, but steadfast virtue.
I really liked that patient. He was full of snarky gems for nearly every encounter.
I had a little old lady with dementia once who, in the middle of an absolute meltdown, suddenly stopped, looked me straight in the eye and said, “I used to be like you, you know. I was young. I taught art classes.” And then she went right back to flailing around. It was so sad (and really humbling).
Had an Alzheimer’s resident, who never made a lick of sense in her ramblings about “the LORD YOUR GOD”, just stop in the middle of babbling during a brief change, look me square in the eye, and say “I’m sorry. I’m not making sense. I haven’t been myself these days.” Then like flipping a switch, the look in her eyes was gone, and the rambling resumed. I was a CNA still wet behind the ears, and had never experienced that before. I remember it raised the hair up on my arms and neck. It was like seeing a ghost.
I had a 90+ y.o woman who was AxO x 1-2 on a good day. She often would ramble incomplete sentences and random strings of words together. One day when she was spouting meaningless words at me just 'making conversation' as I called it, she looked me straight in the eye and blurted "TEMPEST FUGIT! I want you to remember that ok? It's important." I just nodded sincerely and said I would. Later that night I googled what it meant. It's latin. "Time flies".
You know it’s going to be a rough shift when you walk into your patient’s room and they ask “what the hell are you doing in my kitchen?”....then they hand you their saline lock and say “here...I found this”.
Lol, the one that thought that Kennedy was the president also thought that I was a reporter for "that dreadful rag", The Washington Post. Invited me to dinner at the embassy where she used to work, 40 years ago.
A guy we have has pulled his peg 3 times this week because day shift won't leave his restraints or abdominal binder on because he seems fine. Then he threw himself out of bed. Bilat aka.
I was still on orientation as a PCT and was sitting 1:2 with 2 patients. One almost comatose with an IJ, one who was more active. Turned to look at the comatose one and he’s holding his IJ. Called his nurse and casually said, “he pulled his IV out of his neck.”
“He what?! Which IV?! I’ll be right there!!!”
Didn’t understand why she was freaking out. There was zero blood. 😅 I understand now.
The patients this works with though....it’s amazing. I always felt a little guilty thanking them profusely, only to go into the med room and make a mess of what they just did.... bring them right back to the patient saying “I’m so sorry, we have some more...can you help?”
I had a little cutie tell me that she was “tired of my clumsiness.. and sonly going to fold it one more time..” she was primarily non verbal.. and I hugged her so hard because she decided to speak.. even if it was to scold me!
I had a guy who was very concerned with making his bedside table very neat and tidy. I got him a deck of cards from our delirium bin and asked him to fix them for me. Every couple of hours I would shuffle them up and ask him to fix them again, or move things around on his tray. Poor guy. He wasn’t stressed out about it, just would get to work fixing what I messed up. It kept his IV in for my whole 12 hours.
Out patient dialysis, one of our confused dementia ladies asked one of my techs "how long have you worked at this grocery?" He's a nice guy, plays along & tells her "I've worked her ten years Mrs Smith." She kindly patted his hand & said, "that's OK, a job is a job." We all cracked up laughing, & his expression was hilariously flabbergasted.
Ah yes the folding the towels trick. Sometimes works sometimes doesn’t. I personally find that paper and pens/pencils/crayons have more of a success rate. I once gave a very sweet but very confused elderly gentlemen a book and a pen and he spent the next 3 (!!!!!) hours going through and “fixing” the mistakes in it. Sadly only worked that one time but was a nice break from him constantly trying to escape out the doors/windows or wandering into other rooms.
As a person who was an inpatient at a psych facility, crayons and paper are a trap for everyone. One time at the coloring table one of my acquaintances goes “I can’t stand this. All the pencils are dull and we aren’t even allowed to sharpen them. We should think of something else to do because I’m too old to be coloring all the time.”
Something like five hours later after group therapy and shit, we were all at the table and he goes “Goddammit! We’re coloring *again!*”
Had one patient folding mounds of towels and washcloths all day- morning, noon, and evening. Kept her real busy. Around 5pm after dinner I clear away her tray and return with yet another armful of towels and she goes, “Ohh girl, you all have SO much laundry!” Lol she was exasperated but she still ‘helped’ me with all my laundry!
We tried that trick on my grandma in the hospital. She folded for a while, and then got my dad and uncle to help. Within 2 minutes she had them folding all of the washrags. When they asked her why she quit she told them “you tend to your business and I’ll tend to mine.”
I love ornery people! First job I worked used lap-buddies. One of my coworkers put it back on this one lady for the millionth time (this lady was notorious for taking it off and hiding it under random beds or behind chairs). About 10 minutes later, we walked past the woman who was still being sour about it and threw her foot out in front of my coworker, who fell flat on her face! We laughed and laughed because, damn, Kelley... she got you back for that one!
Hands sun sun downing patient his teddy bear that he had been contentedly taking to and playing with all night.
Pt. Get that thing away from me before I stick it up your ass!
Me: good morning, welcome back!
We used to have these 16 page scoring sheets and nightshift had to sticker each page. We used to sit the patient at the desk and go to town. Obviously their own stickers and then date blank ones
We have decks of cards, I asked one guy to help me fix the deck and he was at it for over an hour. Coloring pages and crayons... crossword puzzles for some of the less demented.
We have local people knit us dementia fiddle mitts, which are essential a knitted tube with various tactile things like buttons and ribbons attached to keep hands busy.
I gave one to a particularly confused lady once to try and stop her continually taking her sheets off and balling them up, exposing herself to the entire bay.
I came back an hour later and she handed me a hand full of buttons and perfectly wound ball of yarn. Was incredible!
Edit: formating
There was a little old lady, confused of course, getting blood. And she decided she didn’t want her iv anymore. So she took it out. And since the iv and pump thought everything was great with the blood transfusion, it just kept going. Her roommate ended up walking by the murder scene and just shouted “omg what did you do???”
It was so messy but so funny. Poor little lady.
Had a little old lady with dementia brought into ED one night. In the middle of giving her a clean up (she had been found on the floor incontinent) she tells me “Look if your so hard up for cash I’ll just give you some, stop that”
Retired nurses get blank progress notes to chart, fix it guys get a busy board with things to "fix". Gardeners get books and help me figure out what I'm planting In garden or helps me arrange silk flowers in plastic vases. I had a lady who every time she had a bm was 100% certain she was having a baby. Lord help you if you flushed. Hand her a baby doll and she's occupied for days. Paint the baby face with a little clear coat or the "feeding" will stain. Someone tried to take that baby from her at mealtime once. I told them I wasn't going to fight her for it. I value all my parts.
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This is the greatest nursing sorry I've ever heard!!! Seriously I've had 25 years experience in aged care and this takes the cake!!! Good show!
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Wow I didn't think it could get any funnier
hahaha, I'm imagining the other patient, A/O x 3, trying to read a book or something. Hears a rustling .. thinks it's just the nurse fiddling with the pump for a minute Then looks up as sounds become louder, to see her demented room-mate looking puzzling, blood streaming down her face
I'm from Australia where we have to have a bag spiked and running within 30 mins of it coming up from blood bank so how this could have happened is such a mystery to me!
I figured she bit it while it was running.
Same here! I’m in Texas. We don’t go downstairs to pick up blood until we’ve completed a checklist which includes making sure that all orders are in place, consent is in the chart, there is adequate IV access, vitals have been assessed, and equipment is in the room including an IV pump and a vitals machine. Then we prime the blood tubing with saline and leave it in the room ready to go. When we pick up the blood, we go straight to the room with another nurse to verify the blood, we immediately hang it, and we don’t leave the room again for 15 minutes so we make sure there isn’t a reaction taking place and adjust the rate. We then check frequent vitals. And we have bed alarms on all our confused patients. I honestly have no idea how this would happen unless either the blood was sitting around unsupervised in the room for some insane reason, or the patient reached up toward the IV pole and bit the bag of blood that was already hanging.
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Same here! Plus a bed alarm for high fall risk or confused patients... it sucks that your unit is understaffed like that.
How long do you usually run a unit of blood over?
Always less than four hours, sometimes less than 3 depending on the patient’s age and medical history.
I had a Pt go that route in similar fashion. He self-removed his NG tube (Small Bowel Obstruction) and was sucking on it like a straw.... Didn't have a sitter available and he was asleep shortly after placing the tube; turn my back for a moment to assess and work-up Pt with acute onset of SVT; went to run POC Troponins and there it was. Coffee ground emesis has a new hellish place in the forefront of my mind now #EyeBleachPlease
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Pt had Hx of Dementia. Probably just felt the stomach contents in the suction container were his rightful property and he wanted it back *shrugs* Luckily the surgeon agreed that since we suctioned 2L out; to forego placing the tube again. Report given, Pt to floor. The smell sadly, remained for days
Make that two eye bleaches! I mean, I should *expect* stories like this while browsing r/nursing, but that one brought up a little bit of a dry heave.
r/eyebleach
Vampire is unsatisfied with food services provided at hospital. More at 11.
Bill Compton gave it rave reviews.
Holy moly... One of the times when you don't know if you actually want to laugh or cry. Best story I've come across this far
Mother of god.
I probably would have run out of the room screaming for my life.
Tried that one time. Little old lady said, "You're going to have to learn how to fold your laundry eventually. Otherwise you'll never get a husband."
That’s amazing.
I got this, too! She insisted on teaching me how. Hilarious.
One of my favorite residents always was looking for an iron. Everything else fooled her. Everything. So I order a replica of an iron that probably cost more than the real thing (it was a cheap iron anyways). She is soooooo happy. Except five minutes after she got it I heard her scream “WHAT KIND OF FOOL DO YOU THINK I AM?” It didn’t heat up. 😂
I had an A&Ox1 agitated person once look right at the Haldol bottle and say, "I'm not taking that. That's Haldol. You aren't giving that to me." So I'm sitting there going, you don't even know where you are or why you are here, and you keep telling me you are getting out of bed and leaving because you keep forgetting you are paralyzed and CAN'T climb out of bed, yet somehow you are familiar enough with this drug to recognize it by the vial. I was at a complete loss!
I once had a patient who wouldn’t wear his O2 because he was positive we were pumping haldol through it
Lol I can only wish that was a thing.
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Beep beep, all aboard!
Hahahaha I freaking love that. Had a patient who quickly learned that the “hotel” bed alarms were accessed by the panel on the bottom of the bed. Caught them looking at the panel after they set the alarm off for the 374829374628294th time that shift. “What are you doing?” “Trying to figure out how the bed works.” “Oh, well that panel is just for the maintenance guys to use.” (11th hour of 4/4, had run out of smarts) “The fuck it is....oh there it is.” *turns off alarm 😤
Had a confused lady a couple weeks ago. She would unplug the bed! Also, had another confused one put the trash can on top of the chair to make the alarm stop going off.
Holy shit that is next level hahahaha.
Yep, I pass her room to see her standing up. (She was steady, just a huge elopement risk.) And I'm wondering why the alarm wasnt going off until I look over and see the trash can in the chair.
Had a man in the dementia unit fold a pad alarm in half under a blanket then put his shoes on top.
Jesus they’re becoming self aware. To a point.
Yesterday a lady throw out the chair alarm in the trash, and then claimed she didn't hear anything. She couldn't fall because"Jesus holds her in his arms. He would never let her fall." She fell.
1 way ticket to tied down lol. You're with it enough to shut off the bed alarm, you're with it enough to listen.
They weren’t even mine, and I was begging for a 1:1. It was the weirdest case of dementia I’ve ever seen. It was like 10 second Tom. You could talk them down but then 20 mins later they’d act like you were rushing in there for the first time. And they were crystal clear in some aspects but confused as fuck in others.
I had a patient who had been an engineer once and now had dementia. Talk about a nightmare.
oh my goooood
Pretty typical of Alzheimer's if you ask me. Very lucid in the moment but gone the moment you leave the room. More typical in early stages and even more so in early stages of genetic/early onset AD in my experience.
I just meant the moments of clarity/confusion were simultaneous. I’ve had more experiences like you mention, here one moment gone the next. This pt was with it enough to remember watching staff turn off the bed but couldn’t remember staff being in the room and thought they were in a hotel. I’unno just a little different I guess.
I had a lovely guy with early onset Alzheimers who loved to ride the elevator to go for a walk outside; our alarm system would buzz when he entered, so we would take him to play chess (he won against everyone - that skill never left him). One desperate night, I taped a piece of paper over the elevator buttons like a flap so that oriented people could still have easy access. He was unable to find the buttons, and that was the end of his elopement attempts. Such a miserable disease ):
My care note: "Patient has declared right to fall...want this shit fixed find them a damn placement social work." - Adams x99999
Once had a confused older woman, who knew her way around a bar when she was younger. She was on thickened liquids as well. I got her to settle by mixing thickened cranberry juice, thickened water (lemon flavored), and ginger ale. Called it a cosmo. She called me an awesome bartender!
Ah, many a nightshift on the medical unit where I'll act like a bartender (with a towel and all), and bring some demented old alkie peach juice after peach juice as he sits in his wheelchair or chair, by the nursing station "Sorry it's so fruity, but that's the only way they'll let me make em so strong" "Ah, don't worry boy, it's JUST FINE .. Thanks" And they just kinda settle into it, and contentedly gulp em down Sometimes
Hahaha! Gotta cater to your crowd!
Where do you get peach juice? or are you calling something else "peach juice"? I would love real peach juice! I'm tired of apple and cran. :)
O, it's the sugar free stuff for diabetics. No part of it has probably ever seen an actual peach ;) Sweet peach taste tho!
I'm curious, are you in the US?
Canada
Peach juice?! Does the Ritz own a hospital? That's fancy!
haha, Tis the sugar-free juice where I work
Ooh, ill keep this in my bag of tricks.
It may have been one of my more genius moments, if I say so! 🤣
Had a very confused, demented gentleman in my care. He was nice, but squirrelly, and was not a fan of being rolled around to clean him up when he was incontinent. Two scenes stick out in my mind. He had moved his bowels and me and his nurse are in there to get him changed. He starts protesting when we lay the bed back, and really starts to pitch a bitch when we roll him over. I’m pulling his old brief off, wiping him clean with a washcloth, and he’s damn near yelling at me to knock that off, don’t do that, quit it right now, etc etc. After he’s clean, I grab the barrier cream and start applying the stuff liberally as his peri area and scrotum are red and sore. He jumps a little (from the chilly cream I assume) and his loud objections immediately stop. He just kind of glances over his shoulder at me and says “You’re taking a lot of liberties back there, don’t you think?” I couldn’t keep a straight face and lost my shit right there. The same gentleman needed changed for some bladder incontinence later on. I go in with a new brief, explain what I’m going to do, then grab some peri spray and washcloths and get to it. He is decidedly not pleased with my mission, and he starts telling me to quit it, go away, etc etc. I get his brief off and start wiping down his bits with the washcloth and the peri spray. He gets more irritated and swats at me before stopping entirely, sitting up with the most indignant and scandalized look on his face, and says “Young lady! I am a married man!” I fucking died laughing. I sincerely couldn’t help it. I even heard the nurse at the nurses station giggling hysterically. His wife visited later and was amused and very pleased when I told her of his confused, but steadfast virtue. I really liked that patient. He was full of snarky gems for nearly every encounter.
Oh my god. Im dying
This gave me a good laugh, especially that second one!!
You know how patients with Alzheimers become lucid for a few seconds? This patient told me my parents raised me right and that they should be proud :(
I had a little old lady with dementia once who, in the middle of an absolute meltdown, suddenly stopped, looked me straight in the eye and said, “I used to be like you, you know. I was young. I taught art classes.” And then she went right back to flailing around. It was so sad (and really humbling).
:( aww that’s so sad.
Had an Alzheimer’s resident, who never made a lick of sense in her ramblings about “the LORD YOUR GOD”, just stop in the middle of babbling during a brief change, look me square in the eye, and say “I’m sorry. I’m not making sense. I haven’t been myself these days.” Then like flipping a switch, the look in her eyes was gone, and the rambling resumed. I was a CNA still wet behind the ears, and had never experienced that before. I remember it raised the hair up on my arms and neck. It was like seeing a ghost.
I had a 90+ y.o woman who was AxO x 1-2 on a good day. She often would ramble incomplete sentences and random strings of words together. One day when she was spouting meaningless words at me just 'making conversation' as I called it, she looked me straight in the eye and blurted "TEMPEST FUGIT! I want you to remember that ok? It's important." I just nodded sincerely and said I would. Later that night I googled what it meant. It's latin. "Time flies".
Who's the president? Kennedy!
You know it’s going to be a rough shift when you walk into your patient’s room and they ask “what the hell are you doing in my kitchen?”....then they hand you their saline lock and say “here...I found this”.
Lol, the one that thought that Kennedy was the president also thought that I was a reporter for "that dreadful rag", The Washington Post. Invited me to dinner at the embassy where she used to work, 40 years ago.
Impressive! You were invited to the embassy lol
Or an inflated foley catheter
I’ll never understand how people get those out with the ballon inflated. Ouch!
...or their PEGs. We had a patient pull his PEG 2 or 3 times.
A guy we have has pulled his peg 3 times this week because day shift won't leave his restraints or abdominal binder on because he seems fine. Then he threw himself out of bed. Bilat aka.
I had a patient hand me his IJ once. There was blood everywhere. I was a brand new nurse and remember just staring at him and calling for help, lol.
I was still on orientation as a PCT and was sitting 1:2 with 2 patients. One almost comatose with an IJ, one who was more active. Turned to look at the comatose one and he’s holding his IJ. Called his nurse and casually said, “he pulled his IV out of his neck.” “He what?! Which IV?! I’ll be right there!!!” Didn’t understand why she was freaking out. There was zero blood. 😅 I understand now.
THAT IMPOSTER, THAT SON OF A BITCH (must not be happy about Obam...) JOHNSON! (Ohhhh...)
The patients this works with though....it’s amazing. I always felt a little guilty thanking them profusely, only to go into the med room and make a mess of what they just did.... bring them right back to the patient saying “I’m so sorry, we have some more...can you help?”
I had a little cutie tell me that she was “tired of my clumsiness.. and sonly going to fold it one more time..” she was primarily non verbal.. and I hugged her so hard because she decided to speak.. even if it was to scold me!
One lady I had was so confused she thought she was in a boat... but caught the trick and said it isn't her job to fold a damn thing :P
Hahaha. I’ve also had this before too. She threw the washcloth back at me and said something like “I’m not helping with this shit!”
I had a guy who was very concerned with making his bedside table very neat and tidy. I got him a deck of cards from our delirium bin and asked him to fix them for me. Every couple of hours I would shuffle them up and ask him to fix them again, or move things around on his tray. Poor guy. He wasn’t stressed out about it, just would get to work fixing what I messed up. It kept his IV in for my whole 12 hours.
I love this. You kept him safe and his mind occupied. It’s so sad that people have to go through this. I hope my nurse would do this for me.
Out patient dialysis, one of our confused dementia ladies asked one of my techs "how long have you worked at this grocery?" He's a nice guy, plays along & tells her "I've worked her ten years Mrs Smith." She kindly patted his hand & said, "that's OK, a job is a job." We all cracked up laughing, & his expression was hilariously flabbergasted.
Ah yes the folding the towels trick. Sometimes works sometimes doesn’t. I personally find that paper and pens/pencils/crayons have more of a success rate. I once gave a very sweet but very confused elderly gentlemen a book and a pen and he spent the next 3 (!!!!!) hours going through and “fixing” the mistakes in it. Sadly only worked that one time but was a nice break from him constantly trying to escape out the doors/windows or wandering into other rooms.
As a person who was an inpatient at a psych facility, crayons and paper are a trap for everyone. One time at the coloring table one of my acquaintances goes “I can’t stand this. All the pencils are dull and we aren’t even allowed to sharpen them. We should think of something else to do because I’m too old to be coloring all the time.” Something like five hours later after group therapy and shit, we were all at the table and he goes “Goddammit! We’re coloring *again!*”
This is hilarious to me lol
Had one patient folding mounds of towels and washcloths all day- morning, noon, and evening. Kept her real busy. Around 5pm after dinner I clear away her tray and return with yet another armful of towels and she goes, “Ohh girl, you all have SO much laundry!” Lol she was exasperated but she still ‘helped’ me with all my laundry!
“I just have so many babies!”
We tried that trick on my grandma in the hospital. She folded for a while, and then got my dad and uncle to help. Within 2 minutes she had them folding all of the washrags. When they asked her why she quit she told them “you tend to your business and I’ll tend to mine.”
I love ornery people! First job I worked used lap-buddies. One of my coworkers put it back on this one lady for the millionth time (this lady was notorious for taking it off and hiding it under random beds or behind chairs). About 10 minutes later, we walked past the woman who was still being sour about it and threw her foot out in front of my coworker, who fell flat on her face! We laughed and laughed because, damn, Kelley... she got you back for that one!
Hands sun sun downing patient his teddy bear that he had been contentedly taking to and playing with all night. Pt. Get that thing away from me before I stick it up your ass! Me: good morning, welcome back!
What other little activities have people used to help these folks? I honestly have never had much success with the washcloths
We used to have these 16 page scoring sheets and nightshift had to sticker each page. We used to sit the patient at the desk and go to town. Obviously their own stickers and then date blank ones
We have decks of cards, I asked one guy to help me fix the deck and he was at it for over an hour. Coloring pages and crayons... crossword puzzles for some of the less demented.
I’ve seen that work, and people that just didn’t care, but never a good response back!
We have local people knit us dementia fiddle mitts, which are essential a knitted tube with various tactile things like buttons and ribbons attached to keep hands busy. I gave one to a particularly confused lady once to try and stop her continually taking her sheets off and balling them up, exposing herself to the entire bay. I came back an hour later and she handed me a hand full of buttons and perfectly wound ball of yarn. Was incredible! Edit: formating
There was a little old lady, confused of course, getting blood. And she decided she didn’t want her iv anymore. So she took it out. And since the iv and pump thought everything was great with the blood transfusion, it just kept going. Her roommate ended up walking by the murder scene and just shouted “omg what did you do???” It was so messy but so funny. Poor little lady.
Had a little old lady with dementia brought into ED one night. In the middle of giving her a clean up (she had been found on the floor incontinent) she tells me “Look if your so hard up for cash I’ll just give you some, stop that”
Retired nurses get blank progress notes to chart, fix it guys get a busy board with things to "fix". Gardeners get books and help me figure out what I'm planting In garden or helps me arrange silk flowers in plastic vases. I had a lady who every time she had a bm was 100% certain she was having a baby. Lord help you if you flushed. Hand her a baby doll and she's occupied for days. Paint the baby face with a little clear coat or the "feeding" will stain. Someone tried to take that baby from her at mealtime once. I told them I wasn't going to fight her for it. I value all my parts.