Basic care of demented patients living in institutions

Abstract

Summary This paper looks at the basic care of demented patients living in institutions and the distinctive characteristics of those patients. The data included in the study were collected by observing basic care situations and interviewing practising nurses. The nurses tended to look at demented patients chiefly in terms of the abilities they had lost and the disturbance they caused; less attention was given to their remaining faculties, such as their sense of humour and their ability to enjoy things and to establish contact through gestures and physical touching. Five models of nursing activity were identified: rejective, routinized, robot‐like, cassette‐like, and skilful. Nurses concentrated more on obligatory daily activities than on the individual needs of demented patients, the special characteristics of dementia, or encouraging spontaneous activity among demented patients.