Patients who can do ADLs but want nurses to

[destova]

I've been coming across more and more patients that are perfectly capable of taking care of their personal needs, but simply don't want to.

Example: ringing the call light to ask for the box of tissues that is a whopping 4 feet away and they have no physical reason to inhibit their ability to reach or get up and get them.

Or the female pt that wants us to clean her after voiding yet she walked into the bathroom herself and did her makeup/ curled her hair that morning...

How do you get the message across that we are not the maids/ wait staff/ personal assistant without making pt feel bad or making them angry? It's so frustrating.

[calivianya, BSN, RN]

Just one of many reasons I will NOT work anything other than ICU ever again... I worked as a CNA on inpatient rehab and while most of those people legitimately couldn't do things themselves (strokes, high spinal cords, crazy fractures everywhere with pins that got in the way), there were always one or two who COULD but didn't want to. I can't stand people like that. I don't mind wiping someone who is sedated and on a ventilator, or even is totally paralyzed on his/her dominant side and can't even stand up without 2+ assist... I mind wiping someone who is perfectly capable of wiping themselves. I had a lady who could walk once but was too lazy to walk to the bathroom and just wanted to use a female urinal... but who made me hold it for her. Seriously?! I ended up doing it because it was too much of a hassle to change the whole bed when she'd flood it, which she would do because she absolutely refused to hold it herself. Funny enough, she could still hold a phone to her ear, change the channel on the TV, eat, etc.

[dudette10, MSN, RN]

The two most demanding patients with basic ADLs who absolutely refused to do anything--but who could dial their cell phones to their daughters complaining that no one did anything for them--also had psych consults. One was up in the chair for meals, almost had us both go down when she all of a sudden lost leg strength during transfer (hogwash, she did it on purpose), and once called me in to move her plate three inches closer to her. I refused, and it took her three tries to do so. She then spent the rest of the shift complaining to her do-nothing caregiver that all the nurses were lazy.

[smile_through_it]

I had an overweight pt who was a stand by assist and she insisted she needed 2 people to help get her out of the chair so she could go to the bathroom. I went to get the aid and she was shocked bc this patient was very capable of doing it alone. So I walked in and brought the lift and a bedside toilet. I explained that it was not safe for us to strain our backs to get her oob so we would use the lift and put her on the bedside toilet and lift her back to bed. She said shed try to get up first without help... needless to say she got out of the chair completely unassisted! She never tried to pull that one again!

[carolinapooh, BSN, RN]

We get a few like that now and then - just had one go home not too long ago. I don't stand for it if I know it's not pain or some other reason. I actually told a patient once that if we keep doing that sort of stuff she'd decondition to the point she'd have no choice but to rely on the good will of others to do everything for her, including change her diapers eventually - or she could even get sick enough that she'd NEVER get better (I'm an oncology RN). That she could, presumably, end up with a deadly infection from NOT doing anything.

I don't feed their manipulation tactics. I have other REALLY sick post transplant pts to care for.

She miraculously "recovered" overnight.