Isolating Demented Residents

[squeakykitty]

As harsh as it sounds, sometimes the rights of the many overrule the rights of the few...or one. If you have a 40 bed dementia unit and 1 resident is hollering at the top of his lungs, you certainly must consider the other 39 residents as well and bring the one person hollering to a quiet place. It may calm THEM down and will certainly decrease the anxiety caused to the many other residents. Being in a large group of people is NOT a normal activity for most people. If we are trying to make facilities as home like as possible, having large groups of people won't do it. No one ever said this was easy.

We had one who would yell, and she was routinely put in the lobby for lunch instead of the dining room because it was quieter there and it seemed to help. There was usually 3-4 to 5-6 other residents there eating lunch, so she wasn't really isolated. But if a resident was taken to an empty room and had the door closed on them, especially as a form of punishment, that would be abusive isolation. (I saw that on one of the orientation videos when I first started there).