Thursday, March 12, 2009

The importance of family communication

If i hadnt had utilsed the opportunities to talk with the family of a patient i wouldnt have found out so much VITAL information!!!!!

A man who i have had a lot to do with over the last week on the medical ward is to me a "mystery man" But when i talked to his family to see what he was like pre-admission/pre-becoming unwell i wouldnt have linked the vital info together.
Talking with the family enable me to how his personality had changed. But more importantly they gave me some insight into their concerns and what they had observed on the ward.

I had realised and observed that this patient had difficulty initiating tasks/actions/activities but i had not realised that the nurses had not been supervising his ADLS including eating, showering, dressing and grooming. Therefore he was not attending to these basic tasks at all! How awful!

As a result of gathering this information is was soooo important that i handed it over when he went to rehab! They also had some vital information that would have been helpful when he was admitted - that he had been using a diary and alarms for reminding him of things (so therefore he was aware of his memory decline and was compensating for this impairments well before he was "brought" into the hospital by this colleague.

Up until now his diagnosis has been a mystery - various tests had not confirmed anything - still not confirmed but from my opinion (personality changes/cognitive issues) maybe this was Dementia of some type i have no idea..

TO some up - this example really illustrates the importance of working alongside family members, how vitally important they can be and how communication between team members and family is necessary.

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