Supportive measures forces staff to make tough choices
Friday March 28, 2003 Natalie Miller
PETERBOROUGH One resident is crying and the other needs her face washed. An employee’s past experience can influence whether she first consoles the distraught resident or wipes the other’s face with a washcloth. Supportive measures isn’t an easy concept to get used to when traditional long-term care settings put hands-on care before compassion.

At Riverview Manor in Peterborough, staff is coming around to see the merits of the new approach to care, says Kathy Estabrook, supportive measures specialist. It has taken time.

“I think they’re starting to see the value,” she says. “There’s more co-operation because they know it’s not an option here.” Supportive measures is an individualized approach to care that goes beyond simply the clinical needs. It involves getting to know a resident by understanding who he was in his past and what his emotional needs are. “Emotional needs are more important than having their face washed,” says Kathy.

She has been working on getting staff to include residents in their job duties at the home. For example, an employee could invite a resident to join her while she’s changing the bed linens. A staff member in the dietary department could encourage the resident to help fold bibs. It’s about integrating a new element into their routines, Kathy says.

Kathy, and Sherry Baldwin, the other supportive measures specialist at Riverview, are wrapping up the review of 24 efforts which were a follow-up to the OMNI-wide training sessions earlier this year.

“We used our most challenging residents,” says Kathy. There are some success stories.

Staff learned to calm a highly-agitated woman by involving her in chores, turning on music or dancing with her. “Someone in activities has really established a rapport with her.”

In another case, they discovered taking a resident for powerwalks around the home, stops his wandering in the middle of the night.

They learned a resident, who is blind, prefers to be approached by a staff member knocking on her door, announcing his name and notifying her why he is at the door.

“(Staff) is more aware of the different things we do to decrease agitation,” says Kathy. She says staff members had some difficulty with assessment tools and programming. Kathy has run training on her own and will continue to do so in the home to help staff catch on to the strategy. She notes she certainly didn’t become a specialist after one session. “All in all, they put their all into it.”