At Oceanview Healthcare and Rehab, our mission is simple: to improve the quality of life for residents with dementia, while secondarily improving employee satisfaction. Through the development of patient-specific programs that target each resident’s best ability to function, we are able to accomplish that goal. Below, we’ve outlined just a few of the many success stories we’ve seen at our facility.
Goal: Fall Prevention
- Nursing concern: A resident was having multiple falls, sometimes more than one per day.
- Solution: Therapy identified that the resident was a wanderer and was not safe to walk. We provided a cushion and WC with the height adjusted to allow the patient to wander. We also instructed caregivers to have shoes on the patient at all times and to avoid locking the WC brakes.
- Results: The resident has had a significant decrease in falls.
Goal: Behavior Modification
- Nursing concern: A resident was non-compliant, often displaying physical aggression during care.
- Solution: Therapy provided caregiver education to identify high-risk situations and prevention strategies.
- Results: Caregivers are now better able to prevent situations where the resident becomes aggressive.
By collaborating across disciplines, we are able to maintain patient independence, integrity and safety. We are committed to facility-wide education to improve awareness of the dementia disease process, so that we can speak a common “language” when communicating about patient care. By staying true to our mission, we set up our patients for success, as well as our entire team.
By Jennifer Yocum M.S. CCC/SLP and Sonny Gonzalez DOR, Oceanview Healthcare and Rehab, Texas City, TX