confused patients

My last placement was a gerontology placement where a lot of my patients had dementia and were confused. I found this hard initially as it is important with demented patients to make the exercises very functional so they comply and do them correctly.

One lady I had loved sitting in a chair. So instead of doing ten sit to stands (which she didnt understand the point of) I would set up 2 chairs (10m apart) and get her to walk to the chair and sit down, then she would see another chair 10m away and I'd ask her to go sit on that chair. She didn't remember that we had just sat down on one chair so she would be happy to do this exercise up to 20 times in one session.

Making an exercise functional for the specific patient is very useful in dealing with demented patients I have found. Otherwise if they don't understand what you want from them they are likely to by uncompliant or even aggressive.