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Thursday, September 10, 2009 What Nursing Home Residents Talk About in Psychotherapy Have you ever wondered what nursing home residents discuss with their shrinks behind closed doors? Here I solve the mystery, revealing the types of conversations I've had with residents over the years•Feelings about leaving home and being ill. •Issues around loss of control and being dependent on other people, with a focus on gaining control over
In our experience nursing home residents are surprised that Medicare doesn’t pay for long term custodial care. These days many options exist that must be approached with great care. Does all Alzheimer patients need to be in a special unit ? Who makes that decision ? Even in the nursing home residents are expected to do some things on their own. Then where does it all begin and end. Psychotherapy may have to be turned on its head a little to create emotional support for brief periods as nursing home residents flow from one difficult decision to another.
...•Ways to work with the staff to get their needs met. •Roommates, and how to cope with them. •The reaction of family members to their placement and illness, including ways to help adult children understand that Mom or Dad can't be there for them in the same way because Mom or Dad is sick and needs help themselves, and ways to help adult children understand that just because Mom or Dad is sick, it doesn't mean they can't go off campus every once in a while. •Issues around dying, including concerns about the afterlife and worries about how the family will get along without them. •Ways of making the most of the time they have left, including getting more involved in nursing home activities and the life of the nursing home community. •Their lives, choices, accomplishments, and regrets. •Stuff that interests them that they don't get to talk about with anyone else, just to be their regular selves again instead of being a patient...the best thing you can do for a resident is to sit down and listen to them. http://mybetternursinghome.blogspot.com/2009/09/ what-nursing-home-residents-talk-about.html
