Monday, October 19, 2020

Working with the elderly

 Working with elderly people can be emotionally difficult.  One of our ladies, a widow, was crying because the husband she loved so much had left her.  How do you comfort her?  By saying that he was dead?  And now she is concerned about her elderly dog dying too.  She is such a dear, sweet person, but it is so cruel when her mind keeps tormenting her. I could cry about it myself. 

Another lady cries for her only child who lives in America.  With Covid restrictions, it is very unlikely that he will be able to come. It breaks him up when he phones her and she cries.  He doesn't know that she isn't always like that, that she can giggle and laugh only minutes after ending the phone call. 

All of our elderly clients were deeply disturbed and unsettled as they watched the constant bad news in the early days of the pandemic. It was only when we got them to change channel and not watch the constant stream of bad news that they began to calm down.  Now that they are watching farming, garden and veterinary programs they are much happier. 

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