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

and daughter. Furthermore, the officer assured me that Betty was present at the
meeting.
There was never a move to the fifth floor of assisted living. Betty moved to my section,
officially called ‘Memory Care.’ On the third floor, there are three corridors, and all of
them are electronically locked. You also need a four-digit code to access the elevator
from the third floor. Betty was given a new care plan, which had to be coordinated with
other residents’ care plans. She was now under full scrutiny, and embedded within a
different system of care with its own rhythms and priorities. It was determined that she
should take at least two showers per week: Tuesday and Thursday mornings after
breakfast. On Tuesdays, as part of the level of care and service package provided to
dementia residents, in addition to ‘reminding’ Betty to take her shower, I had to take her
vital signs and call the nurse to conduct a skin check just before she got into the shower
or shortly thereafter. Because she was considered still relatively independent, Betty
didn’t require me to toilet her, brush her teeth, and get her dressed in the morning.
Therefore, I spent more time assisting the other nine residents who fell under my care.
As a result, I checked up on Betty much later in the morning. As the weeks passed, Betty
started sleeping in more often. This posed a problem for the kitchen staff who wanted to
finish serving breakfast by 9:00 a.m., because they wanted to take their breaks before
cleaning up and setting up for lunch.
Moving to Memory Care was something that Betty never fully accepted. Unlike other
residents in the Shimmering Waters community (each wing of the third floor was named
after a local river), Betty always carried her purse with her, as if she were going
somewhere. Because Shimmering Waters was designated a ‘secure neighbourhood’,
caregivers had to cover their hands when inputting the security codes to come in and out
of the various corridors, like someone at a cash machine. Even though Betty said it was
ridiculous that she needed an escort now to go downstairs and to take a stroll through
the common area, she did not resist much. I say this, because another resident in
Shimmering Waters would often rush to the door after lunch with his walker and look to
sneak out. On several occasions, Gary would bang on the door, and plead with one of the
caregivers that he had won a few dollars from bingo, and needed to go to the small shop
downstairs. Caregivers would tell him that he needed to wait for an escort, and that it
was best if he could sit back down in the gathering room opposite the dining room.
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