Alzheimer's Blogging:

In my younger years as a young mother I got a job as a nursing assistant. Back in the day we didn't really go to school for this. We were actually taught at the nursing home where we were taking the job and we had classes there for about 3 or 4 weeks. We would than take a test and than work for a week with a preceptor before we were on our own. One of the things they taught me and I still have imprinted in my brain was how to bath the elderly person. They have something called  bath blankets and we would cover the person with the blanket after undressing them, and than move only the part we were washing to  expose. The blanket was suppose to get wet. We would expose little bits of body at a time and recover before exposing another part of the body.  After cleaning our patient we would get a dry bath blanket and recover them to warm them up. Makes sense doesn't it?  Well today on Alzheimer's Weekly I saw a wonderful video on how to bath the  dementia patient. I want to share it with you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxwJgDg3bYU&feature=player_embedded

It is important to let the person you are bathing have their respect and not to make them feel  uncomfortable while getting bathed.  I hope this video helps you. I fell in love with it when I watched it.

Sincerely,
Marie Fostino
Alzheimer's A Caretakers Journal
Seaboard Press An Imprint of James A Rock Pub., Co.
http://www.mariefostino.com/
http://www.mariefostino.blogspot.com/
http://www.amazon.com/The-Silver-Locket-ebook/dp/B005R6Q3D0/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1321024984&sr=1-1