Knowing residents makes for easier supportive measures intervention
Friday November 16, 2007 -- Deron Hamel
Knowing residents on a personal level is an important part of supportive measures, says Eunice Howe.

When you know a resident’s abilities and personalities, it is easier to intervene with supportive measures when needed.

Howe, supportive measures specialist at Frost Manor, cites an example of one resident at the Lindsay long-term care home who has benefited from paperwork projects given to her by Howe.

These projects consist of exercises focused on spelling, letters and matching pictures with words, as well as colouring exercises. Howe finds these projects on the Internet and prints them off for the resident.

Knowing the resident well enough to realize she’ll lose interest and become agitated if a project is difficult, Howe always makes sure to select projects which are easy for the resident to do.

“When I create programs, I try to make them so they’re fail-proof,” Howe says. “If something doesn’t work out right, I try to tweak it to make it work so there’s no failure.”

Eliminating failure is an important aspect of supportive measures, notes Howe.

The resident works on these projects in her spare time in the evenings. Howe says this supportive measure “has worked out very well.”

“She comes to me and will say, ‘Do you have any papers for me to work on?’ and I always give her four to six,” explains Howe. “It’s something for her to do and it alleviates any behaviours.”

Howe laminates some of these projects so she can erase the surface and reuse them with other residents.

Another resident at the home is often anxious to leave the home.

After arriving at Frost Manor to start her shift recently, Howe noticed by looking at the expression on the resident’s face that she wanted to leave the home. Without even taking off her coat, Howe persuaded the resident to sit down and have coffee with her.

After about 30 minutes of casual conversation with the resident, she had forgotten about wanting to leave the home.

“The whole thing is, you’ve got to know the resident,” says Howe.