If you can't beat 'em, join 'em
I have had so many confused patients in the last few weeks that I think I should either audit a psychiatry course, or see a psychiatrist. I love explaining things to patients to help them understand what is going on, but this skill kind-of peters out in usefulness if their reality is distorted in some way. I had a patient claim he was in a Nazi death camp, and asked when he was going to die. I had a patient tell me she was in prison and her daughter had been arrested, and then further complicated things by believing me to be her granddaughter. I had a patient who claimed, when I couldn't understand the context of his comments, that I must have hit my head coming into his room. I had a patient who had been talking for 30 hours straight on promoting a work safety environment, and couldn't be dissuaded from either changing topic or pausing just long enough for me to listen to his lungs. I had a patient that called me into his room to ask me which button on the TV remote/nurs