Waking up care home residents every night is cruel

[Greenfingers12]

I've been doing some agency work in some and incontinent/immobile residents have their pad checked/changed every 2 hours throughout the night, or are repositioned in bed.
Some of them slept through but many of them woke up. Plus hourly room checks which sometimes wake them up even if you're quiet.
I know that the pad changes and turns are to protect their skin integrity and avoid pressure sores and so on.
I just feel bad that they have to be woken up several times every night, I'd hate it if someone did that and it must make them exhausted.
Don't know what the solution is though.

@SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius I'm sorry about your mum, I do agree though, a funny kind of a blessing at a really sad time.

Don’t be so dramatic! Many people, myself included, wake up at 5 am or even earlier. My Stepfather gets woken up around 5 am, is changed, washed and dressed in clean PJs if needed. He then gets a cup of tea and slice of toast in bed. He is got up properly around 8am for breakfast. He’s not being abused.

When I had my eldest, nearly 22 years ago, by Caesarean, I was in hospital 5 days. I was up on day 2 and moved around but during the night, I couldn't easily turn over. I came home with peeling bedsores that took about a month to fully heal, and I was a healthy, 30 something in the prime of life. I experienced similar with each of my three births (all sections) to a lesser degree.

I know waking your relative up seems cruel but bedsores can happen shockingly fast - it's not done to torture them.

That's your choice, people who are forced to wake up because they don't have enough carers. Not being dramatic I have worked as a safeguarding social worker so not being dramatic.

I agree, sounds like hell.

You're not elderly and being woken up every 2 hours though. Sounds like absolute hell. However it's not abuse because it's done to prevent bed sores. The 5am starts sound like they could be managed differently though.

I would be inclined to agree with you, we weren’t given the choice at work - decision was made around 1am who we would wash at 4.30-6am (‘if you can try to get two or three done it will make the day shift’s life much easier’). Inevitably the same poor souls were picked every night - usually patients who needed full body hoisting, 2 or 3 to roll and were minimally conscious or confused.

They’d usually end up falling back asleep after. Cluster care was never thought of either - we were in and out constantly overnight doing obs, IVs, NG feeds, catheters, turns, etc. Was a rare night when we could turn the lights off and leave patients to it.

I would hope some of that has since improved but have been told washes at least are still routinely done at the crack of dawn.

Was in hospital myself in July - sent from OOH centre to surgical ward at 9pm, admitted at midnight, seen by a doctor at 1am, woken up at 4am, then again at 6am - 6am someone came round, flicked all the lights on and offered breakfast. Stayed a night on another ward before that where the radio was left playing 24/7. Ludicrous.

""Up until the International Pressure Ulcer Guidelines of 2014, common practice was to reposition individuals at risk for PI development at 2-hour intervals, 24 hours per day, 7 days per week.27,30–33 This practice remains debatable, with limited and mixed evidence as PIs continue to develop across healthcare settings. This care intervention is largely based on tradition rather than research. In addition, this “one size fits all” practice is “no longer considered appropriate.”"" quote taken from:
The Conundrum of Turning/Repositioning Frequency, Sleep Surf... : Advances in Skin & Wound Care (lww.com)
""Individualizing turning schedules is feasible. Residents with longer turning intervals did not develop PrIs, supporting previous studies about safely extending turning periods for most residents."" quote taken from:
Development and Implementation of an Individualized Turning Program for Pressure Injury Prevention Using Sensor Technology in Nursing Homes: A Quality Improvement Program - PubMed (nih.gov)

I would have thought you could turn someone without waking them. Or at least not waking them enough to disturb their sleep, since they reckon if you're awake for less than about a minute you don't remember it, and it doesn't affect your sleep overall. But I'll accept that it's no longer best practice.

Me too but having pressure sores so deep it’s the size of a fist and you can see exposed deep tissue also sounds torturous and not a fun way to end life. It’s really a lose lose situation.

Well, quite! and dying in agony from a sepsis due to multiple grade 4 pressure sores doesn’t sound like a walk in the park. I don’t think people realise this. Now, making people get up and washed essentially in the middle of the night against their will is another matter entirely.

I so wish there is assisted death/voluntary euthanasia by the time I get there, the last two years of my grans life, after a wonderful long happy interesting one, were so grim, I just want out. I really hope that we make some progress soon on this as living being turned every two hours or with gaping wounds IS a form of torture. Of course, if you've lost your marbles, they won't let you decide anyway which seems doubly cruel. Harold Shipman has a lot to answer for, because helping people slip away towards the very end with morphine is now not the done thing and people have to just suffer on, even when they are actively dying.