Nothing gives us greater joy than seeing a client making changes for the better, and them recognising their own achievements and happiness.
It’s a carefully crafted solution, matching the right care giver with our clients. We recently saw one of our alcohol-dependent clients come from despair and low self-esteem to feeling positive and respectful of herself and others because she established a string relationship with her carer.
When we first began caring for our client, she was non-compliant, self-neglecting with her care plan needs and with some Carers. She would ignore our assessment of her needs and her restricted alcohol regimes and medical guidance. Most worryingly, she had neglected herself both nutritionally and in terms of personal hygiene.
Care matching
Recently two new Carers joined our company who we could see from the outset, had a character that we felt our client would appreciate and get on well with. She “took a shine” to the new Carers and literally started to engage with them from the outset. As a result, she now showers regularly, wears clean clothes after each shower, self-limits her alcohol consumption so that she is alert when Carers visit, and is compliant with healthy meal choices, eating regularly and maintaining her weight.
A recipe of loyalty and respect
Our Carer showed respect for our client from the outset, treating her as any other client and not being judgmental regarding her history and alcoholism. She treated her as an equal and valued her input into their conversations and decision making for her care needs. She took time to get to know our client and showed interest in her past life and work/travels, encouraging her to reminisce positively. She realised that in the past our client had led an interesting life and was used to travelling, going to nice places and had a career, with this in mind she started to treat her to pamper days, doing her hair and nails and now our client loves this and takes more pride in herself and her appearance.
Self-care
The Carer has helped our client to realise that she does not need to depend on so much alcohol and that if she has a good breakfast and other meals throughout the days, cares for herself hygienically and feels better about herself that she can reduce her need to drink so much each day. Our client now looks forward to freshly prepared meals that she has assisted to make each day. In fact, she has said that she cannot wait until Covid restrictions have been lifted so that she can be taken out socially more!
Previously our client would not have wanted to go out much due to her poor self-respect and low self-esteem, which the carer has worked hard with her to improve. We are delighted to be able to see such a transformation in our client, to see her recognising a quality of life to live for.