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

morning, the med tech and the caregivers were not too fussed about this. Things,
however, began to change when she started coming into the hallway half-dressed and
without her wig on. The caregivers could not let this happen, and so the fulltime
caregiver working in Susan’s section and the med tech decided that she should be up
and dressed like everyone else for breakfast.
Susan required a lot of coaxing, but she usually got up on her own. I started coming into
her room earlier in the day, knocking first, and then opening up her door with the
master key, which was attached to my electronic pager. On a typical day, I would enter
and open the blinds notifying her that it was time to get up, and that I would come back
in ten minutes to help her pick out her clothes. Susan enjoyed it when I prepared her
outfits. She would always say to me, “You are great! You are the best!” I would pick out
something for her and she would say, “Great!”
Susan began asking incessantly and literally every five minutes, “Have you seen my
son?” She had a daughter and a son who lived within ten miles of Tacoma Pastures, but
it was her son, the fireman, that she was always talking about and looking for. When she
was in the bathroom brushing her teeth, I made her bed, and got her clothes ready. She
would often pop out of the bathroom, half-naked, asking for her son. It did not matter
whether or not he was coming to visit later on; she would ask for him repeatedly. I
witnessed other caregivers replying to her, “Yes, he’s coming. Just sit down and eat and
he’ll be right there.” This was the usual strategy that caregivers working with dementia
residents were taught. Diversions and necessary lies were a tactic many caregivers had
to employ on a minute-to-minute basis. I found myself, lying sometimes, and at other
times trying to change the subject. I could not decipher whether or not having the
certainty of knowing that her son was coming to visit would make her happier, but what
I did realise was that this routine of hers never ceased. When her son did come to visit,
he would take her by the arm, and she proudly reintroduced him to everyone as her son,
the fireman.
Susan became gradually more disoriented, and would often only put on half of her
outfit. Additionally, she would wear her wig without the inner support that would fit
nicely around her head, and this made her hair look as if it was teetering off. At first, I
felt that she would be self-conscious without the wig, and wanted me to see her only
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