Assisted Living Facilities abuse is a frequently occurring problem in our society (Hamilton). There are diverse categories of abuse that transpire in Assisted Living Facilities which are physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, neglect, abandonment, and financial abuse. Samples of physical abuse would be hitting or beating the elders with an object or their hand, force feeding them or pulling their hands. Sexual abuse is the Assisted Living Facility employees having sexual acts with non-consenting patients. Emotional abuse is the employees saying things verbally to torment the patient. Neglect would be the employee does not take care of the patients such as providing hygiene. Abandonment occurs when leaving patients to fend for themselves. Financial abuse is when the patient’s family pays for the services that were not taken care of. “Elder abuse is fast becoming one of the uppermost law enforcement tasks of the next century, “said Paul Hodge who investigates crime against the elderly (Gonzalez). Since abuse occurs throughout assisted living facilities, state and federal governments should establish a type of punishment such as sending for employees to prison, ways to prevent abusing elderly’s is by inspecting employees ' criminal records, qualified staff, reporting injuries, having surveillance of the areas that do not affect patients privacy, promoting continuous family visits, and shortage of staffing.
Elderly abuse should be a crime that is made into a law. Once someone create the act of abusing an elderly, they should be taken into custody to be taken to jail. Elderly abuse is crucial and people should understand they are human beings. Financial abuse is one of the worst abuses in assisted living facilities. Everythin...
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...izens, staff, and families of the patients (Hamilton). A bill needs to be obligatory and taken seriously to discontinue abuses in assisted living facilities.
Consequently, there are abuses constantly occurring in assisted living facilities. Since abuse occurs throughout assisted living facilities, state and federal governments should establish regulations to inspect employees’ criminal record, have surveillance of the areas that do not affect patient privacy and promote family visits. People need to realize that he elderly have emotions like everyone else, they should not be getting mistreated in assisted living facility. Instead they should be getting help and enjoying the life they have until it is time for them to go. If these people are constantly abusing elderly’s, the law enforcement should arrest the employees. The employees should get life in prison.
Safeguarding may be described as ‘protecting people’s health, wellbeing and human rights, and enabling them to live free from harm, abuse and neglect.’ (Care Quality Commission, c2018) Safeguarding is relevant to service users because it ensures that they will receive essential and effective treatment by having their needs valued. Safeguarding ‘recognises that an individual’s unique needs, preferences and views must be the focus of all care and support that is planned for and provided.’ (Peteiro et al, 2017: pg. 44) For service users, this means that their personal needs will be prioritised within a health or social care setting and their views and opinions- about their health- will be genuinely considered resulting in them receiving treatment that will be best beneficial for them. Moreover, safeguarding intends to protect service users from harm, neglect, and abuse whenever they are in a health and social care setting. This may be done by making sure all services are accessible to those with disabilities, perhaps individuals who are wheelchair bound, or by making sure all long-term or overnight patients receive the appropriate amount of
There have been problems within Long-Term Care and many of these abuses were turned over to the patients, there was hardly any direction on how to handle Long-Term Care. “Poor houses and Almshouses and developed in response to an impoverished, aging, and mentally and physically disabled population who lacked informal caregivers.” (Sarah Thompson, 2008 ) When Long-Term Care was in the infancy stage of developing there were many problems, issues that were created because there was not much direction. In developing in taking care of the elderly there were poorly trained nurses, medical workers and many of them were not qualified to work within the medical field. There were problems, many issues and multiple levels of abuse because of poorly trained medical workers where there was no direction.
To begin, “Financial abuse towards the elderly is defined as the financial exploitation of seniors because of vulnerabilities related with age”. (Crimes-of-persuasion.com). It is unfortunate that this kind of abuse can be done by someone the elders know and trust – such as, family members, visitors, nurses, social workers, or doctors. From the same website, an explanation is given on how seniors may not report such a crime for a variety of reasons. Some may be either that they are simply unaware of the situation, afraid of revenge by the abuser, or ashamed that they cannot handle the abuse in their own home themselves. It has been proven, by the Mature Market Institute, a research organization, that four out five cases of elder abuse from a financial nature are not reported because of the motives that were previously stated. Is this ...
In recent years, the shameful subject of elder abuse has gained more awareness among community members. In particular, the complexity of elder financial abuse often makes manipulative dealings by fraudsters difficult to identify and separate from actual permissive transactions made by older victims. The result is that these cases are very rarely prosecuted and many other undetected cases continue to fall far below the radar of society. The consequences of financial exploitation of older adults are reaching far beyond the immediate distress of financial depletion. Victims may also experience declines in physical and mental health as well as the risk of a decrease in life expectancy (Kemp & Mosqueda, 2005). The purpose of the following studies is to address the issue of financial exploitation of elder adults through the means of intervention, prosecution, prevention, and correlation between different forms of abuse.
Albeit LTC facilities are designed to benefit individuals with disabilities, residents in LTC settings are often victims of unethical practices conducted by healthcare employees. Types of abuse commonly seen in long-term care ranges from withholding food from the individual, overdosing residents with medication to keep them calm, withholding individuals from activities, physically beating or spanking residents, and the list goes on. There are many instances where residents are verbally abused, called names, and profanity is used against the individuals. This type of behavior from health care professionals is unacceptable, and these incidents must be
Nursing Home Abuse With over 1.5 million elderly and dependent adults now living in nursing homes throughout the country, abuse and neglect has become a widespread problem. Even though some nursing homes provide good care, many are subjecting helpless residents to needless suffering and death. Most residents in nursing homes are dependent on the staff for most or all their needs such as food, water, medicine, toileting, grooming- almost all their daily care. Unfortunately, many residents in nursing homes today are starved, dehydrated, over-medicated, and suffer painful pressure sores. They are often isolated, ignored, and deprived of social contact and stimulation.
Elder abuse is a very sad reality. With an understanding of what the term elder abuse encompasses, who is at risk, what the warning signs are, the statutes that are there to protect the elderly, who is mandated to report the abuse, and how to report the abuse, it is important to minimize the crime. As with all things, the most important way to prevent something from happening is to educate, and elder abuse is no different. If care takers had education about the numerous resources there are, such as support groups and counseling, elder abuse could possibly be decreased exponentially.
If an older individual is not given the proper care in an assisted living home, it will damage the well being of the individual. “Resident independence with ADLs
These facilities are regulated by the state and federal government and these regulations protects the senior residents. For example it is mandatory for the facilities in Texas to provide mandatory services such as daily living activities like dressing, feeding or help prepare meals and cleaning. Depending on the facility license the staff would have to assist with financial management and certain medical services. Even though the federal government developed guidelines the state can make their own as long as it complies with the federal government. Some organizations may accept private pay while others accepted Medicaid. Regulations are developed to protect residence that from being in an unsafe environment. As a result some assisted living and nursing homes are unable to continue services by having fines or closing for an unknown amount of time. Since each state has different set of regulations I will focus on the state regulations in Texas because it is the state I reside in. The organization in Texas that regulates assisted living and nursing homes is the Department of Aging and Disability services(DADS).
Of nursing home staff interviewed in 2004, nearly 40% admitted to committing at least one psychologically abusive act toward a resident and 10% admitted to physically abusing a resident in the preceding year.[1] Not only are nursing home residents at risk of being abused by their caretakers but they are also at risk of being restrained, which may lead to a form of abuse. With five percent of the elderly population, or one to two million instances of elder abuse occurring yearly there is no doubt that elder abuse deserves serious consideration.[2]
Assisted living (AL) is a type of living arrangement that provides assistance to residents with activities of daily living (ADLs), housekeeping, meals, and transportation. The three biggest challenges that AL facilities face with organizational performance include occupancy rates, safety, and staff. According to the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing and Care (NIC), the occupancy rate is continuing to fall nationwide for AL facilities due to inventory growth that outpaced healthy absorption rates (Holmes, 2017) (Bowers, 2017). Also, safety is a major issue for many AL facilities. According to the United States, Office of the Inspector General (OIG) 2014 report, safety is a major issue for many AL facilities, where more than half of incidents of possible abuse or neglect against AL residents were never reported to appropriate law enforcement and regulatory authorities despite the mandatory reporting law (Harrington et al., 2017). Additionally, nursing shortages are also a challenge for AL facilities;
did I realize that the man I had seen so many years ago in the
One major problem with the few existing laws is that they are not specific to the elderly. If an elderly person is abused the abuser may be charged with several sections of the criminal code. For example, physical abuse may be a form of assault or sexual assault, and financial abuse may be an offence such as theft or fraud. This is a smoke-screen for the lack of stricter laws; the government may argue that there are laws to protect the elderly. The different types of elderly abuse are not specified; therefore many types of abuse may not be covered. This leads to a problem when trying to convict perpetrators of elderly abuse; the person behind the act may not receive a suitable conviction, allowing them to get away with the crime they have committed. Also, when elderly abuse is not specified in the criminal code it is not seen as a serious enough offence, leading people to believe that they will get away with perpetrating this appalling act. An Emergency Protection Order (Oak Net) may be obtained to provide immediate protection of an abuse family member. This also is not specific to the elderly, and the order may be refused if a family member has guardianship over the elderly. The family member may argue that the elderly person is unable to make a coherent judgment, and the order may be denied. If the Order specifically re...
People tend to think of women or children whenever the word “abuse” is mentioned. However, elder abuse is a growing problem in the United States along with the abuse of children and women. The issue of elders being abused, neglected and exploited is more common than you think. The life span has increased over time and many adults look forward to the years of retirement as an opportunity to spend time with their family and friends. On the other hand, relaxing time of retirement can turn into years of abuse for those adults that are dependent on others for their basic needs. It is important to address the issue, solution for it and how to prevent the problem from reoccurring in the future. As the baby boomers age and the life