Question:
I am a nurse in a long term care facility. I recently moved from asub-acute unit to a new unit that is to be a dementia unit. Currentlywe have about one third dementia patients and the rest of the bedswill be replaced with the same type of patients by attrition.(previously all four units were mixed, now we are going to have fourspecialty units). I volunteered for this unit because I do likeworking with Alzheimer's patients and their families.However, with the sheer number of ambulatory confused, I am runninginto very big problems for which our unit is not thus far equipped tohandle.

Can anybody give me any suggestions of where to look for equipmentmade especially for dementia unts?

Answer: There are some things that you can do on your own. Try putting up apicture of the resident over his/her room number. Use the age that theresident can identify himself (usually around mid-to-late 50's.) butthis can be highly individual. Also, in order to get through any type ofregulatory survey you'll have to have chair and bed alarms.I really thought most LTC's had already converted to some form ofdementia unit;each corp. has a different name, usually refering to agreek form of fantasy (Arcadia),etc.

Many facilities offer specialized training to staff who are new tocaring for Alzheimer's patients in this venue. I'm not sure but it couldbe an OBRA reg. I'll ask around, i go back to work next week. Maybesomeone else here knows.