I had to laugh today at work. As most of us know, some elderly people don’ exactly mince their words and they feel that they have earned the right to say exactly what they think. Although this is not always pleasant (A couple of days ago as I was trying to stop an elderly gent throttling himself with the bed remote control which had a long, curly wire attached to it, I was called a ‘stupid bi**h’ as he tried to bite my hand that was trying to release his grip on the remote).

Sometimes it can be funny though. The same man had earlier demanded that me and another nurse that were going to wash him ‘bloody get on with it, instead of just talking about it!’ (We like to inform our patients what is going to happen with them before we launch straight into stripping off their clothes)!

Anyway, today I was back in my usual bay with my ladies. I had gone on my break and when I came back, one of the Dementia Volunteers was playing his guitar and knocking out a few numbers that may be familiar to the patients, such as Buddy Holly, Beatles etc.

Now this chap is pretty old himself, and has a  ‘set’ of about 4 songs which he sings before moving onto the next bay, This is the same routine every week but I love it ,and so do most of the patients…..

Except one lady (she does not have dementia) who wanted him to ‘turn it down’. When told by the Healthcare Assistant that it was not polite to tell him to do that, and that he was giving up his own time to entertain people, she told her,

“well don’t expect me to applaud him!”

The patient had relayed all this to me when I went over to talk to her , and then with a wicked grin she looked up and said,

“Don’t you just hate bloody do-gooders”!