Philip Y. Kao PhD thesis - Research@StAndrews:FullText

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Brendan escorted me into Heather’s room and introduced us to each other. I witnessed how he squared himself in front of Heather, and spoke to her in a fairly loud voice. He even leaned towards the left ear at times to make sure that she understood him. I started working with Heather at least three times a week. She wanted to be woken up at 8:30 a.m. everyday. When I arrived in her room, and after giving me a tutorial on how I should fold her bed blanket back so that the corners were perfectly in line with the end of the bed, she instructed me on the angle she wanted to be propped up in bed. It took more than a minute to achieve her desired angle as I worked the electric adjustable bed buttons. As soon as she was satisfied with this, only then could I bring her wheelchair next to the bed to begin transferring her. Heather also had a particular set of routines she wanted observed in the bathroom. After helping her onto the toilet, I was to use the right towel on the rack for washing her face, and then the left towel for her legs. She didn’t mind that I left the faucet running a bit to achieve a warm temperature for soaking her hand towel, but she did want the towel squeezed several times. She asked me, “Did you do it many times?” I reassured her loudly into her left ear. She nodded. As soon as I wiped her face, and grabbed another towel which she wanted draped over her, without one side dangling more than another, like a perfectly donned hair salon apron, Heather wanted me to put a pea-sized amount of paste on her toothbrush. She enjoyed brushing her teeth for literally ten minutes. If I came back to the bathroom any earlier, she would still be brushing and would not surrender her toothbrush. After I lowered her bed and made sure that the small blue bed spread was not stained or wet, I made her bed with gruelling precision. Afterwards, I re-entered the bathroom and stood next to her for another three minutes, while she finished brushing her teeth. As soon as she was finished, I gave her a small plastic cup to rinse her mouth. At this point, she handed me the toothbrush, and before I could finish getting her dressed, she watched me carefully as I rinsed her toothbrush. She wanted me to rinse her toothbrush under the faucet for a good two minutes. This was also one of her requirements. I am recalling this in detail, because Heather was unique in the way she wanted everything done. She wanted things folded in a particular way, and whenever I transferred her back to her chair after breakfast, she wanted to sit right up against the back of the chair. More than this, she wanted her smock completely wrinkle free in the back. Because of this, transferring her always took more than one attempt. The other 105
caregivers who did not listen to her or left without sitting her down properly would be chastised; she would push the call button over and over again, and sometimes the nurse would have to come and help. I recognised early on during my interaction with her that she might have some form of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). I was sympathetic to this and had to explain to the other caregivers that Heather was not a control freak, but perhaps suffered from OCD. The other caregivers thought she was bossy, and many of them even called her a “mean bitch.” I told the other caregivers about her possible condition, but none of them seemed to really care. They still held to the belief that she was mean and someone they did not want to work with. One caregiver said, “She’s just so bossy, and she is always pushing her call button.” In addition to her loss of hearing, Heather was also partially paralysed on the left side of her body. Despite this, she was very observant, and able to control her immediate environment and particularly how she wanted things arranged on the bed, on her chair, in the bathroom, and in the dining room. One day, Heather complained to me that she was still not happy she had to move from the first floor. I asked her why she had to move and she replied, “They made me do it. This is not ageing in place. I am still struggling with adjusting to so many new things.” I got on well with her, even though she took extra time and energy. I had to tell her constantly that things were straight, even, and symmetrical. She wanted things wrinkle-free, and I did the best I could to put her at ease. Near the end of my fieldwork, and after working with Heather for more than half a year, I noticed that she had an old radio. I asked her whether or not she would like to listen to music. She told me that she did not like music. She said the radio was broken, and that she and her husband used to listen to the news on the radio together. Additionally, I found out from her that her deceased husband received his <strong>PhD</strong> in journalism form Northwestern University. I asked her if I could take a look at the radio and maybe fix it. I took the radio after work and found out that someone had plugged the power chord into the wrong hole. I returned the next morning and tuned the radio to an AM news channel. Heather was extremely excited and said to me, “You have brought me the world. It’s been years since I listened to the news. Thank you.” 106
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THE VICTIMS OF A SORTED LIFE : AGEI
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THE VICTIMS OF A SORTED LIFE: CAREG
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“In the animal kingdom, the rule
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many people have e
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ACRONYMS Activities of Daily Living
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The Tacoma Pastures Family ........
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Introduction i) Ageing and an Anthr
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the one hand we have the shifting p
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social relations among residents, s
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abyss that caregivers are confronte
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ased; other sponsors such as univer
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especially in light of the period
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a frozen liminality, “a sphere of
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nature of social relations. I was c
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esidents, and to abide by the gover
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order and tension that obtains betw
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offer palliation and there is a gen
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esidents for one-day plane trips to
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seriously think about.” 11 Early
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their desire to effect a plan under
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floors 1, 2, 4, and 5; 2) Personal
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chaotic back then.” I was told to
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the third floor is electronically l
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Chapter 2: The Accidental Caregiver
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transfer residents out of beds and
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on the third floor in Memory Care,
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On the second day, Nathan took me a
Page 56 and 57: Jennifer was doing so-so. He said,
Page 58 and 59: was from, even though I had just an
Page 60 and 61: affect; the balloon could be launch
Page 62 and 63: eminded me of a 1960s hospital room
Page 64 and 65: Ryan began complaining more about h
Page 66 and 67: know if you are working for someone
Page 68 and 69: in old age, especially when they al
Page 70 and 71: translation. 19 What follows is an
Page 72 and 73: class by telling us that dementia i
Page 74 and 75: The 3 rd Floor Layout Many CCRCs, i
Page 76 and 77: ested in between their tasks at thi
Page 78 and 79: sofa, others will simply give her a
Page 80 and 81: morning, the med tech and the careg
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Page 84 and 85: could still communicate with me in
Page 86 and 87: In the two weeks that followed, Ken
Page 88 and 89: the trips that she remembered fondl
Page 90 and 91: Pastures received this. For now, it
Page 92 and 93: Chapter 4: Independent Plus: Care o
Page 94 and 95: Although the fifth floor is an “i
Page 96 and 97: the fourth floor did not need much
Page 98 and 99: main floor next to the spacious for
Page 100 and 101: grapple with mechanical E-Z stands
Page 102 and 103: Grant was not the only person who c
Page 104 and 105: The situation involving these three
Page 108 and 109: Teri Teri was a resident in the sam
Page 110 and 111: Lana Lana lived next door to Teri a
Page 112 and 113: on other residents, but for some re
Page 114 and 115: Part 2 Chapter 5: A Long Way From M
Page 116 and 117: largely associated with the domain
Page 118 and 119: into Žižek’s ticklish borders b
Page 120 and 121: “Thanks.” I go into the back of
Page 122 and 123: insurmountable abyss. The silence w
Page 124 and 125: had to bring the wheelchair over, c
Page 126 and 127: drawn out process involving a mixtu
Page 128 and 129: * * * Betsy and I were subject to T
Page 130 and 131: Chapter 6: The Exigency of Care: Ca
Page 132 and 133: Betty When I first met Betty, she w
Page 134 and 135: Sometimes the caregivers were succe
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Page 138 and 139: said, slightly solemnly: “Hi.”
Page 140 and 141: Tacoma Pastures and into hospice. F
Page 142 and 143: Looking out into the setting sun fr
Page 144 and 145: control, over the bodies and action
Page 146 and 147: Figure 12 An Eden plaque At Tacoma
Page 148 and 149: way to community. The main dining r
Page 150 and 151: They cannot just be a passive board
Page 152 and 153: hearing the director go on about cr
Page 154 and 155: golf flat-cap, and behind his squar
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This chapter has been motivated by
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complex and generative space openin
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family represents where one comes f
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just down the road from Tacoma Past
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link fence of post-industrial subur
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The young woman came back after adm
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as she made the rounds on the third
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I decided to confront Sylvia about
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* * * Mistakes were made in the fie
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work. If care is inevitably and hum
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was being uttered in their negative
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an X-ray, and that we could issue a
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parental responsibilities and care
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caregivers and care recipients? Doe
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was not a structure or discourse th
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and McKechnie 1999, 1). Furthermore
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extending the period of training fo
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It will be useful now to venture in
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y taking up oneself in real duratio
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organisation of a CCRC for example,
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Furthermore, the post-Cartesian min
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Pastures when it is institutionalis
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Appendix Ethics Form 199
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A Room with No View In the corner r
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A Blue-Gray Raga Some places the sm
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Diamond, T. Making Grey Gold: Narra
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Hummert, Mary Lee Nussbaum Jon F. "
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Nouwen, H. and Gaffney, W. Aging: T
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Williams, Allison. "Therapeutic Lan
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