Dementia While Mininising Risk

Unit 50               Sofia Martins
Today at my work I was asked to   i assist Mrs X with personal care and dressing. Mrs X has advanced dementia and takes a lot of prompting to do simple tasks on her own, such as washing her face. Mrs X is fully mobile and needs a lot of support to hold her concentration on particular tasks or she is more likely to be distracted and wander off. Being aware of Mrs X’s needs I agreed that I am more than confident to assist her. I knocked on Mrs X’s door before entering, and went in. I explained to Mrs X that I was there to help her with her daily routine on waking. Mrs X appeared to be happy with me being there, and was talking away to me like she am a member of her family, but most of her sentences did not make sense; I tried to answer as best I could. I managed to get Mrs X to help pick out what she wanted to wear that day. I had to give a lot of direction and support as some things were not appropriate for her to wear. Mrs X took a lot of prompting whilst getting washed and she kept turning off the water taps, I had to remind Mrs X that the water was running to warm up so she could wash herself. After taking my time and being patient with Mrs X, I managed to help her to wash and put fresh clothes on, I asked Mrs X if she would like to wear her lipstick, and have nice perfume on. Mrs X replied by telling me that wasn’t perfume it was for the dog. So Mrs X was more than happy to have her lipstick on and her hair brushed before she went to breakfast.

I was confident with assisting Mrs X, as I had done it before as I have assisted her before. I was aware that Mrs X’s confusions may lead her to become agitated, so I made myself familiar with de-escalation techniques to enable me to minimise the risk of Mrs X becoming agitated. During the time of assisting Mrs X, I was thinking about am I patient enough or am I going to quick for Mrs X, as I didn’t want to upset her. Mrs X was happy with me helping her as she was smiling and...