Interesting Observation – Human Nature/Human Nurture.
All the communities in our organization have adopted the “Gems” as the standard to help meet resident needs as we change to a person-centered care culture from the routine care model. As the Teepa Snow Certified person in the building it is my responsibility to make staff aware of how to make best use of the Gems.
Besides having the poster in our break room and books matching gems to activities, at All Staff training I often have the staff complete the exercise of not only matching three or more residents to Gems but they also have to justify their choice by explaining the traits they have observed in the resident.
During these exercises an interesting perception has come to light. Staff who have a particular attachment to an individual resident, without exception, scored their resident higher than any other staff member did on the Gem Scale.
This was brought to my attention when one of my staff, who identified a resident she has a strong connection with, and whom everyone else recognized as an amber/ruby, described him as a diamond with occasional emerald and would not be persuaded otherwise. All other residents in the quiz she identified correctly.
In one of our programs, members of our staff make special connections with individual residents. When I started to correlate the results I found without exception those who had a 1:1 connection with a specific resident scored that resident higher than their peers.
Then I had an ‘Ah Ah’ moment, I had been guilty of that too. When I was doing my video to complete my Engagement Leader Certification I chose a resident that I had known from my first day and had a special connection with. A lady who had transitioned from Assisted Living to Memory Care due to what I considered MCI with the early stages of Lewy Bodies. I identified her as Diamond with occasional Emerald.
After watching the video of the two of us engaging in an activity, my mentor Leslie asked me to explain my conclusion. I explained that I felt her body was letting her down more than her memory. That she still had good cognition with a little confusion and that she knew her confusion and limitations and it frustrated her. We could still hold a conversation, she helped with the activity by choosing colors for the project and could discuss people in the pictures that we were going to put into her memory box etc. However, without realizing it until it was pointed out to me, I had not let her do all the tasks, instead of prompting her with the project I did some of the more intricate motor tasks and Leslie questioned me on that. When I thought about why, I realized it was because I did not want her to fail but as Leslie explained I did not give her the opportunity to succeed either.
Leslie agreed that there were times when she showed some Diamond but that to her she appeared to be much more Emerald/Amber which surprised me. Leslie described failings in her abilities to communicate that I had not acknowledged until they were pointed out to me. I compensated with my knowledge of her personality and her body language when it came to our interaction, understanding what she was trying to convey from our history together, even though she did not have the language.
My question now is why did all of these staff members, including myself, fall into the same trap with these particular residents? Is it because the culture has changed and we are trained to look for what the residents can still do rather than what they have lost? When we have a strong connection with a resident do we automatically look for the positive rather than the negative? Is it because when we develop a connection/affection/bond with a resident we become like the parent who puts their child on a pedestal? More importantly are we doing our resident a disservice by expecting more from them than they are able to give, or instead helping them by looking to the positive? Are we in fact setting them up for failure or are we helping them maintain?
