Advice re. Demanding Resident

[Nurse Ratched, RN]

I wanted to let you know I followed your advice and set 1-hr. limits. It has helped a lot. Thanks so much for your replies.

Good for you, Mary :). It's a difficult thing when your co-workers are telling you to "just ignore" someone - yours is a much more practical solution. You have a good heart. Setting limits is a skill that will never go out of style in nursing .

[nycegyrl]

Oh I remember a lady like that. She was a pill. I am not sitting right. Move me here and move me there. Put me on the toilet take me off the toilet. My dress is bunched up. My socks are not in the right place. Ring the call bell to tell you she can't reach the call bell. My hair, my teeth, my socks, my dress. On and on every single day on every shift. It would wear you out. Her family had tolerated her behavior all their life. I don't know how. It was like she was spoiled. Like a little spoiled kid. The nursing home administrator as well as the nursing administrator had to a stop to it. They both sat down and talked with her after talking to her family. She would be adjusted one time. We would come in and redo what she needed one time so she needed to make sure it was what she wanted. After that she would have to wait awhile. But she got onto that. When someone different would walk past her room she would call them in. Whether it be housekeeping or Social Services or Activity director. LOL she was good. But it didn't matter to me as long as someone was pacifying her. I would walk past and see someone, even her roommate, bent over adjusting her socks to the right height on her ankle and I would have to chuckle. She never gave up. It got better. But she never gave up. It is like she would focus on something and obsess about it. And you have to take her seriously at times because she may really have to go to the bathroom again in 10 minutes. I know it must have been uncomfortable for her to be wheel chair bound with arthritic legs that were bunched up and having to wear a leg brace. Not being able to take herself to the bathroom. She didn't even want to roll herself to the dining room. But we would have to encourage her to do so. Good luck with your resident. I never thought it might be a mental problem. It gives me something to think about the next time I encounter someone like her.