Nursing Homes = Battle Royales

[Navaros]

Last night I was watching a documentary on a show called CBC Marketplace.


Gist of the video:

They where showing how in Canada, nursing homes are battle royales. Many residents there have dementia which leads to violence against other nursing home residents. Fights happen all the time. Men grab women's private parts, and wander into women's rooms whenever they feel like it. Sometimes thinking it is their own room when really it's not, and sometimes just because they don't care. Women do the same thing and also punch out other women. Men threaten to punch out women after the men invade the women's rooms. Staff respond slowly if at all when any of this happens, because it's an everyday run of the mill occurence for them.

In one documented case, a woman murdered another woman at one of those homes. The murder victim told her family beforehand that that woman was gonna murder her, but the staff did absolutely nothing because they didn't take the threat seriously since the murderer had dementia.


You can read on article on the show at the link below. And watch the whole video of it online for free.

http://www.cbc.ca/marketplace/


Before I watched this, I had no idea that nursing homes were battle royales. As if elderly didn't have enough problems without that on top of it all.

Have you ever considered that nursing homes are battle royales before reading this thread?

Do you have any experience with hearing about battle royales at nursing homes?

After reading this thread will you now re-consider nursing home options due to their battle royale nature?

Is this a problem in other countries too or Canada only?

[Myrddraal]

Your 5 questions seemed to have accepted the article as the whole and only truth...

I visited a few of my local homes a while back. I started as a community service for a Duke of Edinburgh award and carried on a little after that.

Some of them are fairly uninviting places, but I never expierenced a fight. There were some troublesome people who did go into random rooms, and sleep in other people's beds. One of the men I played Chess with really hated this lady because of that, and was pretty rude whenever he saw her, but it never came to blows.

My Grandfather suffered from bad dementia and was put in a nusing home just for demented people. That wasn't nice either. Some of the people in there were clearly miserable, but again I never witnessed it coming to fights. To be fair though, one of the men in that home was an ex-policeman and took to patrolling the corridors. We just took him home for dinner as often as we could.

My Grandmother is now in a home, but it's a different story alltogether. This place is more like a hotel than a nursing home, the staff there are so nice and the people there all seem happy BUT it costs and arm and a leg and my Grandmother is using the proceeds from selling her house to live there.

So there's a whole range of homes in my experience. However I'd say that the worst thing about the bad homes is not really violence but simply how unhappy some of the people there can be.

I don't want to sound really depressing. Most of the people I visited were happy enough, especially when they had visitors. I've never heard of anything as bad as what you describe.

Put it this way, when I get old enough to need 24 hour care, I want to have enough money to end my days like my Gran.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Properly staffed, an Alzheimer's care facility will not allow such things to occur.

Regrettably, Alzheimer's does often damage those parts of the brain wherein reside our self-restraint, anger-management etc. "files." This is often the reason why an Alzheimer's sufferer has been institutionalized -- care for such an individual in a home setting is difficult/impossible. While not common, such episodes described above can and do occur on an ongoing basis unless the staff is trained and responds quickly to minimize same.

Alzheimer's care requires fairly constant observation by staff, and the staff must be prepared to gently but firmly intervene at need.

Families with a member in nursing or Alzheimer's care should visit frequently and on a semi-irregular basis. Double check on the care for which you are paying -- and do not hesitate with any questions or concerns.


Also, on a personal level, consider obtaining Long Term Care insurance for yourself and loved ones at the earliest feasible opportunity. This can ensure that, if you or a spouse (etc.) are the ones needing care, that funding is available so that you may choose your facility based on quality of care, rather than being stuck with whatever quality of care the local "government safety net" facility provides.


Quality of staff and staff training are HUGE in elder care. The better services and facilities pay for quality, but consequently cost a bit more as well.

[Myrddraal]

do not hesitate with any questions or concerns.
...
Quality of staff and staff training are HUGE in elder care.

:2thumbsup:

[Navaros]

So in other words, what you guys are saying is that unless the elders have built up a fairly large nestegg of funds before they get dementia, and/or have relatives who are willing and able, to pay for them, they are totally screwed and must live out the rest of their lives in a constant battle royale.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Without funds or insurance, they run that risk.

Most nursing homes are not battlefields, but quality of care matters and not all facilities reach the same level of performance. The Canadian examples may be a bit more "isolated," overall, than the article implies, but such things have occurred.

[Uesugi Kenshin]

So in other words, what you guys are saying is that unless the elders have built up a fairly large nestegg of funds before they get dementia, and/or have relatives who are willing and able, to pay for them, they are totally screwed and must live out the rest of their lives in a constant battle royale.

Not always. I volunteered at a local Veteran's Home for a long time and it was nowhere near as bad as that. Most of the residents seemed pretty happy and most of the staff was quite nice and kept things in hand. I never saw any fights, though people did occasionally get heated.

That of course requires that you or your spouse was in the military at some point.

[HoreTore]

Quality of staff and staff training are HUGE in elder care. The better services and facilities pay for quality, but consequently cost a bit more as well.

Seconded. Although it doesn't need to be more expensive to the user, here we've passed the bill on to the government...

We have a very nice nursing home here in my commune(my mother works there, so I know a lot about it). It was built 2 years ago, it has good food(even a restaurant), swimming pool, aroma therapy room, etc etc... And thanks to some quality political weaseling, we got the state to pay for(most of) it too! Not sure how long that'll last though...

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Seconded. Although it doesn't need to be more expensive to the user, here we've passed the bill on to the government...

We have a very nice nursing home here in my commune(my mother works there, so I know a lot about it). It was built 2 years ago, it has good food(even a restaurant), swimming pool, aroma therapy room, etc etc... And thanks to some quality political weaseling, we got the state to pay for(most of) it too! Not sure how long that'll last though...

I prefer private insurance as the tool for risk transferrance. Government funding may be, in one sense, the ultimate "spreading of the pool" in risk (and premium costs) by using tax dollars -- and thank you for noting that such care is not 'free' -- but I dislike the minimization of individual choice this represents. Moreover, governments have a tendency to mis-manage or make changes for political reasons, rather than responsing to the needs of a market.

Government can play a useful role on the regulatory level of course, helping to prevent/punish fraud and the like.

Glad to hear there are quality facilities there -- you and I only disagree on the means of funding same.

[HoreTore]

I prefer private insurance as the tool for risk transferrance. Government funding may be, in one sense, the ultimate "spreading of the pool" in risk (and premium costs) by using tax dollars -- and thank you for noting that such care is not 'free' -- but I dislike the minimization of individual choice this represents. Moreover, governments have a tendency to mis-manage or make changes for political reasons, rather than responsing to the needs of a market.

Actually, the government(city council) in charge here have handled this perfectly. It took some weaseling and shady business with the national government, but in the end, they got a state of the art nursery home which didn't cost the user any more than the previous arrangements. But, the party who managed that lost the election last month to the conservatives, so I'm not sure how long it will last... Hopefully though, the new guys won't ruin a perfect thing due to principle politics.

Btw, the funding of it is split in four: one part is paid by the user, one is paid by the local government, one is paid by the central government(through something evil people would call a loophole..) and the final part is paid by revenue from other people using the facilities, like the restaurant and swimming pool.


Glad to hear there are quality facilities there -- you and I only disagree on the means of funding same.

Well, I think that should be noted down as cultural differences ~;)

[rory_20_uk]

People with severe dementia are basically dead, their bodies just don't know it yet.

I imagine that either Canada selects the worset, most violent patients and sticks them in one place, or have looked around for them.

But what to do?

Chemical incapacitants are not allowed.
Nor are physical restraints.

But often they have to be restrained in some way, and these days that's basically not allowed. So, rather than sorting out a solution, short term stopgaps are the order of the day with either other residents or staff suffering.

~:smoking: