ABSTRACT

This chapter identifies that a significant feature of the organisation and delivery of care for people living with dementia was the use of containment, restriction, and restraint. These approaches to care were typically embedded within these wards’ organisational cultures as a response to the behaviours (resistance to timetabled care, and behaviour viewed as disruptive, inappropriate, or transgressive) of people living with dementia who were viewed by staff as ‘challenging’. The chapter suggests these practices could be more widespread, constituting the everyday bedside care for people living with dementia during a hospital admission. The use of restraint in the care of older people (and other vulnerable populations), of course, has a longer history and encompasses a wider range of practices across sites of care. Chair alarms, and sensor mats placed on the seats of bedside chairs (and occasionally attached to beds), were widely used within these wards (although not all) to monitor the movements of people living with dementia.