Face to a Name


Imagine yourself in hospital, aged and unable to communicate with those around you, unable to articulate what you need and when. Think of the dejection, loneliness, fear of knowing your wellbeing lies in the hands of someone who sees you only as a blank and wrinkled canvas, who sees you only in the context of your dementia. I have, and I found it frightening.


Dementia visits the elderly with a cloak of confusion and uncertainty, its victim usually unaware of its early presence, manifested by occasional illogical behaviour. A friend witnessed her 75 year-old Mother trying to pay for groceries with cigarettes, the “tell” that at once confronted her denial and confirmed her fears.


Faced with a Mother in similar straits, my siblings and I determined to protect her from the kind of treatment we heard about in the media, that often comes hand in glove with lack of recognition at best and at worst, with abuse. Oddly, it was our attention to detail that led ultimately to the launch of a movement that could help change the way the elderly are treated in hospital.


A common fall marked the beginning of our Mother’s mental decline, one we could never have anticipated and could not stem, because the series of operations that followed accelerated her formerly mild dementia.


In hospital, she sat in the elderly ward, baffled by the sounds and lights all around, confused by the number of people who came to treat and talk at her.


With the intention of restoring Mother’s sense of self we propped next to her bed an image of her in younger days. Unexpectedly and happily, this became the turning point to her care because the youthful image conveyed to those around her something of the personality beneath the old and confused demeanour.


The Old Cornelian SUMMER 2016


It prompted them to ask about her and use these snippets of information to converse whilst taking her blood pressure, or making the bed. Both parties emerged happier from these exchanges.


“We see an endless conveyor belt of elderly people in your mother’s condition,” confessed a nurse at our mother’s hospital. “We don’t know who they are, and they can’t tell us. These pictures of her as she was, speak volumes. Thank you.”


Simply, younger photographs and an insight into the elderly patient helps equip those


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THIS IS NOT ROCKET SCIENCE IT IS HUMANITY, SOMETHING THAT IS ALARMINGLY SHORT IN THE WIDER PRACTICE OF ELDERLY CARE.


caring for them to behave more humanely. This response is not divisive; despite news to the contrary I do not believe that workers within these professions set out to administer casual care. They are often pushed to their limits and desperation can prevail where patience is needed. Where care home staff are undertrained, a little help in seeing beyond the bewildered behaviour may have prevented some of the appalling abuse cases reported in recent years.


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Our Mother’s photographs and her nurses’ response led ultimately to the launch of Face to a Name, a movement to ensure that identity and dignity stay with the elderly patient upon admission to hospital or care home.


The aim of Face to a Name is to incorporate a younger patient photograph and short backstory within the standard admissions process. “I have four children, love Jazz, gardening and cooking,” will elicit a far more positive bedside manner than a list of symptoms presented in glorious isolation. This is not rocket science it is humanity, something that is alarmingly short in the wider practice of elderly care.


Dementia does not annihilate personality but


Gretchen Misick is the mother of Katrine Patterson (née Misick, Class of 1981)


My name is Gretchen Misick


•I love travel, theatre, films ... and good wine


•I have two children, five grandsons and a granddaughter


•I may look older, but inside I feel the same


seems more to overshadow it, bringing new and different aspects to the fore. A little help to allow vignettes of the formerly healthy person shine through this terrible illness will go a very long way.


We would like the sharing of photographs and vignettes of personality to become accepted protocol upon admission of any elderly person to hospital or care home.


Please support Face to a Name and ensure that humane elderly care becomes as common as the disease it is designed to relieve.


OC


Please visit http://www.facebook.com/facetoaname.


GiovannaForte(Class of 1981) 11


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