Talk to people about their self care
In the last lesson we learned that people of all ages can have difficulty with self care, for different reasons.
Question
Which of the skills below are particularly helpful to manage self care activities?
Correct answers are:
- Mobility
- Balance
- Strength
- Coordination
- Bowel or bladder control
- Planning
- Remembering
Incorrect answers are:
- Swimming
- Reading
- Singing
It is not always obvious that a person is having difficulty with self care. Health care workers often need to take the lead and ask people how they manage their self care.
If you have not already, download these illustrations of people using self care assistive products.
You can use these illustrations to help people think about how self care could be useful for them.
If this tool is useful, you may want to print and laminate it.
Below are three questions to help you talk to someone about self care.
Before you start, always ask if the person is happy to talk about their self care with you. Also ask if they prefer to talk to another person; and also whether they would like their family members or carers to be part of the conversation.
1. Do you have any difficulty with self care?
Give some examples of self care activities such as washing oneself, going to the toilet, dressing and eating.
2. If yes, can you describe the problem?
Find out more details about the self care activity or activities they are having difficulty with.
Ask which steps in the activity are difficult, why this is difficult, and what they have tried so far to make it easier.
Have you tried using assistive products and did that help?
3. Do you think assistive products could help?
It may be helpful to show or explain some examples of assistive products and how they can help.
Activity
Read through the story of David, who lives with his wife Leitengi. Then answer the questions below about what self care assistive products may help him.
David is an older, frail man. He was having difficulty walking and was assessed for and provided with a walking frame.
At his follow up appointment, you ask him if you can talk to him about how he is managing his self care. David is happy to talk to you about this with his wife.
You ask: Do you have any difficulty with self care, such as bathing, dressing, going to the toilet or eating?
David says: Yes, he has some problems with bathing, dressing, and going to the toilet. He has no problem with eating.
You ask: Can you describe what is difficult for each of these activities, and how you are managing now?
David and his wife explain:
- Going to the toilet is difficult. When David needs to go, he cannot get to the toilet fast enough because he walks slowly, even with his walking frame.
- He finds it hard to sit down and stand up from the toilet seat. Sometimes he has an accident. They have had to do a lot of extra clothes washing, and David is embarrassed.
- Showering is difficult. David cannot stand for long in the shower, and is worried that he may fall.
- David sits down on the edge of his bed to dress, because he finds it hard to balance. He doesn’t feel safe to lean forward to put on socks and shoes. Dressing takes a lot of time.
- David is managing with Leitengi’s help. She helps him get to the toilet, and to shower and dress. She is finding it very tiring.
- Before receiving the walking frame, David has not used any assistive products.
Do you think David could benefit from self care assistive products?
Yes, David could benefit from certain self care assistive products.
If David could benefit from self care products, which of the self care assistive products from the list below may be helpful?
Yes
David could benefit from a toilet chair, which would be easier for him to sit down and stand up from.
The toilet chair could be placed in a location closer to where David usually spends his time, so that he can get there more easily.
No
David is not using a wheelchair and so is not likely to need a pressure relief cushion.
Yes
David could benefit from a shower chair to sit on while showering.
Yes
These items could help David to dress himself.
Yes
David may find absorbent products useful if he is worried about not reaching the toilet in time when he is away from home.
No
David is not having trouble eating. He does not need modified cutlery.
From the activity above, you can see that talking with David about his self care helped highlight the difficulties he was having.
It was also possible to identify some assistive products that may help.
However, talking about self care can be difficult for some people.
Discussion
Discuss in a group or post in the discussion forum what you can do to make talking about self care easier.
Draw on experiences you may have had of discussing self care with a family member or in your role as a service provider. Was it easy or difficult? What did you do to help the conversation?
What can you / your group add to the suggestions below?
- Offer a private space to talk about self care
- Give people the opportunity to talk with a person of same gender
- Ask if the person would like a family member or carer to be with them
- Practice talking about self care with your family and colleague, so that you are comfortable with the topic
- Use words that are familiar to the person.
Urine and faeces
When we talk to people about continence, it can help to use words that everyone is comfortable with.
The right words will vary, depending on people’s country, culture and often age.
Discussion
Discuss in a group or reflect to yourself the words you would use to talk about urine and faeces with the following people. Are the terms different?
- A child
- Your mother
- An elderly neighbour
- A close friend.