Personal items to help support rehabilitation in critical care

What is the purpose of this leaflet?

Rehabilitation starts as soon as someone is not receiving sedative medication. Patients often respond better to stimuli (see further information below) that are familiar and personally meaningful. This leaflet is designed to help you know what items you could bring into critical care to help support your loved one’s care and rehabilitation.

Stimuli can include;

• Auditory stimuli e.g. music, films, TV, family voices etc.
• Visual stimuli e.g. photos, TV etc.
• Tactile stimuli e.g. hand massage
• Olfactory stimuli e.g. familiar aftershave/perfume etc.

What could you bring?

Toiletries

Toiletries such as:

• Toothbrush/Toothpaste
• Comb/hairbrush
• Aftershave/deodorant/perfume
• Hand lotion/facial lotion
• Lip balm

Space is limited so please choose the most important toiletries.

Personal items

Personal items such as:

• Glasses -You may want to ask a nurse for an adhesive label to put on the outside of the glasses case/glasses.
• Hearing aids - Please ensure that you also bring in replacement batteries
• Mobile phone/iPad and charger – mobile phones can be useful if your relative normally uses music app and has stored playlists; please share the password so these can be played.
• Familiar blanket

Photographs

It is very helpful to have photographs of family members, friends and/or pets that can be used as part of rehabilitation. For the photographs to be used in rehabilitation please follow the guidelines below:

• Preferably only have one person/pet in each photo
• Write the person/pets name on the back of the photo (or attach a sticky label)
• Add the relationship of the person e.g. son, friend, granddaughter

Photos can be placed in a photobook or envelope.

Some photos may be able to be placed on a board or table – but these will need to be limited in number.

If you are unable to print off photographs and can e-mail photos – please ask to speak to an occupational therapist.