Caring in action: a guest blog from volunteer carer Sandra Chivers
My name is Sandra Chivers, and I work as a Medical Secretary at Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust. I am also a volunteer helping dementia patients on the wards with their meals.
A few weeks ago I saw Finding Joy at the Salisbury Arts Centre. The play was about an elderly lady with the onset of dementia and how her family coped with the situation. Vamos is a young theatre company whose productions are in mime and full mask and in spite of the subject the play was extremely funny. An interesting aspect of the show were the thoughts which were constantly going through Joy’s mind about her childhood and early married life which were obviously more vivid to her than what was happening in her everyday life. These thoughts were intertwined with reality in a very thought provoking way.
The day after seeing the play, I went to the ward and was introduced to an elderly patient called Lilly (not her real name). The actual patient had an equally beautiful name. She was curled up like a little bird taking no interest whatsoever in what was going on around her. I explained who I was and that I would be helping her with her meal.
When talking to her I looked straight into her eyes and she appeared to register my presence. I then helped her with her meal. She was very hungry and every time I stopped to give her time to digest her food, she looked straight at me and said "more, please" insistently.
I talked to her throughout but having seen the play, I wondered what was going on in her mind. So, for example, when she had an ice-cream I talked to her about having ice-cream at the seaside (although she may not have ever been). I talked about the donkeys and the Punch and Judy show which would have been there in her childhood. She didn't acknowledge anything I said but as the meal progressed, and I continued to make eye contact when talking to her, I definitely felt she was making a greater effort to communicate by looking into mine.
When I took the empty tray back to the nurses, I told them how hungry she had been (she was still calling for more having finished her meal completely and then having extra). It transpired that she had eaten virtually nothing since arriving in the hospital - the nurses explained that she had "scrubs phobia" and because I was in ordinary clothes I had had more success. It made me feel incredibly useful that I had been able to achieve so much - but I am also convinced, that having seen Finding Joy I was able to empathise much more with Lilly and that was what made the real difference.