In one of my previous articles I brought to light and touched on
the ongoing subject of elder abuse. I received countless e-mails
asking me to write and come up with ideas on how to fix this
ever growing problem in our modern day society.
I am a retired C.N.A./C.H.H.A (certified nurses aid/certified home
health aid). I have spent 18 years working with the elderly of our
community. I loved my job and I gave my all to those I worked
with as I would accept nothing but the best if I were in their
position and the rolls were reversed. I took care of them the
same way I would want to be taken care of.
My training allowed me to work in the field of total care and my
duties included: Taking vital signs, aiding the elderly in eating,
dressing, bathing, walking, exercises (range of motion) and just
listening to them talk.
I was the main contact for most of the residents; so it was my
responsibility to report any skin tears, bruises etc. to the charge
nurse.
Home Health: When taking care of patients in their private
homes, my duties were as follows: helping with bathing, range of
motion exercises, walks and taking of vital signs.
Working with patients on Medicare visits - only allow 2 hour visit.
Where as Private Insurance allowed 6 hours. Cooking meals,
transporting to appointments, feed as needed, and the charting
of every visit including doing the paper work for the company I
was employed by.
I decided the best way to improve the everyday treatment and
care of the elderly could best be brought forth by asking the
person for which the care was given. In this way, we can assess
what form of treatment/care could be given, improving the
personal care of the elderly.
I approached Elder Marge, a close personal friend of mine and
asked her if she would be willing to let me pick her brain on this
subject. I felt at 79 years young, she would be able to give me
some great input on this subject from a patient's perspective. I
was not disappointed. She gave me some straight up front
answers.
Her suggestions are as follows:
- Respect - I want to be respected for the individual person that
I am. Just because I'm older doesn't mean that I'm lacking. I still
want to do the things I did when I was younger, though I'm not
able to do them as well as I want to. I'm a lot slower now. So I
just need more time to do them.
- Less isolation - The most overwhelming thing is the loneliness
when you have no one to talk to you and no family to come visit
you.
- Innovation: The need to bring new ideas forward so that those
of us that our put in homes will not shut our self off. I shut off my
emotions, my needs to be loved as if no one comes to visit you
its easier this way because then it won't hurt no more. We need
to not let this happen.
- Motivation: Sometimes we need others to help us get up and
move so we can find ways to move forward instead of just sitting
here and waiting to die.
- Endurance Contest: We our left here by those that say they
love us. They come visit us once a year if we are lucky. For some
of us it's become an endurance contest and we are just waiting
to die. We will endure until we no longer can.
- Spirituality - we must be allowed to follow are own path we
choose; some of us choose new faiths as it's a way to make
friends and it allows us to speak to God on a more personal
stage. Some of our children do not like it because we have
changed our faith.
In summarizing of this article, I quote the words of a close friend
and my life mate known to many of you as the Quail. “Cause
becomes effect and we can change the world and its views, by
changing how we think. We do this one person at a time. Starting
with our self. It's like taking a pebble in your hand and tossing it
into a still pond. The ripples move outward and as they do they
become bigger until they reach the other shore.” Aho.
I invite any comments on this article good or bad. This is how we
learn from each other and just maybe we can change things that
are lacking, one person at a time.
A heart wrenching issue that many countries face. As we become elders ourselves, we educated our children the best we can, make ourselves financially independent so as to relief the burden on our children.
Here, what some schools have done is to 'adopt' a Old Folks Home as we call them, the school will arrange for the students to visit these elderly, one class at a time, so that each class visits the Home once in a year, but this Home will get visitors every week!
The students will sometimes prepared a performance to showcase there or just to go there to chat with the elderly. Some more able elderly also have some art and craft project they are working on to sell and they always welcome extra pair of hands to help them out. :)