Routines of “sitting” and “enjoying ourselves” in the common room of a dementia unit

Abstract

Routinized activities create security for persons with dementia (PWDs) and help care staff manage everyday tasks related to personal care and mealtimes, but care staff also assist PWDs with constructing routines during their leisure time. This paper investigates how a PWD negotiates how to use the common room in a dementia ward as a social space with co-present staff members, other residents and a visiting researcher. Based on ethnographic observations and video recordings and using conversation analytical methodology, the paper presents sequential analyses that indicate that the PWD treats care staff as being in charge of the social organization of common room, and it shows how the PWD is routinely guided to sit calmly, minding his own business. Further, analyses show that the PWD relies on ritualized action and routine activities when managing co-presence and interaction with the visiting researcher in the room, but they also show that a previous joint activity is used by the PWD to take initiative and thereby re-establish a joint social activity. Hence, we argue that routine and ritual both provide constraints but also resources for PWDs to actively co-co-create new shared activities with co-present others.

Social interactions of persons with dementia living in special care units in long-term care: A mixed-methods systematic review

“…Staff members are mainly responsible for initiating interactions and creating opportunities for resident-to-resident interactions. Resident’s interpretation of the social framework of staff members being in charge of the common room and of themselves being expected to sit calmly and minding their own business reinforces this notion ( Andersen et al., 2019 ). Subsequently, residents’ social interactions depend mostly on staff members.…”

The print newspaper as an interactional affordance in an interaction with a person with dementia

“…In this data, it is Jacob who picks out a newspaper which is already available on the coffee table. Jacob was not prompted to pick it up, and the participants had not talked about it just prior to his action; however, visible objects were often turned into topics for conversation and will also be topicalised in this paper (for further examples, see Andersen et al (2018), in which social situations are analysed where Jacob starts a conversation about Easter bunnies on the table and where, by the way, another person with dementia has a magazine in her hand and seems to verbalise her observations while browsing in it, using remaining linguistic resources, as well as Andersen et al (2019), which, among other things, concerns how colouring in a colouring book is constructed as a recurrent social activity between Jacob and a visiting researcher). Whereas research on the use of communication aids in interactions with people with dementia suggests that instruction and practice is needed, Jacob handles the newspaper in a way that indicates that he already knows how it should be used.…”

Exploring the Experiences of Times Without Care and Encounters in Persons With Dementia in the Swiss and German Nursing Home and Domiciliary Care Settings: Protocol for an Ethnographic Multimethods Study (Preprint)

“…However, they usually do not organize their own daily routines -they see nurses as responsible for the social organization of a living unit [38]. In community rooms, they try to fulfill the shared expectation of sitting still and taking care of their own things [39]. On the other hand, nurses' practices seem to be directed at prompting persons with dementia to sit as still as possible and "mind their own business" [39,40].…”

“…In community rooms, they try to fulfill the shared expectation of sitting still and taking care of their own things [39]. On the other hand, nurses' practices seem to be directed at prompting persons with dementia to sit as still as possible and "mind their own business" [39,40]. Other reasons for the low level of activity and involvement may be physical impairments, obstructive architecture (e.g., large, noisy community rooms) and unfavorable design of the living environment.…”