SICK-ROOM LORE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 73, Issue 34, 10 February 1930, Page 2

SICK-ROOM LORE

CHANGED BOOM PLEASES PATIENT. RESCUE FROM MONOTONY. We all know, or at any rate the majority of us know—when some member of the family is taken ill—just what should be done with regard to choosing and furnishing a suitable, room for the invalid. We realise that his or her sick room should always be quiet, light, as large as possible, and free from all superfluous furniture, draperies and pictures. Unnecessary furniture, pictures and hangings, in addition to being collectors of dust, may constitute by their design, colour or arrangement, a decided irritant to 1 'nervy” or particularly sensitive patients, and on that score alone are better avoided. We know, too, that even, in the case of a non-infectious disease, the no carpet rule is the best. Small washable rugs are now obtainable, which can be taken up easily and without noise and fuss, being used where a floor covering is desired. Wc may have also studied the latest bed-tables with specially constructed bookstands which are of the greatest convenience to invalids, but how many of us have thought of the need, during a long, weary convalescence, of change in the room!

Anyone who has been ill for a long period will have been moved from one bed to another; she may even have been carried or wheeled from her own room into the next one, or, as she progressed, outside for a little while in the fresh air. Effect of Change. If, at the end of one of these excursions, paricularly if she is at the diffi-cult-to-plcase stage so often reached toward the end of a tiring time of sickness, she could come back to the old familiar spot, of which she is heartily weary, to find that it has undergone a complete transformation in her absence, untold good might result. This is not an unpractical suggestion that the sickroom might better for an absolutly new outfit; or even that its walls and ceiling should be freshly papered or colour washed. Much alteration is often beyond the average purse, and it is not necessary, except occasionally, in the case of a chronic invalid. An entire rearrangement of the furniture alone will, if thoughtfully carried out with the addition of a few small articles such as a couple of new bowls for flowers, a cut-glass. for eau-de-cologne, or a fresh lamp shade, make all the difference in the world, especially if the chief change is made in the most important thing in the room, the bed. First of all the bed.must be placed in a different position; perhaps nearer the window if the invalid is beginning to take an interest inthe outside world again, or if there is a view out over the sea or mountains, which may be the greatest and deepest of blue, brown and yellow make a more consolations to her. Secondly, the bed itself must be entirely redressed.