The models of nursing activity in the basic care of demented patients living in institutions

The chief concern of this article is the basic care of demented patients living in institutions. The data for the study were collected by observing basic care situations and interviewing practising nurses. The analysis was based on continuous comparative analysis. Five models of nursing activity were identified: rejective, routinized, robot-like, cassette-like, and skillful. Nurses concentrated more on obligatory daily activities than on the individual needs of demented patients, on the special characteristics of dementia, or on encouraging spontaneous activity among demented patients. The nurses tended to look at demented patients chiefly in terms of the abilities they had lost and the disturbance they caused; less attention was given to their remaining facilities, such as their sense of humor and their ability to enjoy things and to establish contact through gestures and physical touching.