Every Where We Turn - We are a generation who is failing our elderly.
The newspapers and television are full of the dire care dished out to a generation of elderly who find themselves thrown on the will of the state at the end of their fruitful lives.
Day after day we hear stories of elderly refused operations or treatment due to age. Care home residents that are not fed properly, geriatric hospital patients unable to feed themselves suffering weight lose and even death. Incapable or afraid to speak up, not taken seriously when they do ask for help, these are just a few issues on a long and traumatic reading list of failures meted out to our elderly and infirm.
This constant battering of the senses is particularly traumatic if you yourself are caring for elderly relatives - as I am.
Both parents, in their 90's, have different health needs and have developed a strong aversion to care intervention from anyone but immediate family. My mother, suffering from inoperable aortic stenosis and heart failure, insists she watches the 6pm news, news at 9pm and for good measure the 10 o'clock news. The daily newspaper is her gospel and woe betide us if Jeremy Vine broadcasts a discussion on the lack of elderly care, she joins in with gusto to all who will listen.
My father is bewildered, not only with the news programmes which he finds hard to follow, but also with my mothers rants. He has vascular dementia - mid/end stage according to his GP, although my mother is unconvinced this is true. Having suffered with multiple TIA's we are now on a plateau of confusion that is both distressing but sometimes amusing.
I can understand their terror at the thought of being rushed to hospital - never to be fit to leave. I can understand their terror at the thought of assessment for a care home - social services mean separation, care homes mean bullying and a lonely death, all of this a certainty in their minds.
I'm seriously thinking of taking the plug of the television and blaming the dog's obsession with chewing wires. Or I could tell them the newspaper companies have all been closed down by the governement - they had all the journalists arrested.
Trouble is, is it worth the stress this would cause, to me that is - you see, they can't get out unless I take them so I might have to remove my car wheels and lay the blame at someone making a quick buck to be made in the recession.
Day after day we hear stories of elderly refused operations or treatment due to age. Care home residents that are not fed properly, geriatric hospital patients unable to feed themselves suffering weight lose and even death. Incapable or afraid to speak up, not taken seriously when they do ask for help, these are just a few issues on a long and traumatic reading list of failures meted out to our elderly and infirm.
This constant battering of the senses is particularly traumatic if you yourself are caring for elderly relatives - as I am.
Both parents, in their 90's, have different health needs and have developed a strong aversion to care intervention from anyone but immediate family. My mother, suffering from inoperable aortic stenosis and heart failure, insists she watches the 6pm news, news at 9pm and for good measure the 10 o'clock news. The daily newspaper is her gospel and woe betide us if Jeremy Vine broadcasts a discussion on the lack of elderly care, she joins in with gusto to all who will listen.
My father is bewildered, not only with the news programmes which he finds hard to follow, but also with my mothers rants. He has vascular dementia - mid/end stage according to his GP, although my mother is unconvinced this is true. Having suffered with multiple TIA's we are now on a plateau of confusion that is both distressing but sometimes amusing.
I can understand their terror at the thought of being rushed to hospital - never to be fit to leave. I can understand their terror at the thought of assessment for a care home - social services mean separation, care homes mean bullying and a lonely death, all of this a certainty in their minds.
I'm seriously thinking of taking the plug of the television and blaming the dog's obsession with chewing wires. Or I could tell them the newspaper companies have all been closed down by the governement - they had all the journalists arrested.
Trouble is, is it worth the stress this would cause, to me that is - you see, they can't get out unless I take them so I might have to remove my car wheels and lay the blame at someone making a quick buck to be made in the recession.
posted by Unknown at 7/17/2011 06:02:00 pm
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