Geropsyche, anyone?

I work in a nursing home with a locked ward for the Alzheimer residents and generally demented and some psych patients who are above middle aged. When we can't cope with the violence or other horrible behavior [and believe me, we can deal with a lot!] we send them to a geropsyche ward at a local hospital. So I would think that it is basically receiving these out of control people and medicating them until they become more managable and can return to facilities like ours. I would not think anything like talk therapy would be useful IMHO. But I may be wrong, of course. I only see one side of it. If there is anything else to do I wish they would teach us about it.

I use to work in a geripsych unit many years ago. Most of them were very argumentative,angry and very confused. Sometimes, they would try to hit us and I was sure surprised at how strong some of them were. Good luck :)

Does anyone here work on a geropsyche unit? What is it like? I can remember working with the INCREDIBLY confused geriatric patients on our hospital's psyche unit (when it existed), and I really enjoyed those patients and was good with them. In general, what would it be like to work on a geropsyche unit of a large psychiatric hospital?

Thanks!

I've worked on an acute geropsych unit for the past 5 yrs and wouldn't do anything else. There are times when it can be trying and the other times you see patients get better so they can return home. Its not easy by any means. You have bipolar which are the worst. Especially if they cycle fast. Then you have the Alzheimer pt who still knows what's going on at times and your heart goes out to them and their families. Sometimes, I believe its the families that I don't like to deal with as much. you get a family that believes we can bring the patient back to before they were ill. They do not understand that we are here to control the behavior not cure the illness. Once that is done, we send them back to the NH or home with the family. Well, I got off on a tangent. I've been spit on, slapped, kicked, had a computer thrown at me, even an addressograph, which would have hurt if it hadn't been plugged in.

There are a lot of good times. You see a pt come in with multiple meds. undressing in the hall, yelling etc.. and we make them better. I've heard some funny stories, but to the patient that is hallucinating it is real. I bought a baby doll in for on of the patients and the next thing I know, she is lying in bed having the baby. You had to be there. Hope I've helped.