Be a peacemaker. Why not?

Wong Mei-cheung
Associate Consultant (Psychiatry)
United Christian Hospital

Dr Wong Mei-cheung visits 43 elderly homes in Kwun Tong and Tseung Kwan O regularly. 60% of the patients suffer from dementia, and the rest have other mental health problems such as depression and psychosis.

Mind is over medicine. Dr Wong says anger and resentment can strike anytime as elderly patients have frustration in adapting to new environment. Insomnia, outrage and loss of appetite are typical signs of mood swings. In addition, elderly patients are relatively insensitive to signs of illness, and thus slow in detecting mental health alarms. “Do illnesses prompt them to resentment or even violence in the first place? Or are they purely venting? We have to listen to them with a lot of patience and understanding.”

She recalls an old man blasted workers at the elderly home every time they took him to shower. The home reckoned that the old man was mentally unstable and asked the doctor to increase medication. On the contrary, the family accused the elderly home of sub-standard care. After several talks with the old man, Dr Wong realised that he refused to bathe on race day for fear of washing away good luck! Being a peacemaker among the old man, the family and elderly home staff, she suggested the home staff not to take the old man to shower on race day. The conflict is resolved there and then.

Dr Wong also advocated a triage system in psycho-geriatric outpatient clinic. To achieve early diagnosis and intervention, patients with mild mental illness will be triaged and treated earlier with a multidisciplinary approach which helps speedy recovery. In so doing, they will not require long term treatment as their problems are nipped in the bud.