Impaired or Wrecked

my mind catches on a phrase "wrecked cognition" and lifts it from its context to a place of thinking about how at any time any one of us may be considered as disabled…

Haryette Mullen
Muse & Drudge
In Recyclopedia

odds meeting on a bus
the wrecked cognition

Not much to find at present about "wrecked cognition" but "impairment" is a useful bridge word that led me to a reference to this book now in its second edition Bathing without a battle : personal care of individuals with dementia edited by Ann Louise Barrick et al. and its support material which taps into our collective desire for humane treatment for all…

This battle that often occurs between people with dementia and their caregivers is in most cases preventable. The source of the distress is often the caregiver imposing his or her duty to get someone clean; even when that someone is reluctant or distressed. The caregiver may feel bound by cultural, personal, or supervisory influences to "get the person clean" in some predefined time frame using a set method. Unfortunately, this lack of flexibility can have unpleasant results for both the caregiver and the person they are bathing. However, we believe that bathing can be made into a more humane, gentle experience for persons with dementia.

http://bathingwithoutabattle.unc.edu/about-bathing

Before this useful reminder of cultural imperatives, the battle is described as an escalation of conflict:

Each day hundreds of thousands of people with dementia are bathed against their will. Their overt or nonverbal refusals are often ignored, and they are removed without permission from their beds and wheelchairs and taken to an often cold, impersonal, frightening shower or tub room to be scrubbed down. As a result, the refusals escalate to verbal and physical resistance, and finally to combativeness. The experience is frustrating and dangerous to caregivers, who become the targets of hitting, spitting, biting, and verbal attacks by the person who they are only trying to help. In the fields of nursing and medical research, such behaviors are called "agitated" or "disruptive", and the impact of such behaviors on caregivers is immense. Nursing assistants report being routinely distressed on the job by patient hitting, verbal aggression, and screaming.

I get edgy simply reading this. Coercion: the practice of persuading someone to do something by using force or threats.

And so for day 1763
11.10.2011