Common Complaints in a Nursing Home and how to take care of them

When a nursing home is at full capacity and there is not enough staff available, it can be easy for residents to feel like their needs are being neglected and not enough attention is being given to them. Residents complain all the time about other residents, the food, laundry not being done, and no one coming to their aid when they need it. Fortunately these problems can be easily solved in order to make yours and your loved ones lives in a nursing home much more comfortable.

One of the main complaints is that there are no nurses available when the call bell is rung. Some units operate where if the call bell goes off and there aren’t enough nurses available, the charge nurse will ask an aide to check on the patient. This leads to a unit full of residents who are confident their needs will be addressed in a timely fashion but this isn’t always the case. One way to make sure nurses are on top of checking in with their patients is to provide more staff training in order to prioritize the issue. If staff training is not provided on the issue then each worker may have to take it upon themselves to make their own personal policy in order to ensure that all residents are getting the care they need. Another common complaint is that the food is not good or the same thing keeps being served every week. There’s a huge opportunity for improvement in the quality, number of choices, and presentation of food in nursing homes, and to positively affect resident satisfaction with meals. A good start is to increase the food rotation schedule to at least a 4 week rotation. Residents also appreciate having food that’s supposed to be hot be hot and food that’s supposed to be cold be cold. Another option is to provide a restaurant-style dining services where Residents will have a choice on the food they want to eat. Some facilities stimulate appetites by filling the dining rooms with the aroma of fresh baked bread.

The patient lift is something else residents often complain about. The patient lift is a machine used to transfer residents from their bed to their wheelchair and back. Most residents hate using them because of the frightening feeling of losing control and being suspended in the air helpless. There also seems to be a lack of training at most facilities which makes the procedure more alarming and uncomfortable than it needs to be. A professional approach by staff members with a focus on increasing confidence in the transfer procedure can reassure anxious residents. Some techniques can also be used to help reduce anxiety such as letting residents know what’s about to occur at each step of the process, engaging in dialogue with residents so they know the focus is on them, and listening to feedback about how they’re feeling and responding to any of their concerns. Probably the biggest complaint in nursing homes is of disturbances at night when residents are trying to sleep. Residents often complain about TVs being too loud, agitated neighbors, and loud conversations between workers. One way to solve the TV complaint is to implement a TV curfew and require residents who stay up late to use headphones past the curfew. You can encourage nightshift staff to report sleeplessness so sleep/wake cycle disturbances can be reversed and medications adjusted if necessary. You can also address ways in which the nightshift staff can communicate with each other to avoid disturbing sleeping residents as part of in-services training. Good sleep hygiene on a unit-wide basis is good for customer services that can benefit the physical and mental health of residents while reducing irritability, improving memory, and promoting healing.

One other common complaint from residents is that there is no one at the facility to talk to. The false impression that they are alone is based on the prejudices of most people outside the nursing home who believe that everyone inside is confused or too ill to carry on a conversation and the belief that they’re unique, when in fact there are many people just as unique as them inside the nursing home. Nursing home old-timers tend to leave their units to attend activities while newbies try sitting in the hall or the day rooms where the more confused residents hang out. Because most residents are visibly physically disabled, people often incorrectly assume everyone is disabled. Some techniques for staff members to use to help residents connect more can include introducing new residents to others who have common interest, encouraging residents to attend more activities rather than spending all day in their rooms alone, recognizing strengths and sharing them with others in the community, and helping residents establish a welcome committee.