Elders Family Learning Initiative: Conduct Positive Visits, Part 2 ...

July 30, 2012 by Cedar Sinai Park

Family members can visit their loved one in an elder-care facility as caregivers and as casual visitors.

Primary Caregiver Visits

Some visitors, usually spouses and adult children, spend hours, if not the entire day, at the facility.?They were and remain the primary caregiver and will resume the role formally if and when the resident?discharges. Staff can rely on them to be alert to needs and to provide some casual care such as?assistance with eating, set up for grooming, and getting fluids and snacks as appropriate. Facility staff?are accustomed to this attention and value these visitors. Rarely does conflict arise over staff retaining?the ability to provide appropriate care related to privacy or caregiver insistence on providing care in?a manner that conflicts with facility protocols. Equally rare is the situation where staff are concerned?about the health and welfare of a caregiver, usually a spouse, who is sacrificing her own well-being to?be in attendance at the bedside at all times.

Facility staff can help familiarize caregiver visitors with routines and schedules, alert them to special?activities, and provide support. These routines actually are of most value when the home routine,?prior to admission, is recreated as closely as possible to make the resident comfortable and hopeful.

Casual Visitors

Most visitors, even some spouses and children, visit for defined time periods. If a resident is weak and?ill, short frequent visits, daily for no more than an hour or less are most effective. If the resident is?interactive, note interests and energy and provide a glimpse of the world she is missing and to which?she is likely to return. If she is not responsive, or just too weak to hold up the usual interactions, bring?a book to read, magazines, tapes or read letters, cards and e-mails from home.

Begin visits with a greeting, stating your name and some identifier to residents who cannot see well?or have poor short term memory. Bring gifts, small but pleasant?flowers, books, magazines, cards, or?food for those who are not on restricted diets. On the trip to the facility, try to review some positive?topics of conversation to present?a phone call, another visit made, a religious service or community?event, a joke heard, an incident witnessed. Pets and children make good topics of conversation and?can even make good visitors if plans are made ahead of the visit. Neither the visiting pets nor children?need to do anything?their presence alone brightens the area. Both should be rested, clean, and in?good health for a visit. Check with the facility for protocols.

Visitors may note that some residents at the facility have few or any visitors of their own. Staff can?confirm this and would be delighted to facilitate appropriate relationships with other residents. Such?visits may be convenient when one?s own family member is receiving care, therapy, or is asleep. Such?networks help to turn facilities into communities.?One universal element of visits throughout the continuum of long-term care is that any facility?which generally discourages visits at reasonable times from involved family members and friends?should be avoided as a potential placement and reported to the local aging services system.

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Source: http://cedarsinaipark.wordpress.com/2012/07/30/efli-positive-visits2/

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Source: http://manuelreeves.typepad.com/blog/2012/07/elders-family-learning-initiative-conduct-positive-visits-part-2.html

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