Every person, every man, and child deserves to be treated with respect and with caring. No matter how young or how old deserves to be safe from harm by those who live with them, care for them, or come in day to day contact with them. Every day, families across the nation place loved ones in the care of nursing homes. They trust these facilities to provide a safe, nurturing environment and quality care. According to a Federal Government Study, 30 percent of U.S. nursing homes were cited for almost 9,000 cases of abuse between January 1999 and January 2001. In the United States approximately 17,000 nursing homes currently care for 1.6 million residents. This number is expected to quadruple to 6.6 million residents by 2050.
We need to know and understand that Elder abuse, under any circumstances, is a crime. According to the U.S.Government Accounting Office incidents of abuse are seldom reported to police.
What do you think are the causes of nursing home abuse?. There are many causes of abuse such as inexperienced staff, Inadequate resources to conduct investigations, the stressful working conditions, etc. I think the most common cause is the Economic. With a widening gap between Medicaid payment and actual costs of care. Nursing home facilities must often cope with severely limited resources. Now I think that the greatest challenge to caregivers are those patients with dementia. How these poor staff training will manage those patients?.
All senior citizens deserve a peaceful, healthy and trouble free retired life. Most of these senior citizens have paid taxes and contributed to the benefits of society. Now it is the opportunity for society to repay them. Don't you think so?.
I do believe that seniors should be treated the way how we would like to be treated especially since we are all going to be seniors one day. Many seniors suffers from all sorts of illnesses both mental and physical. allot of these seniors will be placed in Nursing homes many will be cared for in there homes or other private facilities.
ReplyDeleteAs per APA MONITER ON LINE VOLUME 30, NUMBER 11 December 1999 "Fifteen million elderly people are expected to suffer from some kind of psychiatric illness by the year 2030, but managed care and mental health professionals are not prepared for the crisis, say researchers. According to the report, current research efforts, funding levels and numbers of geriatric-trained mental health personnel cannot meet the future demands of this growing population." Therefore, the seniors will be short changed. "In the report, lead author Dilip Jeste, MD, professor of psychiatry and neurosciences at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, says the lack of medical and community services and inadequate training of caregivers and geriatric mental health specialists will have dire effects on the elderly population over the next 10 years.
Not only will health-care professionals have to treat people who develop late-onset mental illnesses commonly associated with aging, but they will also treat people who have lived with a psychiatric illness--such as schizophrenia, depression or substance dependence--for most of their lives. They will also be faced with treating patients who have been underdiagnosed and inadequately treated. Other barriers to care for the elderly include ethnic and cultural differences between elderly patients and physicians.
To counteract this crisis, Jeste and his colleagues recommend increasing psychotropic drug studies as well as studies of psychosocial and behavioral therapies, developing more training programs in geriatric mental health for primary-care clinicians and researching the decision-making process in the elderly. They also call for mental health professionals to create practice guidelines and assessments, to demonstrate ways caregivers can handle elderly patients, especially those with dementia."
People with dementia needs special treatment and need to be dealt with delicately. pat's with advance denentia are usually scared, most of the time they don't know who they are and where they are because of this one have be cautious know when to approach them and when to give them there space since they can at times be aggressive. They get frustrated by the illness and they only was they know how to show this frustration is through agression even when they are in pain they will slap or kick the care giver and they will inturn slap them back not knowing this is there way of saing i'm in pain. They do not like to have there space invaded. One has to be well trained to deal with seniors with this type of illness. It is because of the lack of proper training why people sometimes abuse the elderly because they dont know how to deal with the changes and the different personalities. We have to be careful because what we do to others may just be what other do to us.
"The report was based on a March 1998 workshop attended by representatives from several universities and organizations. The full summary of the workshop was published in the September issue of Archives of General Psychiatry (Vol. 56, No. 9, 848-53).
--M. Waters