Improving Quality of Life for Older People in Long-Stay Care ...

Table 8.2: Maintaining independenceMaintaining independenceWhen you learn, you are able to do iton your own. (PK2 Resident 01, Public)They let me try and help myself asmuch as I can, you know. (PK3 Resident09, Public)I think that it’s most important that youdon’t take any piece of independencethat they have away from them and justkind of stand behind them. (YW1 CareAssistant 01, Private)I think to have a quality of life they haveto be able to do as much as they can forthemselves. We must, you know likesometimes, I remember this from beingon wards, sometimes it was easier tofeed someone than to try and help themto feed themselves. Now I know thatthere are people that will always haveto be fed but to give them as muchindependence as they can and what theyneed too is they need a little bit of time.(GN2, Activity Therapist 01, Public)So we try to keep their independence,we don’t take it away from them. There’ssome patients there now, and they barelyfeed themselves, but I’d have a spoon,and they’d have a spoon, and let themwork around the plate. I work with them.They still have their independence,I wouldn’t take it from them. (YW1,Care Assistant 01, Private)What I like about (living here) is myindependence. I can go for a walk orgo out. (YW3. R10, Private)You know when they first come in we’renot too invasive. We’ll hold back. Our aimis to let them hold on to their independence.That’s fine but we have to be in thewings. (YW5 Nurse 01, Private)Becoming more dependentI have lost out on the physiotherapyand the exercises and I am not doingany exercises now, which is a terribleloss. (YW3 Resident 02, Private)I did get a lot of physio (in an acutehospital). I got it for an hour a day butwhen I went to long-stay care, no physio.That’s not right. … I was beginning topick up and it would have made a lotof difference. (LCI Resident 7, Private)They are not taken to the toilet whenthey need to go. (PK2 Resident 7, Public)The problem in terms of independenceis that very few would be consideredindependently mobile, which is why theyare here so there would not be a hugedemand on maintaining independence.(PK2 Resident 01, Public)But you know as nurses we tend tobe just busy doing for you, whether youwant it or not sometimes, you know. Andbeing afraid of letting people have theirindependence. (PK1 Nurse 01, Public)I’d like to be able to go out, to be moreindependent, to be able to go to the toiletmyself. I’d like to be able eventually togo out to the shop. That’s the one thingyou miss terribly. It’s exercise that youget there. … After I’d been sick, the firstthing, to go into a shop to buy a box ofmatches and it was a joy, you know,just to do it yourself. People say ‘oh,I’ll do it for you’. You hear this, that’s notthe same. I’m the kind of person I liketo see results of what I buy you know,but we miss a shop. We used to haveone. Haven’t had one in the last year,so I have to depend on people to bringin stuff. (GN2 Resident 01, Public)157