Not what SHOULD you do, but what would you honestly do in this situation:
You work in a nursing home. You have an awesome hall partner (Jessica)who loves taking care of her residents and seems to really care about them...
One of her residents (Mary) has dementia and her family request her teeth be brushed 2x daily. Your hall partner(Jessica) asks you to help because she's a "fighter". The resident "Mary" refuses to have her teeth brushed as soon as she sees the toothbrush. Jessica proceeds to push the toothbrush into her mouth and Mary begins slapping Jessica and swearing. Jessica still continues, and Mary continues to punch, slap, cry, swear, etc....Jessica turns to you and tells you to hold Mary's hands down so she can continue, you tell her it isn't worth it, let Mary be, Jessica calmly insists that it be done as family requests.....
Right then and there, in that moment, what do you do???
Specializes in Acute Rehab, Neuro/Trauma, Dialysis.
It is honestly hard to tell especially when I do not know the patient personally. I know that some things that help is having the patient do the care themselves. I am not saying hand them the tooth brush and expect them to do automatically. What I have done in the past is hand them the tooth brush and then get a tooth brush myself and ask them to mimic me.
If that is not doable then I would go to your shift supervisor and have them come in and see how the patient reacts to the tooth brushing care, if they do not have satisfactory advice then move higher, go to your DON and tell her of your concerns and desires to do the right thing by your patient.
Sparrow91
238 Posts
It is honestly hard to tell especially when I do not know the patient personally. I know that some things that help is having the patient do the care themselves. I am not saying hand them the tooth brush and expect them to do automatically. What I have done in the past is hand them the tooth brush and then get a tooth brush myself and ask them to mimic me.
If that is not doable then I would go to your shift supervisor and have them come in and see how the patient reacts to the tooth brushing care, if they do not have satisfactory advice then move higher, go to your DON and tell her of your concerns and desires to do the right thing by your patient.