"Lessons to learn"

Having been hospitalised twice in the last 6 weeks I think you need to do something about the care you give to people who are confused or with dementia.

The care I received was first class and any problems I had I was able to talk to the staff and resolve problems that I was having.

During my two visits I was able to witness the care confused people or dementia sufferers were given. This can be split into two categories.

1. The patient is unable to let the nurse know what they want, some examples I saw were,

a) The patient was asking to go upstairs and the nurses thought he was really confused and that he was in his own house. He became very agitated and in actual fact he was trying to tell them he wanted to go to the toilet.

b)The patient is in pain and was not able to tell the nurses. During a day shift the patient became very unsettled and was given a strong pain killer by injection. After the night shift came on he started to become unsettled again that by about 1 he was keeping everyone awake and it was suggested that he might need some pain relief. This was duly given and the ward settled.

2 Nurses not being able to handle people with dementia. In this I mean that many nurses will try to restrict the movement of a patient who becomes disturbed. I can understand why they do this to keep the patient safe. This was an almost daily occurrence. As I have experience of this I always found the best way was to distract them and leave for a few minutes. This could be simple operations as taking blood pressures.

My wife who had Alzhimers Had to go into hospital for some weeks. She had to go into a normal ward and I was disappointed by the care she got. As a result of this I met with the hospital management and they agreed to improve the training given to staff in the handling of patients with dementia.

thanks