Video Clip Monitoring

This morning at 8:00 three of us confirmed that Margaret’s two rashes were not only over, but her skin had returned to normal color and texture. The Arlo video clip camera helped in sorting out cause and effect.

It could not monitor what happened outside our apartment but it has established the wide variation in how services are timed that still permitted the total clearing of the yeast and wetness rashes. The toileting schedule, with adequate time, for the afternoon shift wiped out the wetness rash.

The dryness check schedule in the night shift changed the 1:00 and 3:00 checks to 12:00 and 4:00 after 13 December. However once cure and prevention activities were replaced with the normal routine in memory care the result was a mix of the two schedules with no effect on a final cure, or the return, of the yeast rash.

A generalized dryness check schedule is every two hours except for 10:00 pm and 2:00 am. This fits the compromise between 4-hour sleep periods and not being wet for more than four hours.

Incontinence wear is now stored in memory care one. This saves a 5-10 minute trip, to the old supply room, that Arlo caught glimpses of in the past.

The night shift is assigned to see that an adequate supply is in each apartment. That means enough to carry through a bad day for both pull ups for day use and tabbed briefs for the next night. An adequate supply for the building, we just found out last week, must be at least two weeks without any delivery.

The choice was made to use two different items, rather than one convertible item what is shipped as a pull up but can be converted to a tabbed brief, last spring.

We all learned a lot working together on this project. The current tabbed brief can be formed into a pull up, if you know how. Now the tabbed brief can be more easily put on before going to bed. It has a greater capacity for night than the pull up.

[One day later from several caregivers: How to use the tabbed brief is a matter of skill and assessment of the resident's temperament. Skilled caregivers who know Margaret's behavior appear to do this easily. She stands for them. Others struggle. She must be lifted. The tabbed brief does not always fit properly which gets her nightgown wet. The bed pad saves the bedding.]

The Arlo video clip camera has good security. Nothing needs to be downloaded to my computer to get the timing of dryness checks. All clips are deleted after seven days unless I delete them sooner.

I was going to make an exception if only I were in view until last week, On three days I made a dash to the bath with explosive diarrhea and one session of vomiting all over my bed.

Arlo does have a limitation. It needs the Internet. Most of the time it resets but one time it lost a night because it needed to be reset manually. If something moves; Arlo sees it, from blanket dust particles from dryness checks to the far side of the room. Now to find where the monarch caterpillars hide at night next summer.

[The camera may be useful when residents become training aids, with and without, instructors. Many new hires need to develop the rapport needed to invite a resident to assist them and thus make their duties easier and more satisfying to the resident; turning "I am here to do something to you" into "We are going to do something" in a proper memory care or assisted living time frame.]

[This post was written in one day; today. I hope to add photos later.]