Posted on July 14, 2010 - by Nurse Virginia

WHEN THE ELDER IS SO ANXIOUS THEY JUST CAN’T STOP WORRYING

“Your Mother has been waiting for you; she needs to talk to you right away.” Said the nursing assistant, when she saw May’s daughter walk into the nursing home. When the daughter arrived at her mother’s room there was the church lady visiting as usual. “Oh good, your Mother has been waiting to talk to you, she thinks they want her to leave,” said the church lady, who left soon after the daughter’s arrival.

May told her daughter her whole story about “someone” telling her “you can leave whenever you want to.” May said she doesn’t have anywhere to go, she needs to get her things together, she needs her pictures off the walls and someone is going to have to arrange for a new apartment.

May’s daughter tried to reassure and then to reassure again, but it wasn’t taking, the subject kept coming up. The daughter called for the nurse, and asked that May’s medical chart be checked to see if there was any plan for her to move. The nurse returned with the reassuring report that everything is good and “No, there are no plans for you to move.”

Yet after the nurse left, May showed her concern on her face with a wrinkled brow and the question “Where should I go?”

It is not uncommon for the elderly to be very anxious when in a nursing home. Their concern usually involves “who is going to pay for this?”  Especially during meal time if the staff puts the meal ticket on the table. The elder will think the dining room is a restaurant and the meal ticket is the check. And they don’t have the money to pay, so they just don’t eat.

For the elderly with Alzheimer’s disease anxiety can be created by the environment, negative caregiving (being repeatedly corrected and argued with), the frustration of forgetting how to do something and so many other situations that are no long understood. For the elder with Alzheimer’s disease, the distress will be felt long after the situation that caused it is forgotten.

I am not a proponent of using a drug instead of an explanation, diversion or distraction being tried first. But when the elder is truly worried, anxious, concerned and upset. Sometimes it is a great comfort that we have a drug like Xanax that can take that worry away.

Virginia Garberding, R.N.

Director of Education, The Wealshire, Lincolnshire, Illinois

Author: Please Get To Know Me – Aging with Dignity and Relevance

www.pleasegettoknowme.com