Simply speaking, I just keep him company. Sometimes, they can go for half a day together without exchanging a word. Shih has a lot to say even on the issue of tidying up a patient's belongings. It is more than just intruding on the patient's privacy. At a deeper level, you may even damage the patient's self-respect because everyone wants to put their own things where they want them.
Patients are very sensitive.
Once Shih saw a trainee nurse pushing a patient in a wheelchair very quickly down the hall. Both the direction and the speed were out of the patient's control. Any small action we take may affect the feelings of a patient. Therefore, we have to be very careful. Later on I found out that that patient had pushed his own wheelchair so much that there were blisters on both of his hands.