Hi, have you tried chatting with the staff and asking if your wife can use other cutlery. If necessary you could leave some. My mum is blind and I find the staff try really hard for her to be independent when eating. She has a plate guard and they cut up her food and encourage her to eat. She wears a large floral piece of fabric as a "bib" and they use wipes after she has eaten to clean her face and hands. Sometimes she has food on her when I arrive and so I get the wipes and do the job again. I've found it's not all perfect and sometimes not as I would do myself when I cared for her at home but I had to hand over her care as I just couldn't manage anymore. I know she is as safe as she can be, is well looked after even though her clothes are washed to within an inch of their life. One of my gripes but I haven't been able to change it so I buy acrylic!!
I'm grateful that several of the staff at mum's care home have been there over ten years and the manager was a carer in her early days. Other staff are young folk who amaze me by their kindness and professionalism. Admittedly some new staff come but aren't there after the three month trial period. It's not for them. The night staff give a verbal handover to the early day shift if there have been any problems. All records of eating, sleeping, medication, bathing etc are on their computer system and if I'm not greeted with an update when I visit I ask when they seem to be not busy. If the response is "I've only just come on" it's usually followed by "I'll ask...(another member of staff).." or they look on the computer record. I feel very fortunate for mum to be cared for here. As I said before it's not perfect, she has fallen several times which might not have happened when I was by her side 24/7 but I feel it's as good as it can be considering it's impossible for someone to be sitting beside her all the time. I attempted it but after many months had to find an alternative.
