To think this nurse didn’t do anything wrong?

[WeirdHandDryers]

Situation - nurse working night shift on hospital ward.
One elderly patient with dementia thinks she’s also a nurse and spends all night trying to see to the other patients. If staff try to get her into bed she becomes distressed. All night she’s wandering around the ward. All the staff at wits end with her.
So this one nurse gets a bag of dressings and tells the lady that she’s hurt herself. She then sits there writing her care plans with this elderly lady in the office whilst the lady ‘bandages’ various parts of her body (including her head!). The woman was occupied for hours and for the first time, all staff had a decent night, no chasing her around, no distressed old lady, no angry patients getting poked and prodded ...
did she do anything wrong? Someone has let it ‘leak’ to manager and she’s been told off. I thought it was a decent solution!? (No it wasn’t me).

So, she looked after a vulnerable patient in a way that meant the patient wasn't distressed AND everyone else was able to get more work done, plus she got her original work done and someone complained about that?

Who'd want to work in that place.

I still remember the nurses and care staff in my Nana's home who were her patients when she regressed. Their kindess made a hideous time so much easier.

My grandmothers care home once phoned my mum to apologise for giving my gm ‘cleaning duties’ (ie a duster). Gm kept trying to help tidy up, so they got her involved with keeping the area clean and wiping tables etc. Only my aunt (we are no contact) made a surprise visit and kicked off about it, getting the staff in trouble. The poor staff were only trying to do their best for gm and trying their best to keep a dementia ridden old lady occupied. Aunts reaction made me so cross.

We need more nurses like the one in the op and less people like my aunt in the world.

I am a nurse. think of it as an island and you try and bring the patient to your island. Except they won’t come to yours so you go to theirs. This is what that nurse did and she was right.

Just trying to deal with my lovely mum and dementia between hospital and care; hard as it is it's also about not allowing people to disturb every around them. We get so upset when mum is a source of distress to others. Understandably when she's happy and calm / distracted it has a knock-on effect on her neighbours and how they feel toward her.
Nurses and carers who can and will engage with her are amazing and should be applauded!

In the Netherlands, there's an entire village for people with dementia and this is pretty much what they do.

gizmodo.com/inside-an-amazing-village-designed-just-for-people-with-1526062373

She sounds lovely 🌷

I’d like to prebook her as my private nurse for when I get to that stage.

Jobsworth Managers Arse Covering can get to fuck, so can the twat that ‘let it slip’.

Tell her she has a LOT of support and may find a private job in a denentia care ward far more rewarding.

For the nurse

YANBU.
I think I've got something in my eye.

How lovely and thoughtful

You know what they say though about no good deed going unpunished.

Such a shame someone felt the need to report this wonderful thing the nurse did for her patient. I hope she doesn't stop her way of treating people, especially if they all respond in such a favourable way.

This is how we handle paediatric patients. I’m not a ward nurse anymore but long term patients often spent the night at the desk with us being passed from nurse to nurse as we wrote notes or playing with the phone so parents could rest.

My neighbours dm , a former nurse is in a nursing home suffering from dementia. The staff asked her family if is it ok to give her little jobs as she keeps thinking she is working there. Now she is happy in the laundry room meticulously folding towels and sheets and chatting away. Her family love to see her there.
I love when nurses hget a patient and l think in dementia care its especially lovely.

Paperwork got done, other patients were left in peace, the other nurses were free to do their jobs, a confused old lady was kept calm and allowed to feel useful rather than being chased around the ward getting distressed and distressing others. Sounds like the perfect solution for the situation!

My papa has dementia and if one of the care home staff did this id be praising them to everyone for their kind and caring not to mention helpfulness to the patient for calming them and letting them do something that makes them happy

No the nurse did nothing wrong.

I think that's a lovely thing to do.

Brilliant nurse.

Good nurses are fantastic. I had one after my spinal op, for some reason I get "wired" after a GA and can't sleep for 2 days
Nurse said it was unusual but she had heard of it. She crept into my room at 3am to do my 4hrly obs, found me awake and returned with a hot chocolate, toast and some magazines

I trained to be a nurse and I always find that the best nurses were the ones the other ones bitched about and moaned about. They would be sitting at the desk having a moan and the other nurses would be spending time with the patients. Nursing is a bitchy profession.

I'm a RN in the US and we have to be creative with dementia patients and this nurse didn't do anything wrong. Leave it to management to focus on the wrong thing!

She sounds like a really caring beautiful person and NO , the powers that be wouldn't like it and that is because a lot of the bosses have gone up the ladder asap and never put their hands on a person ever again!

This is great care. Reminds me a bit of my kids who have additional needs and can get up to all kinds of mischief in afterschool care. But a key worker discovered they love cleaning and keeps them calm and happy. So they mop, hoover, clean windows - if they are happy then I'm happy

One of the worst things for families of people with dementia is the worry of them being in hospital agitated and anxious and disturbing everyone. This nurse sounds wonderful and the people who told her off should rethink what they have learnt about caring for people.

I work in a dementia unit as a nurse. We do this sort of thing regularly and it's a brilliant non-medical way of manging 'challenging' behaviour.

What a wonderful thing to do. Rather than causing distress by insisting the patient stayed in bed, the nurse used their initiative and made the situation better for all involved - other patients get the rest they need, the nurses can carry out their duties and the patient with dementia is less happier. Bloody brilliant. More of this kind of care please!