I am doing my community clinical at CNR.  CNR is a senior day center.  CNR offers daily activities for the elderly.  Before I got to interact with my patient, my professor showed us a video on dementia   This week in my community clinical I had my first interaction with my patient.

My patient arrived late. While I was awaiting the arrival of my patient, I was assisting the staff in taking orders for the patients’ breakfast, as well as interacting with patients.  The staff wrote down the patients’ orders on a list that had all the patients’ names.  I noticed a patterned with the patients I interacted with.  For some reason a lot of the women loved to touch my sweater. One lady was continuously touching my sweater and arm, while she was laughing. She was unable to say coherent words. The only phrase she was able to say was, “I love you”. I think that this woman was in the later stages of dementia.  Her whole vocabulary was almost depleted and she was unable to regulate her emotions, which was shown with her inappropriate laughter.  When I went to a different table another lady kept touching my sweater and was kissing my arm. She gave me her glove to touch.  When I tired to leave the table, she held onto my arm. I just reassured her that I would come back to see her lady.   After I said that, she felt comfortable letting me go.  I did not get to interact with my patient much because she arrived right before I had to leave.