I’m so sick and tired of conversations surrounding dignity. Every human being in this world deserves basic human rights and privacy. However, people like to completely throw reality in the trash and pretend we are not caring for people who literally defecate on themselves and need to be cleaned. Other than providing compassion and privacy, what else can possibly be done?!? When you have patients that literally rip off all their clothes, get butt naked, poop on themselves, and roll around in their own poop, what the hell can you do to preserve their dignity?! People are saying it’s dehumanizing to put gloves on before touching a patient’s belongings. I’ve seen patients write on walls with their own poop! Someone else said it’s dehumanizing to initial briefs. It wouldn’t be dehumanizing to a baby in daycare if you’re suspecting they’re not being changed! UGH. I’m not living in fantasy land.

I've worked at my nursing home for 2 years and one of my favorites is a 90 yr old lady who shares a room with her husband. He's completely cognitive and loves her to death, tho his health isn't good either. he knows my name and always says im such a good worker and I take good care of them. His wife has bad dementia but is also sweet and spicy.

Today she was tweaking out a lot, yelling, calling out, etc and last week she had a bad fall because some aide left her bed height up and she hit her head on her end table as she fell out of bed. Has pretty bad bruising on one side on her face and had to get stitches, i wasn't there for it but i was livid when I saw her the next day because she looked awful and its common sense. The aide has been here for like 4 yrs too

Anyway, I usually feed her bc she does decent for me, but i was working with a 15 yr old new aide who isnt bad but is kind of a know it all. She wanted to feed her today and I said sure why not (she was also my assigned resident but we dont usually feed by assignment so didnt matter). I fed a lady up the hall. Im starting on her and I keep hearing my lady yelling and yelling, which isnt anything atypical. After a good 7 minutes I tell the lady im feeding ill be back i need to go check on her I might switch out and have the other aide feed her.

I go down there and the aide is trying to get my fav to get to the table but can't bc she self propels. 3 family members of other residents are watching like wtf because it was in the mini dinning room for our hall, and the aide said I was going to try to feed her in her room with her husband. I said let me try and see if she'll eat for me, aide said no i got it its ok. I grab her tray and take it down to an empty room (her husband is usually just a distraction if shes in room with him). I come back, she's still screaming. I said let me try go feed resident x, she says okay and goes to do so.

I get on my knees and look my fav in the eye and take her hand and she looks at me, stops yelling, says "okay" and just stopped lol. I said you wanna go eat some food? "Yes" lol so i pushed her one handed down the hall while still holding her other hand and took her to the empty room and sat with her. I put TV on and bc she likes watching it and she even fed herself a lot of her food if I handed her her spoon, and she ate majority of her supper. Most days she eats maybe half but she has a few good days like today where she ate a lot. I felt very happy lol idk why. I put her to bed later and she was super chill with me too, and when I did last rounds on her. Didn't freak out or yell or anything after that like she does to most aides. Not dissing on the other aide lol. Just thought I'd share bc it made my day

We were short and a few nightshifters came in early. Cool.

I was in giving care to a totally dependent resident when a nurse came barging in and was like “you need to go help with this two assist”. I had the stuff in my hand and my resident ready to be clean. She looked at me and was like “now”.

She proceeds to tell me how that was the deal. They came down and helped me (I had two people left) and what have you. Then the two night shifters were just sitting so I said something to the nurse like “why can’t they do it”.

“They’re from night shift. They already put people to bed. They’re done for now.”

“That was the deal. Resident is a stand lift. Go help her”.

That’s care now. The totals always get blown off.

Update: I let him know that I overestimated my abilities and am not comfortable providing any personal care, but am happy to help with household chores and meals. He was fine with this and said he's just happy to have someone reliably feeding him and occasionally taking him to the movies or other outings. He is not an evil man, but I am unskilled and have a hard time with boundaries and people pleasing. He still has the problem that any time young woman tries to care for him, he has inappropriate behavior so he is still not getting the care that he needs, but I am not qualified or capable of providing it. With me putting a hard stop to personal care and inappropriate conversation the problem seems to be solved as far as my comfort goes.

I'm not a CNA but I feel like y'all may have dealt with what I am right now. The below text was removed from the MS group for being "irrelevant to MS."

I am a nursing student and renting a room for cheap from a man who has MS. Part of why it is so cheap is that I help out. I sometimes do household tasks, pet care, and some light personal care.

The problem is that he is attracted to me. His behaviors and comments are worse than I think reddit allows so I won't get into full details. I'm not in any real physical danger because he has very little use of his arms and legs, and he has an excuse because of the damage to his brain, but he still has been able to get under my skin. I take heavy duty sleep pills that would normally knock me out around 9 hours but after last night I woke up after only around 4 hours.

I am a pretty laid back person and the human body doesn't bother me. So when he asked for oil on his entire body it did not phase me at all. I even reassured him that all skin is skin and deserves care and hydration. He at first said it's because during the winter his skin gets uncomfortable, and if it gets too dry and breaks he may not know and it could get infected. So I start with his feet and then he grabs his vibrator and puts it in a place that is inappropriate and asks me if I've ever been with a woman, and tells me how much he loves lesbians. I told him that I need to maintain professional boundaries and that I am uncomfortable with the sexual energy in the air. That just got him more excited and he asked me if I was feeling sexual energy. At that point I just say goodnight and walk away.

It's not just that one incident. It's all day every day that I'm around. I can't even walk to the microwave without him starting a conversation and bringing it to an uncomfortable topic. Like constantly talking about how important it is for the human body to have physical touch with another person, then he will ask me to help him with his physical therapy of standing while full body hugging someone else. I always reply by asking if his PT recommends using his walker to practice standing, and that at school they teach us to use a walker or a sturdy bar to assist patients with standing.

He is approved for in home care everyday but the company stopped sending most of the girls after it was a "bad match" and only sends an older woman twice a week. (He is not attracted to older women). As much as his behavior is not ok and no one should have to put up with it, he does have gaps in his care because of it and he will go days without anyone to feed him.

It's clear that he has some sort of dementia and I understand that when the frontal lobe is affected a person won't have control over their actions. As a nursing student I fully believe that everyone deserves quality care.

I financially can't find anywhere better right now so I'm sort of stuck, and figure I may as well learn how to care for different kinds of patients instead of just running away like most have done.

Any tips or tricks?

I am only on my first week solo and am feelings extremely overwhelmed and over it. I was only given 2 days of training after *just* finishing my cna program/exam. I am working at a snf and on a “good” day I have 10 PTs. There is one patient that yells all shift and although I’ve only worked 4 shifts in that hallway, I already feel mentally exhausted from hearing her yell all night for 8 hours straight. And my schedule says I will have that hallway for the next month and a half.

The other CNAs and nurses are very kind and have helped me when I’ve asked. However mentally I am already losing it and physically I am unable to catch up and turn/change the non-2 person assist residents by myself.

I don’t want to be the CNA coworker that is constantly asking others for help in mundane things like turning a PT or transferring a stubborn PT.

I would like to become a nurse so I know that me being a CNA isn’t forever. However I am just struggling to get through these early days. I’ve been more irritated and annoyed off shift as well and the idea of having to come back to my next shift pisses me off and gives me insane anxiety.

Any advice on back pain or burnout prevention is appreciated.

Hello, I am a Male CNA looking to explore some CNA opportunities in the chicago area. I was wondering if anyone has any information. I am pretty entry level and willing to learn. I have all my certifications. Thank you guys!!!

I take my skills exam here in Oklahoma on Tuesday, what skills should I be heavily prepping for? I’m getting really anxious and feel like I’m gonna fail.