Sep 16, 2021
I went home to help my 70-year old mother take care of my 91-year old grandmother, who'd been in a nursing home for a year and a half during COVID. Grandma Trudie was extremely debilitated, and could only bear her body weight when she first came home. She could not pick up her feet to even step side-to-side or pivot - which had the potential to put a lot of work on my Mom’s back until Grandma Trudie regained some of the strength in her legs..
In this episode, I share a 3-part series on Alzheimer's Care. When your loved one is as debilitated as my grandmother, you can't move her from place to place easily.
3 Tips for Transferring & Getting Dressed
✔️ Tip 1: Consolidate Movement to Minimize Risk of Injury
- Thinking through moves from bed to chair; with bedside commode stop in between.
- Lining up and minimizing the number of transitions
- Do as many steps in getting dressed or undressed while sitting, then moved her,
- Getting her into bed to lie down with one movement
✔️ Tip 2: Using a Hospital Bed: It Goes UP for a reason
- Lowest position when getting in or out of bed
- Save Your Back – Roll the bed up as high as you need it to be to provide care
- Use Side rails when bed is being used.
✔️ Tip 3: The Power of the Rolling Side to Side
- To get her brief on
- She could help by grabbing the siderails – doubles as good exercise!
(You can check out the Part 2 & 3 episode where you found this one.)
Part 2: 3 Tips to Shampoo Hair in Sitting in a Chair
Part 3: 3 Tips for Eating and Drinking at Home.
If you have questions, comments, or need help, please feel free to drop a one-minute audio or video clip and email it to me at melissabphd@gmail.com, and I will get back to you by recording an answer to your question.
About Melissa Batchelor, Ph.D., RN, FNP-BC, FGSA, FAAN:
I earned my Bachelor of Science in Nursing ('96) and Master of Science in Nursing ('00) as a Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) from the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW) School of Nursing (SON). I genuinely enjoy working with the complex medical needs of older adults. I worked full-time for five years as FNP in geriatric primary care across many long-term care settings (skilled nursing homes, assisted living, home, and office visits), then transitioned into academic nursing in 2005, joining the faculty at UNCW SON as a lecturer. I obtained my Ph.D. in Nursing and a post-master's Certificate in Nursing Education from the Medical University of South Carolina College of Nursing ('11). I then joined the faculty at Duke University School of Nursing as an Assistant Professor. My family moved to northern Virginia in 2015 and led to me joining the George Washington University (GW) School of Nursing faculty in 2018 as a (tenured) Associate Professor. I am also the Director of the GW Center for Aging, Health, and Humanities. Please find out more about her work at https://melissabphd.com/.