Saturday, June 28, 2008
we did survey today,asking about only a total of 9 residents because many seemed unfriendly and we didn't dare to ask them-yet.
almost all (out of the 9) said the food was bad.
I wonder was the food bad? or because the food was repetitive throughout the whole time that the residents were sick of it?
many residents were also very happy when we talked to them and that was really comforting to know.
staying in the home is not cheap either, at least $1000+++.
majority of the nurses there were from the Philippines and thus, resulted in a break in communication between the residents and the nurses.
most of the time, the nurses ignore the needs of the residents because they don't understand and perhaps, disregard their need for something like a cup of warm water.
while feeding today, a new resident in the 4th level was screaming and refused to eat.
he even spit out the rice the nurse fed him.
in a fit of anger, the nurse kept the food and wheeled the resident back to his room while complaining in Filipino to the other nurses.
sensitive as I am; to pay $1000+++ every month and be treated this way does not seem right to me. perhaps one really need much much (unlimited even) patience to handle the residents there.
or perhaps, just trying to learn a simple "How are you doing today?" in dialects that residents understand would simply suffice.
Communication is an important tool and dialects are fading along with time;
I hope in the future, Singaporeans would realise the importance of dialects not only as a mean to communicate with the older generation, but also the rich culture behind that comes along with learning and saying them.
Melissa
somewhere over the rainbow ,
6:03 AM
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Today is our class CIP and we did it at Orange Valley. Haha..this is one of the visits that i like the most. Firstly, we were briefed by Eathel, then we started our CIP from the 6th floor. Now i know that 6th floor have the most unserious cases. The residents there usually only stay for recovery and are not long term residents. There were not many people there, and since it is our first try, we were still quite shy. But i think our singing was nice..
Next we went to 5th floor. We saw some of the elderly that we are familiar with. I met this new resident and she is really cheerful and keep telling me her name and how nice it is to stay there. It is quite a good feeling to see the elderly smiling and clapping along with us. It feels like we have done something meaningful. Then we went down to 4th floor. I was quite looking forward to this level as we usually interact the most with this level. Isabel and I went to bring the elderly that we always talked to. She was quite keen to come and listen to our singing. But don't know why she looked quite bored after we started singing. I told her to clap along with us, but she refused. We also went to look for Sian Foo Wah, but she was sleeping, so we didn't wake her up. But it will be quite fun if she was listening to us singing, i think she will sing with us and maybe criticise our singing..haha
Here comes the scariest 3rd and 2nd floor. But now i no longer think that the residents here are scary. These 2 levels and for dementia cases. Last week when i first went down to level 3, a lady looked at me and spoke to me something that i couldn't understand. The expression on her eyes was quite scary, so my first impression of level 2 and 3 was not good. However, after singing and talking to them, my impression of them changed. They can be quite nice and cheerful too. On the 2nd floor, there was this uncle that started singing cantonese song like it is his own concert and keep singing non-stop. Eathel told us that he is a dementia case.
After the whole CIP, i think that it is quite a success. We managed to cheer most of the elderly and i think we enjoyed the process too.
-Hui En
somewhere over the rainbow ,
4:46 AM
Saturday, April 26, 2008
We visited Orange Valley nursing home twice this week as we will not be able to go next week due to exams. Yesterday, we focused more on the 4th floor rather than the 5th floor as there were more elderly in the dining area of 4th floor. Although this is my 3rd time visiting the home, I still found it hard to get started to talk to an elderly. It is just a weird feeling when so many elderly are staring at you. I also think that it is my lack of courage to just pick an elderly to start talking.
It was Melissa who started to talk to this old uncle whom I think they talked to before last week. Then me and Isabel went over to say hello and we sat down to talk to him too. He was watching TV when we went over. Fom the way he talks to us and from the description that he gave us of his daily lifestyle, I think he is quite a cheerful elderly. He told us that he wakes up at 5am every morning to bathe(this is the time that all elderly wake up to bathe, which I think is too early). Then he will eat his breakfast and go back to his room to sleep. After that he will come out to eat lunch and wait for the 4.30pm TV program that he likes to watch and he will eat dinner while watching. After the TV show he will go back to sleep again. He says he will wake up at around 8+ pm to eat supper then he will watch the 10pm news. Then he will sleep at 12am. Although this is not a very active lifestyle, I still think that he leads better life than others because he has something to look forward to everyday.
As we talked to the uncle, we also accompany him to watch his favourite TV program. While talking, we realised that he actually talks more than we talk to him. He always tries to keep the conversation going by thinking of new topics to talk to when there is silence between us. I think this is good as it will make him think. Also, he didn’t want to go to sleep after his TV program was over. He told us that he will usually go to sleep. I think that this might be because that he wants to talk to us. He said that life in the nursing home is very boring, there is rarely anyone whom he can talk to. This made me felt quite sad as I can’t imagine life being the same everyday and having no friends to talk to me.
The conversation with this uncle also let me learnt something and that is not to underestimate the elderly. He asked us if we live very far away, so we told him where we live. When it was my turn to say, I told him that I stay near Clementi when I actually stay in Dover. I didn’t want to say Dover because I thought he won’t know where it is and so I just said Clementi. Then he asked me I stay in Clementi Avenue what, and I couldn’t answer, so I had to tell him that I stay in Dover. And he actually knows where Dover is and he told us about that area. I really felt bad for telling him a lie and thinking that he can’t understand. This tells me that elderly can have a lot of knowledge that we do not know and we should not think that what they know is limited.
Today, which is the second time this week that we are visiting, I still have the difficulty of starting a conversation with someone. I really don’t like the part when we have to find someone to talk to. I hope that as time goes by, we will be able to start a conversation immediately. This time we talked to an elderly lady. Actually we were looking for the lady who sleeps next to her. But that lady wasn’t there, so we talked to her instead.
This lady is called 曾秀琴. She told us that she feels useless as an elderly. She said that she cannot do a lot of things by herself. All that I can tell her is that everyone will grow old one day and she shouldn’t think like that. However, what I said does not seem very comforting. Instead, she comforted herself by telling us that her condition is much better than those around her. She pointed out to us the elderly in the room that cannot get down the bed and also undergo tube feeding. She said that they have to depend everything on the nurses, and she is luckier because she can still move around herself and wash her own clothes. She also pointed out to us that an elderly lady in her room is very violent and fierce. She showed us the bruises on her hand and said that those were inflicted by that violent elderly. A nurse near the vicinity told us that the elderly she is talking about always beat people and uses a lot of strength. I really felt sorry for
For her, we found out that her lifestyle is rather boring. She only likes to go out to the dining area when it is meal time. We wanted to bring her out earlier, but she insisted that she wants to wait until 11am before she goes out. We asked her if she has any friends in the nursing home and she told us no. She said that it is very hard to communicate as some of them speak a different dialect as her. I think most of the elderly there likes to keep to themselves and I seldom see them talking to each other. I saw some photos on the board above her bed. Then she started telling us which one is her son and daughter and her grandchildren. We asked her if her family brings her out to walk when they visit her and she said no. She told us that she cannot stand crowded place. She will get a headache and feel dizzy when she goes to crowded places. I think this is not a very good thing. Not being able to mix in the crowd means that she can only keep to herself and this isn’t very good for her health.
During lunch time, I fed an elderly lady. I don’t know if she can talk because she didn’t reply me whenever I asked her something. As compared to the experience I had during hospital attachment, I felt that feeding the elderly here is easier than feeding the patients in hospital. They will open their mouth for you to find and they swallow quite easily. The patients that I fed in the hospitals refuse to open their mouths and they always keep the chewed food in their mouth. However, I think my feeding skills still needs to be improved. One of the nurses came over and said that she will take over me to feed. I think I fed the elderly too slowly and each spoon was too small. After their lunch, we left.
Hui En
somewhere over the rainbow ,
5:30 AM
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Melissa
we went to the nursinghome for the third time last saturday.
been thinking alot lately.
on the 2nd visit, which was actually my first official visit.
When I arrived, I was afraid and feeling lost as I didn't know where or how to start.
The residents there stared at us and I smiled back but deep down, I wondered how should I start the day.
Talked to two residents that day; a Caucasian lady and a Cantonese lady.
I realised the importance of dialects and apart from learning it so as to communicate to the residents, dialects are also what makes Singapore special.
The Cantonese lady whom HuiEn and I spoke to was really friendly and humourous.
We wanted to share current affairs with her but we could see that the news does not really interest her.
on my 3rd visit, I felt the same fear again.
I don't how to start, or when and went to help organise the residents' cupboards.
We went later on the 3rd visit, at around 10am because during our 2nd visit, we went at 9am and there was nothing much for us to do.
but was that really the case?
'Nothing' in the context of not wanting to do or 'nothing' literally?
We're heading down again this friday and I made a promise to speak to them;at least get rid of that nonsensical fear of mine.
I also fed a lady in a wheelchair and although she could not speak, I continued talking to her because I know she's listening.
She nods her head occasionally which made me really happy.
The last two visits made me want to learn more types of dialect and also, perhaps how to console others?
Whenever I asked,"在这里你开心吗?会闷吗?"
I always hear the same replies,"闷, 当然闷啦!每天在这里一天过一天咯,相死又不敢死,只好等死神来接我咯......"
sad and lost because I don't how what to say to rid them of these thoughts
I smiled and always say "你不能这样想的."
then, a reply which left me stumped.
"那我该怎么想?"
frankly, I don't know either.
if I were them, I would have the same thoughts as well but it just don't seem right.
life is short and we must therefore enjoy it.
might as well live happily instead of living the days without a care.
also, on my 3rd visit, an old lady was in the lift refusing to come out even when her physiotherapist told her to do so.
she insisted that "her grandmother was on the 3rd floor" and she wanted to go to the 3rd floor.
the lift was packed at that time and many in the lift colluded with the physiotherapist and lied that "her grandmother is her,on the 1st floor".
when the lady still refused to budge, everyone in the lift,including me, walked out so as to convince her that her grandmother was indeed there (which was an utter lie).
she believed us and left with the physiotherapist, while the rest of us went back into the lift.
mummurs and sighs of "老人就是这样麻烦的..." filled the lift, along with disapprovals.
but is it true?
that 老人真的是这样吗?
perhaps lying is the only way to convince the old lady to go physiotherapy but is that considered a 'burden'?
should it be considered or view in that way in the first place?
I felt really guilty, conspiring with the people in the lift.
The old lady deserved to be treated with respect and should not be viewed as a burden.
Mayhap coaxing her for a few minutes and it would work?
Lying to her, in my opinion, was just an excuse to hurry her off to her physiotherapy so that the lift can operate again.
but the residents and all old folks should not be treated in this way−right?
somewhere over the rainbow ,
4:44 AM
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Our group went to orange valley nursing home. 3 of us for the second time and the first time as a whole group. Even though it was only our first time there, we found ourselves lost and wandering around despite being briefed about what to do last week when etheal entrusted some tasks to us. Only now do I realise the true meaning of having no one to give you advice when you need it, such as what we experienced yesterday.
When we reached Orange Valley, we procedded straight to the 5th storey with our newspaper article in hand, all prepared to share with the elderly our opinions and views on that particular topic that we have chosen. However, upon seeing the elderly at the dining area, I felt like backing out right away as the elderly were just staring at us blankly and we did not know where to start from or who to start with. However, we could not always stand there and wait for someone to introduce us as etheal was not around and we did not see any nurses around. Hence, each of us just went up to the elderly that we had been introduced briefly to during our first visit.
For me, the first elderly that I spoke to was Mr Richard Ma. From the description that we heard from etheal, he is a "handsome" old man who speaks fluently in chinese. No doubt about his fluency as even though Richard had slurred speech, his thoughts were coherant and he was eager to share his views about the diminishing of the olympic torch in Paris. For a fact, Richard is 98 years old this year. Even though he is old, he does not show it at all as he was reading the newspaper when we reached there. Therefore, it was quite simple for me to communicate with Richard as he was the one doing the talking most of the time. However, even though I managed to successfully share my article with Richard, it was not easy to find another elderly to share my article with as some of them were watching television and one of the elderly even thought that we wanted to spread religion. For this, I guess my mistake was that I began with asking them what they thought about the tibet-china situation going on now, with led them to thinking that I supported one side or another.
After talking to Richard, there was another elderly that lynette and I talked to. He is Mr Lee and he suffers from mild dementia. As such, he keeps repeating some sentences and even the nurses often have to ask him questions such as "how many children he has" etc. Mr Lee likes to emphasis that he is at ease at then nursing home as he is well-taken of there. THerefore, I realise that the elderly at the nursing home are there not because there is no one that wants to take care of them but more oftenly, their family members are too busy to look after them and it is best for them to be under the care of the nurses and doctors at the nursing home. Even though I did not share my newspaper article with Mr Lee, a lesson that I gathered from our conversation was that "A-levels are important" as the education system in singapore is now different. Mr Lee is only 80 year old this year.
THe last thing we did there was to give lunch to the elderly which was about 11.30a.m. However, most of the elderly were able to eat by themselves so we did not have to help them. As such, our group left about 12 after we had made sure that each elderly had their portion of lunch.
After this visit, I realised that it is not easy to communicate with the elderly as most of them spoke dialects. As such, only HuiEn and Melissa were able to communicate with one of the grandma who spoke Cantonese and Yimin could talk to one who spoke Hokkien. Furthermore, I decided that I shall look for articlest that do not involve religion or family matters so as not to let the elderly think that we are spreading religion.
In conclusion, this visit was a memorable one as there were first tries - in making beds- as well as some memorable events that happened.
Isabel
somewhere over the rainbow ,
5:57 AM
This is our second time visiting Orange Valley nursing home. Eathel is not here to guide us today, so we had to do things on our own. Overall, the feeling is not bad, I quite like to talk to the elderly, and we can help to bring them closer to the outside world by sharing with them the latest news.
When we first reached the 5th floor, we saw some elderly sitting in the dining area. It was awkward to see them staring at you. I felt lost as I do not know which elderly I should approach. I chose an elderly woman to talk to. As I don not know what language she speaks, I tried to talk to her in mandarin. However, she responded to my questions by saying “ahh”. Then I didn’t know what to do until she said “I don’t know what you are talking about” in Hokkien. So I started talking to her in Hokkien. I tried to ask her if she could read the article to me, but she said she can’t see properly and cannot read. As I couldn’t really speak Hokkien, I didn’t know what to talk to her about.
Next, we went down to 4th floor. Melissa and I started talking to this elderly lady who speaks Cantonese. Her name is Madam Sian Foo Wah. We started by telling her about recent news, and she shared her opinions with us. She started complaining to us how bad life is in the nursing home. She said that the nurses always delay in helping her. For example, she told the nurse to help her take away her cup; the nurses will say “ok, I will bring it away later”. But after some time, the nurses did not bring her cup away and gave the excuse that they forgot. This might signify that the nurses there are not enough and are too busy to take care of all the elderly. Later, we found out that this elderly actually has suicidal thoughts. She thinks that old people are useless and should die faster. This may be because that she previously suffered from stroke and is paralysed on the right side, hence unable to do many things by herself. This caused her to feel useless as she cannot even do simple things by herself. When we tried to divert her attention by asking her what she does everyday, she told us that she thinks a lot of things everyday. She thinks our life and why elderly are useless, and sometimes she even thinks about how to die. We tried to persuade her that elderly are not useless and everyone will age one day, however, we didn’t really manage to convince her. Though we did not convince her that elderly are not useless, we managed to get her to sing for us. She sang some Cantonese opera songs for us and we really found it nice. She seems much happier after singing that she started giving us riddles to solve. This brought the gap between us closer and she seems more relaxed when talking to us. Before we left her, we told her our names and we will be back next Saturday to chat with her. She looked happy and even said our names are nice. This shows that the interaction really cheered her up. I also felt happy after the chat as I think that we managed to brighten up someone’s day.
After madam Sian, we chatted with an uncle whom Eathel introduced us to last week(but he does not recognize us). This uncle is quite young of about 50+ years old. He is disabled as his left leg had been cut off. He told us that he fell down and got infected with tetanus and it was so bad that his leg needs to be cut off. We informed him about quite a lot of recent news like the Olympics, the escape of Mas Selamat, the shortage of rice and many other news. When he heard that there is a shortage of rice, he told us that the nursing home always give them a big serving of rice and he can’t finish eating them. He shared with us that he feels quite bad that we are wasting food in Singapore while people from other country do not have food to eat. This tells me that elderly actually knows that there are many people who less fortunate than them and they should not waste food. We chat with him for quite some time until their lunch came. He said that he needs to eat his lunch now and we recognized it as him telling us that he does not want to talk anymore. Before we left, he thanked us for chatting with him and sharing with him the news.
Now I think that this service learning project is really meaningful. It will help us to understand more about the elderly and how to communicate with them effectively. At the same time we are also doing a favour to the elderly by making their stay in the nursing home livelier. I really look for to the next visit. However, Lynette and me will not be able to go next Saturday as we have a CCA competition. We will need to wait for 2 weeks before the next visit.
-Hui En
somewhere over the rainbow ,
4:03 AM
Sunday, April 6, 2008
yay! first visit to orange valley nursing home.
really happy that we finally found an organisation that would accept us
Mr Gan says that the hardest part of service learning is to find an organisation which I find was quite an ironic fact.
sounds like no organisation is willing to accept volunteers?
kind of dampens the mood of being a volunteer.
& finally! after countless (not really) of calls, we found it! (:
the person in charge's called Eathel (a really special name) and I have to say, our first visit was really heartwarming.
my first impression of orange valley nursing home (clementi) was:"WOW! so posh."
& it really is.
Eathel brought us (Isabel, HuiEn and me) to the multi-purpose room and she told us about the requirements of a volunteer at the nursing home, as well as the Dos and Don'ts there.
After which she brought us to the 5th and 4th floor of the home and we were introduced to some of the old folks there.
I realize the importance of dialects and although some residents there do know how to speak mandarin and english, most don't.
Unfortunately, although my roots belong to the Hakka, I only know how to speak Cantonese.
It's time to learn and pick up more dialects; a simple "Have you eaten?" in dialects would be a good start.
We spoke to a few of the residents there and they're really friendly.
There was one Caucasian lady who have a mild case of dementia and Eathel told us beforehand that what the lady says may not make sense sometimes.
However, after listening to her for a few minutes, I realise although her speech is slurred and sometimes confusing, the gist of her speech was not lost and I agree with her.
She talked about Mas Selamat's escape and what the government should do but in her case, what the British government should do.
The residents were not as I expected,
& I'm really looking forward to next week's visit
because it's when we really start .
melissa
somewhere over the rainbow ,
3:07 AM
