Elders Say the Darnedest Things!

As anyone who's ever worked with the elderly knows, every care facility has its "characters": the curmudgeon, the hothouse flower, the Church Lady. And the best-kept secret in the business is the hilarity that ensues whenever one of these folks offers his or her commentaries on everyday events. Nurses Announcements Archive Article

You are reading page 8 of Elders Say the Darnedest Things!

nrsang97, BSN, RN

2,602 Posts

Specializes in Neuro ICU and Med Surg.

My grandma has Alzheimer's and said to my mom and dad one day in the car "You see that tree right there? It is dead and doesn't know it yet."

She told the ER doc one night my mom, my aunt and I were triplets.

She said Golytely would have been better with vodka in it. (She never has drank at all)

She said that women take off their bras at hockey games and swing them in the air when the home team scores.

She asks me if I have to go to work every day, and what shift I am working. The other night she asked me if I was going to pass dinner trays and I work midnights.

Grandma has asked me who my parents were one night. She thought I was someone else. No idea who, but she was supposedly my aunt.

bethann2727

11 Posts

Had a 95 year old or who would slip in and out of orientation....He was asking when his parents would be there to pick him up one afternoon. Knowing he might be able to work his way back with a few questions I asked his age and got the correct answer...then I asked how old his parents are....that got a string of profanity towards me for being crazy enough to think his parents are still alive!

After that he had a nice conversation about an upcoming football game .... gotta love it when it works!

I worked in LTC for almost 10 years, I work in a doctors office and finding it's really not my cup of tea. I miss my geriatric patients :(

Scruffles

1 Post

SO many stories!

We loved Johnny. He was an old farmer who was thoroughly demented. He would wheel around slowly being busy. When asked what he was doing he'd tell you that he was doing some sort of farm work. "Cleaning the ditches". "Bringing in the hay". "Planting the wheat", "Fixing the truck."

One day he had taken hold of another resident's walker. I gently backed him away as the gal growled at him in anger, pulling it back. "What is going on, Johnny?" I asked.

"Well, I was loading up the sheep, but I guess that one is hers!" was his innocent reply!

TheGooch

775 Posts

One of my teachers told me this one, and it makes me giggle to this day. They had a little fella in their LTC who was sure he was still back on the farm, and would completely unravel if someone didn't "get the cows in" around sundown, and would try to go get the cows in, despite not being able to walk, not being on a farm, etc. So, everyday, someone would go out one door when he started worrying about the cows, saying, "don't worry, I'll go get them in for the night." And they had to go out one door and come in another for this to work.

Well, they had a two new nurses one night, and one tried to "reorient" the poor guy, and upset him to no end. So, the other new nurse, who was rapidly clued in as to what needed to be done, said, "don't worry, I'll go get them in" and takes off out the door. The guy sits there in his wheelchair, cussing "that fool woman, don't know them cows'll git into mischief if they're out all night..." So the second nurse comes back in, breathless from running from one door to the other, and said, "Okay, Mr. Smith, there's a bunch of gurnseys in the barn."

The guy went completely nuts and started screaming, "You fool, we ain't got gurnseys, you stole somebody's else's cows!" and nothing would calm him. Each nurse, aide and janitor in the place went out in turn, guessing red cows, black cows, spotted cows, and never getting it right, and the poor resident's getting more and more upset. Finally, the charge nurse came on the scene, and said, "Mr. Smith, you stop messing with these girls, you know I get your cows in every night, and they're all just fine." For some reason, that worked, and he settled down, until he looked at the first nurse and said, "How many cows are out there?"

My teacher said the poor thing looked like she was going to cry. Welcome to the world of dementia....the charge nurse said, "all of them" and a second crisis was stopped in its tracts.

I've always remembered that with dementia patients -- if you've got to tell them something, keep the story the same, AND DON'T ADD TO IT.

LOL-what a hilarious story. Yes dementia patients can be interesting,

CrazyGoonRN

426 Posts

When my grandmother was in a LTC she tried to convince one of the nurses to kill her husband's mistress (he had been dead for over 20 years). She told the nurse that he was down in florida running around with a woman. She offered to pay her good money to do it and she was serious. She had dementia and was always doing something like that. :uhoh3:

For several months after she first arrived in the nursing home she would roll up to the nurses station and try to convince them to let her go home because she needed to feed her hogs and cows. She thought she was being sneeky and that they would be convinced, lol!

My grandmother was very country and any word that ended in an "a" she pronounced the "a" as an "er". One day, I was walking down the hall next to her and she suddenly stopped and proclamed, "You know what I need? A Fleet's Enemer." She was obsessed with her bowel's. :eek:

There were also multiple times that she would call me (sometimes 30+ times a day) from her cell phone and tell me that she was sitting behind the post office without her car and she needed someone to come pick her up and take her home. I'm not sure what it was about the post office but she was stuck on that story.

Another time I walked in her room and she was going through her dresser drawers. When she noticed I was there she called me by my cousins name and started asking me what truck my daddy would be driving when he came to pick her up (he had been dead for over a year). I stayed for about an hour visiting with her and the entire time she thought I was my cousin.

All the above happened before I was a nurse and helped prepare me for becomming a LTC nurse.

As a nurse, one night I had forgot to remove a Lidoderm patch from a residents knee. I thought I could slip in her room and take it off her knee while she slept. As soon as I removed it she looked at me and started talking.

Our conversation went something like this:

Her: "Do you wear Kotex?"

Me: "Why yes I do"

Her: "Well I don't think we should have to pay for them"

Me: "I don't either"

Her: "Does your husband know about it?"

Me: "Yes he does" (I wasn't married)

Her: "What does he think?"

Me: "Well, he dosn't think we should have to pay for them either. "

Her: "It's not right"

Me: "No, its not"

:D

That is one of the conversations that really stands out during my 3 years in LTC :)

SubSippi

909 Posts

We had an elderly patient for several days, who was drowsy, unresponsive, and didn't move a muscle on his own. No words, sounds, or movements for days. Suddenly, I see him sitting on the side of the bed, trying to stand himself up. I ask him where he's going...his response:

"I GOTTA GO MAKE MONEY!!!"

(at the TOP of his lungs)

...Clearly, he had started feeling a little better.

An older guy I worked with once told me "you know you're getting old when you and your teeth don't sleep in the same room anymore!" Also, "you know you're getting old when you step off the sidewalk and have to look behind you to make sure it's still there!"

Ruth Cruse

2 Posts

I had a patient who was hard of hearing and used one of the store bought amplifiers with a dial control on it . He would sit in the lobby all day and say hello to everyone who passed -every single time- a hundred times a day. Once I was passing him to relay some information to a nurse who was a few feet away from him. He held up a finger and raised his eyebrows to indicate he wanted to speak to me. I held up a finger and mouthed "just a minute." Spoke briefly to the nurse-turned around and said "what can I do for you, Mr. B?". He reached to his shirt pocket-turned the dial up on his amplifier and asked "Can you hear me now?" I burst out laughing-couldn't help it.