CNA's

What is a CNA?

A Certified Nursing Assistant is the official name. A CNA is not someone who is a glorified butt-wiper as they say. A CNA is someone who cares for you or your loved ones. Yes, they do wipe butts, but the list is so extensively more. They are someone who becomes family because they are with you most days. They listen to your stories and hold you through your tears. A CNA gets you up every morning with a smile on their face even though they may be having a challenging time themselves. They help you to make your hair into that perfect french braid you love so much. That CNA will trim your beard or shave your face. They will shower you with precision, wash everything even in between the toes, and will lotion you everywhere, but not between the toes. They will help feed you even when you cannot hold spoons and forks properly anymore. They will help you walk because you are now unsteady on your feet. A CNA will be able to tell you your favorite game show, football team, or even that you will not eat any food if it is touching. They will check you when you are incontinent with urine or BM and you have to wear depends to protect you. They will notice when you start to develop bed sores or a rash. You will have to take vitals which usually consist of temperature, blood pressure, O2 (oxygen), respirations (breathing), HR (heart rate), and the map of the blood pressure for the hospital.

Duties of a CNA when they are at in-home care, nursing home, and a hospital:

When you are an in-home CNA, they will cook the meal that you have always had every Thursday. They will sweep, vacuum, and mop everything. They will clean and pick up trash in all the rooms making sure everything is decluttered. They will feed Fido, who is always happy to see them wagging their tail. They will sit with you while you listen to Bob Marley or watch your favorite Westerns, even though they may hate westerns. They will drive you to the store, library, appointments, and will even go on a drive just because they want to feel the wind in their hair. They will wash your dishes, help you brush your teeth, help you shower, or get ready for the day. In-home CNA's will monitor and make sure you are taking your medication. They will also write down vitals one time per visit and write down everything they do and any changes that they may see.

A CNA in a nursing home is so different and yet really the same. You are still caring for for patients and taking vitals, although documentation is so much more than in-home care. At the end of the day you always have to give an extension report because you care for several residents instead of only one person. In report they want to know how they move, if they showered, out of range vitals, and if anything big happened during the day (falls, bad moods, fights) You will do several showers a day. You will constantly help residents to the bathroom, to brush their teeth, to do thier hair, to walk around, to go to a lunchroom. They will have different units where they will have different cares. Such as the main housing area with less cares, those that are more indepenent still, to those that are in a memory care unit. Some may not be able to get up and you wil lhave to roll them to change them and you will have to constantly check that they are not soiled. You will get sections of the building that you take care of because there are so many people. You may have to take residents out to smoke. Residents may need help eating because they have diagnosis of dementia, and more.

At the hospital you have patients, many different departments, and the report is vastly different than the one in a nursing home. I will give you some information that goes into a report specifically for Med Surg department. In the hospital. In report you need to know how the resident moves, if they are on oxygen, if they are prone to falls, if they wear SCD's (Seqential Compression Devices), you need to know diagnosis's so you can care for them properly, if they get up to a chair, if they are DNR (Do Not Resicitate), if they are hard of hearing, if they have dementia, if they have hearing aids or dentures, if they get orthostatic Blood Pressures or Daily Weights, and many more things to know at times. Patients usually only come for a brief period of time to get well enough to go home so you want them to do as much on their own as possible. You are usually on 12-hour shifts, and you take vitals three times per shift, six times a day. You are there during the most stressful and diar times of their lives afraid of surgery or illness, afraid that they will not make it home. Being in that hospital you will see things that will be disgusting to many but to you it is informational. One of those things being how to help a person become unconstipated. I personally not only had to dislodge some with my fingers of stool, but I also then had to treat it like birth, telling them to push and to keep going, to breathe. You are dealing with not only the patient most of the time but also all the family members.

Now is one of these better than the other? Are they even vastly different? No one setting is better than the other but definitely quite different. In the setting of the hospital one significant difference is that family a lot of the time is around supporting those within. Not always but more often than not. Another substantial difference is that within the hospital setting you definitely have to be more aware of medical terms and what may be going on with the patient. Another difference is what you call the person: in homecare you just call them in-home residents, in the nursing homes you say residents, and in the hospital, you would say patients. In any setting you will always have classes that you take, but depending on the setting it will depend on how extensive the classes are. A recap on some of the similarities is that you have to take vitals and be aware of what is going on with the person in every setting. In all settings you are there for that person in all different manners. You are caring for the people in every sense of the term. A CNA is full of many hats, and in any setting, they will love your family members just like their own.