Personal Care Skills
What you must know
Personal care covers bathing, perineal care, oral care, denture care, hair and nail care, shaving, dressing, back massage, and bed making. The organizing principle is independence: provide privacy, explain what you will do, gather supplies before you start, perform hand hygiene, and then let the resident do as much as they safely can. Doing everything for a capable resident takes away dignity and muscle tone.
Know the routines: perineal care always goes from front to back to move bacteria away from the urethra; dentures are removed at night, cleaned over a basin of water or a lined sink so they do not break, and stored in a labeled cup; an occupied bed is made with the resident turned toward you, never left unattended on the far edge of the bed.
Traps that show up in questions
- Cutting the toenails or fingernails of a resident with diabetes or poor circulation. Report it instead; only trained staff trim those nails.
- Using a safety razor on a resident taking blood thinners, or on any resident without checking the care plan for an electric razor.
- Reversing the dressing rule. Dress the weak or affected side first; undress the strong or unaffected side first.
- Washing back to front during perineal care.
- Leaving dentures wrapped in a tissue on a meal tray, where they get thrown away.
- Leaving a resident in a bath or exposing them unnecessarily.
Worked example / rule of thumb
A resident who had a stroke has weakness on the left. When dressing, put the left sleeve and left leg on first, then the right; when undressing, remove the right side first. Remember it as "put on the bad, take off the good." The same logic applies to shoes and socks: the weak foot goes in first.