LeBlanc: Dementia hospital wristband program
Training for dementia care is severely lacking in the United States. This is particularly true in our hospitals.
If you ever have had the experience of taking a loved one with dementia to a hospital, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Just bringing them to a simple doctor’s appointment can be difficult enough!
Maintaining a daily routine is the best thing you can do for those living with dementia. However in a hospital there is beeping medical equipment, strange faces and bewildering questions being thrown around like hand grenades. You may as well just throw their crucial routine right out the window, which then causes these patients’ anxiety and confusion levels to shoot through the roof. For the past five years I have been parading an idea to hospital administrators: Use a specially designed wristband or marker to identify patients with Alzheimer’s or any other type of cognitive disability.
I encountered three terrible hospital stays alongside of my father, who had Alzheimer’s disease. Even the admission process turned into complete nightmare! My eyes truly were opened to the severity of the problem. I was shocked how few staff members, if any, knew anything about dementia care. They had no clue how to handle someone with dementia.
Soon after, I began writing about this in my weekly column, “Common Sense Caregiving,” and immediately one horror story after another began pouring in from caregivers all over the globe. These stories left my skin crawling.
After a lot of time and effort, I’m pleased to announce that Bayfront Brooksville Hospital (formerly Brooksville Regional) has become the first hospital in the United States to implement the Alzheimer’s/Dementia Hospital Wristband Program.
The program components are as follows:
♦ Upon admission and with a prior diagnosis of a dementia related disease, a Purple Angel logo is attached to the patient’s wristband. This has become the international symbol for all types of dementia.
♦ A magnetized Purple Angel also is placed on the door frame and/or above the room’s number plaque.
♦ The hospital staff and hopefully most first responders will receive dementia care training.
♦ A sitter may be utilized to give the families a much needed break from worrying about their loved one.
♦ Dementia screening was added by administering a mini-cog test during the admission process for all patients, within reason. I’m pleased to say this has put many patients on the right track to being properly diagnosed.
Education is, without a doubt, the most important facet of this program. Being welcomed into that hospital to instruct the staff on the proper ways of caring for a dementia patient was a huge step in the right direction of making sure dementia patients are safe in our hospitals.
During the training seminars, one of the first things I preached was the importance of verifying the medical history of any patient with dementia. Any and all medical questions answered by the patient at risk for cognitive disabilities must be verified with this patient’s family or advocate. Without this being incorporated the risk of drastic medical mistakes increases, and some even could result in death.
It is crucial to realize that one of the symptoms of dementia is poor decision making. Granted these folks are adults, but they are adults who have dementia and are in an environment that has enhanced their confusion.
It is also important to understand that these wristbands only stand for the patient being at risk of cognitive impairment. They do not stand for a diagnosis, which is important to state when it comes to our HIPAA laws. They are similar to the yellow wristbands placed on patients who are at risk of falling. They are meant to alert the staff to take precautionary measures.
Our main goal is to assure that all patients with dementia related diseases will experience a calm and safe stay during time spent in a hospital.
We recently have put a team of powerful advocates in place here in the Tampa Bay area. They will reach out to all of our local hospitals. This team is energized by members from the Florida Gulf Coast Alzheimer’s Association, Arden Courts, Bayshore Home Care, Sun Towers and me. We now have teams being built in Tennessee, New York, Indiana and Rhode Island.
Our goal here is to have the Tampa Bay area become the first “hospital dementia-friendly community” in the country!
For a decade, Gary Joseph LeBlanc was the primary caregiver of his father, after his father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. He can be reached at [email protected]. His newly released book “Managing Alzheimer’s and Dementia Behaviors,” and his other books “While I Still Can” and an expanded edition of “Staying Afloat in a Sea of Forgetfulness,” can be found at www.commonsensecaregiving.com.
