(Chocolate biscuits and Garibaldi's!)
I sat down yesterday with such a person, for an initial assessment. It was a busy day, I had been asked to see a number of people across different areas of the hospital. This person found it a little hard to understand why I was there. It seemed like they could not understand why I might be there, wanting to talk, ask questions. Why am I interested? I suppose I could have recorded a view that this person was 'Reluctant to engage' - That gets written a lot about someone with dementia. 'Withdrawn'? Maybe not, maybe it's just they need more of a reason to let you into their private world.
A health care assistant came over to us. 'Sorry to interrupt, but I wondered, would a cup of tea help?' A smile, 'Yes please'. To me 'Would you like one too?'......'No, I've not long.....Actually yes, I would love one - Thank you'. I was going to say no, thinking that I should not appear as if I had time to sit and have tea - This is a busy day after all. Then I realised how showing the person I had the time to be with them for a few minutes more. I wanted to do that.
The tea arrived, with biscuits, custard creams in this case. The person I was with, for that 'assessment' smiled, raised their cup to me in a gesture of 'Cheers'. The person who was not seeming to want to say much spoke a little more, of their loved ones, of home, of 'feeling lost'
This is no revolutionary idea of how to engage a person in conversation about something as important as dementia, or indeed a new theory of 'engagement' with a person with dementia. This is the realisation that this simple few moments of enjoying a cuppa with someone made the connection. It made a reason for sitting together. The conversation, the dialogue even, it felt more worthwhile and valid. In a few minutes of sharing tea and biscuits, the person generously shared their memories, and also a sense of how things actually feel in their own here and now. That's so important if we want to understand how a person we are caring for might be feeling.
Nurses are busy people,and sadly there are still too many horror stories, of relatives going to buy teabags for loved ones, of cups of tea left to turn cold at the end of the bed table of a frail and helpless person. I have heard ward staff telling people to 'Wait until the trolley comes, its not time for tea yet'.
So here it is, a simple ask: Calling all nurses.....Make a pledge to spend five minutes to have a cup of tea with someone you are caring for (You could go all out and have a biscuit!). Ask them how they are, share an interaction in those few precious minutes. Yes, we are all busy, very busy, but this is just an ask for five minutes of time with a person who might just really appreciate it.
It wasn't until I arrived home last night, reflecting on the events of the day, I realised this 'little moment of humanity' was in fact, largely down to that cup of tea and a custard cream. A nurse responded to a tweet I had posted this morning, and was brave enough to suggest it might also be good for nurses too!! So go on, make your next working day (or night) the shift that you take that five minutes. It would be great to hear how it goes!! Share your tea and biscuit moment, you never know what it might bring you and the people you are caring for.
Just to illustrate the point.......
(Mr Marsters enjoying the tea and biscuit challenge)
