Demanding Resident

Specialties Geriatric

Published

We've got a resident who constantly accuses us of not caring about her and not helping her enough with ADL's. She's frequently on the call light, sometimes before a CNA has even taken three steps down the hall. She is A&O x 2, and has trouble with depression, anxiety and paranoia.

Last week, she called her son and asked him to come put her to bed because "Nobody here is going to help me." She hadn't asked us for help. Her frequent complaints that we are cold, uncaring and unwilling to offer her enough are challenging to the CNAs, who are transfering to other halls, other employers, or even other careers. Last night, she was unhappy because there weren't two CNAs to help her. She wanted both of them, although she can independently use the bathroom, dress, and put herself to bed.

I know we are a good facility. We just can't satisfy this lady and her family. No matter what we do, it is not enough. She's insatiably needy.

Any suggestions about how to help a resident like this?

Well, I have to say that a resident like this one is a dime a dozen as they say. Every place I ever worked(I'm a CNA) has had the pain in the butt resident. If the resident could live on their own then they wouldnt be there in the facility and it boils down to put up with it or work somewhere else.

pumpkin92356

Good luck. I remember I had a lady like that at LTC. She also had a phone in her room. She was constantly calling on her call bell and calling the nurses station at the same time!!!!!!:angryfire :angryfire :angryfire It was awful. The doctor ordered sedatives to calm her down but she refused to take them. She finally died. Does your LTC have any volunteers who would be willing to sit with her sometimes? Perhaps a psych evaluation could be done?

This is a really big pet peeve of mine. Residents with phones in their room that call the nurses desk. For some reason it just rubs me the wrong way.

When this happens I tell the resident they need to use the call light and someone will assist them.

Specializes in Gerontology, Med surg, Home Health.
This is a really big pet peeve of mine. Residents with phones in their room that call the nurses desk. For some reason it just rubs me the wrong way.

When this happens I tell the resident they need to use the call light and someone will assist them.

I had a resident in one facility who had a phone in her room.Her name was Mabel. She usually would use the call bell if she wanted something.(she was from southern New Jersey and put on a fake southern as in Gone With the Wind accent!)

One day I was at the nurses' station and 4 of the tallest, most adorable fire fighters came onto my floor. They said they had received a 911 call from my floor...from a Mabel. I raced down the hallway and there was Mabel sitting calmly waiting. I asked her what was wrong and she said she had to go to the ladies' room so she called 'the boys'. I reminded her that we had CNAs to help her out or I could help her. She looked at me and in her fake southern accent said "Honey, y'all are very smart and nice too, but you're not 6'2" tall with blond hair and muscles." Apparently she had seen these same firefighters when they had answered a real rescue call at the facility. One of them tried to lecture her about the proper use of the EMS system, but she just smiled and batted her eyelashes.

You go, girl....86 years old and still flirting with the men.

Specializes in Geriatrics, Med-Surg..

That's a riot, CapeCodMermaid. What a woman! My friend worked at this nursing home and had a resident that was very demanding and was constantly calling the local board of nursing with all kinds of nuisance complaints, so the bon called the facility and asked the staff to somehow get the resident to cease and desist calling them.

yeah there's always 2 or 3 of the demanding ones on every wing.

The best are the confused LOLs who instead of calling the nurses desks, dial their daughter 2000 miles away when they run into trouble -- makes us look REAL competant

Specializes in Med/Surg, Geriatrics.

Difficult residents affect the whole facility. I agree with the documentation point. That is critical. I also feel a family conference is in order. One that includes the resident, the Doc (if possible), a floor nurse, Soc worker, Activities person, the family and the DON. Discussion needs to include possible private duty aides, companions or sitters to help with the residents' needs. Resident and family both need to be made aware that the residents' many calls and needs pull staff away from other responsibilities they have. Bring the chart with you and point out the times/episodes that have occurred. Ask the family to come in weekly (or more often) and take her/him out for a few hours. Ask them to bring in the residents' favorite pics/mementos, foods, etc. You need to get her involved with other stuff, take her for rides, wear her out wiith love! Encourage teamwork! (lol)

Specializes in LTC.

bshaw,

great answer!! i have a resident who could be this person's twin. all she wants is a little attention and for someone to listen to her woes every once in a while. how do i know this?? cos everyone else complains about her, ringing the call bell, saying no one takes care of her etc. yes, we are all very busy, but please just take a few minutes to listen, it makes all the difference in the world to your resident. how do i know this? because i do take the time to listen (even if it means getting a little behind) and i personally don't have the problems that the "others" seem to have with call bell etc. thanks bshaw for a great post.

Oh how familiar all of this sounds. From my experience, the family members are usually more difficult to deal with than the residents, although there are plenty of residents that are A/O, and like to put their families on a guilt trip.

There are residents that think we are servants or housekeepers..."put this tape in my vcr"... "heat this food my family brought me". AGAIN, "hand me my milk out of my fridge" (beside her bed).

One issue I've seen in several facilities is directly related to admissions. They neglect to tell prospective admits and their families, that LTC/Rehab is NOT like the hospital. Our CNA's have 30 plus residents to care for, toilet, change, feed, bathe, put to bed, take V/S,and do their charting. Same for the nurses. They just can't seem to understand "why" we can't get there sooner, or "why" we can't talk to family members while doing a med pass, or "why" no one answered the phone (we have no ward clerk or receptionist on 3-11). If we're down the hall, we can't continually run to the desk to answer a phonecall.

Residents will call their families, the family calls us, reports us to administration. Document every time the call light came on, and what they wanted. Once this can be shown to the families, they have to accept that we DO our job, and do it well considering we are always short staffed.

Constant complaining by family members, yet not removing them from the facility, only goes to show that they are receiving the proper care. Documention will save you... even if you have to stay over to do the paperwork..it's worth it.

Specializes in Gerontology, Med surg, Home Health.

Don't you just love those admission coordinators who tell prospective residents and their families that it's just like being at the hospital or I had one who told the family than if their mom needed a lot of care, we would hire extra help. Where do they get off saying these things? They set the nursing staff up for failure.

I'm all for being polite but these residents and their families need to know that we are health care providers...not waitstaff not personal attendants. It is a MEDICAL facility...not the spa. They wouldn't dream of treating the hospital staff that way so why are they so free to treat us like we are their servants???

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