What do you do with them?
We have one patient at my LTC who has a family member there 24-7... they come in shifts. They are ANXIOUS. They call each other constantly with "updates" like "Sarah just ate 3 bites of yogurt!" or "Sarah's temperature is 99.5!!!! I think you need to come down here!!!!"
They want care provided by 2 CNAs (whether or not 2 are needed for the task at hand) at very precise times. If you're 5 minutes late they practically have an aneurysm- they're never hostile but they'll put on the call light and hover in the hallway and flag down anyone who walks by. This is after supper when call lights are going off like crazy and people on alarms are jumping and there are only 2 CNAs on the floor. They seem to think if she doesn't get put to bed RIGHT NOW then something terrible is going to happen to her. They take everything way too literally- like I'm sure when they first came here that someone explained to them why we were repositioning her, so now as a result they think that if we're 10 minutes late turning her that she's going to have a stage 4 decub by the end of the night.
They used to leave the room during care but lately they've been staying in there to hover. It makes things really awkward because the visitor on our shift alternates between jumping up gasping over the slightest little things and cooing from across the room at her family member and saying "I'm HERE, Sarah." Tonight she was hyperventilating over the hoyer lift and how she doesn't trust it. It's a machine specifically designed for the purpose of moving people! Physical therapy would not have care planned it if it wasn't safe!
They are driving me CRAZY! I wish someone would give them a Xanax or 3.