Five situations where a hospital stay turns a known diagnosis into a moving target, and what changes the outcome. Field cards for nursing and clinical staff, built on the Steadier Ground Method.
Dementia arrives on a hospital floor wearing whatever diagnosis brought the patient in: a fall, an infection, a scheduled procedure. What actually happens at the bedside afterward, the confusion that gets written off as baseline, the IV pulled for the fourth time, the fight during a dressing change, the same agitation every evening at six, doesn't always make it into report the way the admitting diagnosis does. These pages are for the nurse, tech, or physician standing in that moment.
Each one follows the shape of the family guides on this site: what may be happening, what to say and what not to, what to try next, and where your hospital's own protocol takes over. Nothing here directs a decision that belongs to your unit or your physician's orders. It's built to change what you carry into the room.
The moments that don't always make it into report the way the admitting diagnosis does.
Dementia Steady comes out of Matt Field's work training dementia care staff and first responders since 2012, brought here to the hospital floor. If you coordinate education for a unit or a health system and want this built into your own training, write to info@dementiasteady.com.