zingyrocks

We all know a full moon deserves prayers and sympathies for those on the night shift! lol

I really enjoyed working in acute nursing but was getting caught up in too much 'he did that, she did that". I was fretting about my registration purely because I didn't have the resources to give the standard of care I wanted to. So I left that area and now work in a different area of nursing and haven't looked back. Its a shame but you have to decide what you want to be a part of when the s**t is hitting the fan and they're looking for an escape goat!

Dementia nursing is full of a lot of grey areas, I used to work in a specialist unit that cared for those with neuro-cognitive disorders and I can fully understand the frustrations you have (esp. when families say "can't you just":nono:). Dementia nursing is that area that isn't classed as mental health but you have most of the signs and symptoms that require some mental health support in order to protect both staff and patients. Where I used to work we used to have booklets called "All about me" from the Alzheimer's charity, something that would be filled out by friends or family so that we could learn more about the patient, what type of person they were... and could give us clues into what made them behave in certain manners (we used to have a patient who used to shuffle his hands every day at 5.30... turned out he used to work in a shop and 5.30 was when he used to count the days takings).With the medications, you can't force them to take them, but you can ask a mental health nurse practitioner to sign the paperwork for covert administration if it is deemed in their best interests (This was a god send and made things a lot easier). As for basic care provision you have to assess what is in the best interests of the patient and also what is safest for you (I personally almost lost teeth for trying to dress a skin tear wound, it wasn't worth it.) and clearly document your actions and attempts, pressure sores in some cases are unavoidable, due to nutrition, age, deterioration in health, so long as you have documented that you have done your best for this patient, thats all you can do.... you can't be accountable. Keep up the good care attitude, dementia nursing is so difficult! and I really respect anyone doing it