OASIS Alert

Try These Dressing Assessment Approaches

Even little reminders impact the correct dressing response.

Assess your patient's dressing ability with the clothes he usually wears. If you arrive and the client is in a sweat suit or pajamas, this may mean taking a peek in the closet, says Pat Jump, MA, BSN, RN, COS-C, with Rice Lake, Wis.-based Acorn's End Training & Consulting.

Assess the patient's ability by watching the patient get dressed. Don't rely on what the patient is telling you, Jump says. Instead observe the client dressing her upper and lower body -- or at least part of it.

If her ability varies over time, choose the response that describes what your patient can do more than 50 percent of the time, Jump says. For example, if the patient is able to dress in the morning with minimal difficulty but due to fatigue, struggles to remove his clothing in the evening, consider what he is able to do more than 50 percent of the time, she says.

If your patient needs little reminders while getting dressed in order to be safe, select Response 2 -- Someone must help the patient, Jump says. "Many times, clinicians automatically give reminders without even thinking about it," she cautions. "If you remind the patient, even on the little things, it still counts as a verbal reminder and you should select Response 2."

Tip: How long it takes to get dressed does not have an impact on the ability to get dressed.

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