I have been using my Facebook to post about the experiences my family is having with my stepfathers care. Ive told about having to place him in a nursing home because my mother couldnt handle his care alone any more and how their health insurance will pay for a facility but not to keep him at home. I may not have told that he is a decorated Airforce pilot who served in both the Korean and Vietnam Wars. I may also not have mentioned that the facilities day rate for a private room is $335. The VA is paying the place close to $12,000 a month. Yet my stepfather has bee relegated to a shared room because thats the deal the VA made with us. Ive told about how understaffed and undertrained the workers at his facility are. Ive told about the nature of the industry - human warehousing. Workers have duties and a schedule and anything that doesnt fit into that gets squashed. Ive told you how my mother has gone to the facility EVERY SINGLE DAY (except when she went to help my sister with her new twins and in that case I went everyday in her place). She goes not just because she loves him but to make sure 1) he walks and gets exercise 2) to make sure he eats at least one full meal a day - clearly he doesnt eat any other time as I told you how my stepdad has lost 50 pounds in 6 months 3) to help him maintain the words he has through conversation 4) to give him some respite from the fear and confusion he feels. When we first moved my stepdad in we made a care plan book for the facility to understand his needs. Weve posted signage throughout his room about his limited hearing, sight and language. Weve shown the workers time and time again that he is very aware of his surroundings. Weve repeated several times DAILY to the workers that you have to approach him from the front and make eye contact before you touch him. Weve told them to give him time to process what they are saying to him. We told them to close the door when doing personal hygiene - they rarely do it when we are there. Weve told them to not have more than 2 people helping him at a time - they often have 3 people - when we are there. Weve told them not to grab at him or his walker when ambulating - they do anyway and he falls. Basically everything weve told them they have ignored - right in front of us! Friends (and some inside sources) tell me they have seen workers threaten patients with arm gestures like they will hit the patient if the patient doesnt cooperate. They say theyve seen patients be chased with brooms and mops. I have photos of my stepdad being tied to his bed with sheets. I have photos of other being tied to their wheelchairs. I have photos of uncleaned walls and shower floors littered with the feces and bloody discharge of other patients that the workers roll right over. We have attended every single meeting the facility has called for. We continue to bring literature from expert national sources. We have connected the facility with an Alzheimers organization that offers courses on changing YOUR OWN behavior toward a patient which in turn modifies patient behavior. NOTHING. The facility has stuck in its head that their residents need to do things on the facilities time and have gone out of their way to keep the long term residents in bed or in wheelchairs. Weve made relationships with some of the patients and watched as overnight they go from walking and talking to being catatonic. Weve fought long and hard for my stepdad to be able to maintain some freedoms. He tells us its like a prison there. And it is... in front of us they stop him from even looking in his own drawers. We can only imagine what they do when we arent there. He is afraid of some of the workers. They talk to him and do things in front of him without explanation - like rearrange his room or haul away dead neighbors. No one has time to befriend him. Nor do they have time to finesse their approaches toward him. So they started a campaign about how violent he is. They have 6 incidents in their record that they like to reference as if they are daily occurrences. Ive had some of the workers who were involved reach out directly to me to tell me that they felt it was their own fault that my stepfather got upset to the point of waving his arms around and swearing at them. I posted last week that the facility called my mother in for a meeting. i went with her. It is the ONLY meeting the facilities doctor has attended. In that meeting the doctor started the conversation with You have 2 choices here.. you can either move your husband to another facility or agree to put him on medications. that took my breath away. Were concerned about our workers safety. We asked why no one was concerned about my stepfather. We were told they dont have time for special treatment. The doctor said he recommended Seroquel. I confronted him with the FACT that this is pretty much the top drug that kills Alzheimers patients. He belittled us with taunts about finding half truths on the internet. Thats when I was able to pull out a letter from our social worker at the NATIONAL ALZHEIMERS FOUNDATION. In it were listed their findings and recommendations. The doctor backed off on anti-psychotics immediately. After an hour of being treated like we were idiots my mother agreed to a test run of Lexapro - an antidepession medication. At the end of the meeting the head nurse, added insult to injury by saying People from my country take care of our family members at home. We would never put them in a facility. On that same day a organization for free legal services for the elderly refused to talk to my mother because she wanted services to help her husband. They said that although my mother has full power of attorney and full fiduciary of his estate - both government awarded on top of the papers my stepdad signed before he was too ill. My stepfather received his first daily dose of forced Lexapro last Friday. My mother just called me an hour ago to tell me that today my stepfather CANNOT talk or walk or feed himself. She also said he is shaking. She said the nurse told her hes just tired. MY MOM IS ALONE IN THIS STRUGGLE. I HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO HELP. I AM SICK TO MY STOMACH.
Posted on: Tue, 09 Dec 2014 03:01:06 +0000
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