Honor Thy Father and Mother: an Essay Concerning the Condition of Elderly Care in the United States Essay

In the world we live in, we vex up and get senior. Its a sad and simple detail that we backsidet be young forever. When we ar growing up, we are cared for by our parents, relatives, and m any more hatful. They care for us because at that headspring in our lives, we didnt know how to take care of ourselves. As we grew nonagenarianer we learned how to care for ourselves and no longer necessarily needed the table service of those another(prenominal) sight. thither comes a point in our aging edge that we begin to forget how to care for ourselves or lose the means to do it alone. Usually what will happen is the family that you urinate unexp conclusioned hand will all hire whateverone to care for you in your knowledge home or move you to a nurse facility. denim Marcusson is an 88 year old woman. She has three kids (one of which is my mother). In May of 2013 she was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. Shortly later on it became apparent that she wasnt able to care for herself in her own home. She was having pother remembering who people were, where she was, and some era she would forget what she was doing. There were instances where she turned on the stove to boil water for tea, save forgot to put water in the kettle. Abother, when she attended my graduation she didnt know whose graduation it was. Its knotty for her family to befriend her when they all have their own lives to lead. Her daughters and son have pass a lot of their time this summer taking care of her, but it is growing old.After a month of taking care of her for a month in her home, the doctors decided that she needed to be put in a rehab circle round. Immediately after that she was moved into the John Knox Rehab Facility. She was confused, nothing seemed right field to her. Her first thought was that she was in a hotel. At that point we began to go out that she was suffering from dementia. She couldnt tell the difference between her children or grandchildren. She couldn t remember whether or not her husband was alive or where she lived beforehand arriving at the rehab facility.A few weeks into her stay at John Knox, jean came down with very serious pneumonia. The doctors decided to move her back to lee sides Summit Medical Center. Speculation led doctors to believe that she caught it at the rehab center. Once she got better, they moved her back into the facility. She seemed to be doing well, until there was a daylight when she was completely dehydrated and wouldnt leave her bed. At first they couldnt figure out what was wrong. My mom was sitting with her that night and found some pills on the floor. It became apparent that when the nurse brought her pills to her in the morning that she would throw them on the floor once the nurse left the room. The whole episode left her family very upset with the quality of care she was receiving. Another incident was when she decided to go to the restroom without alerting a nurse and fell on her way there. Be ing old and fragile, she bruised very easily and this fall left the right side of her face blackened.The condition she was in at the rehab center left us to wonder how she could ever live by herself at her home again. Insurance only covered her staying in the rehab center until the end of August. For her to live in her home again, we would have to hire full time nurses that would be there 24/7 to look after her. Thats something that just wont fly for her, plus its expensive. For a nurse to be at her house caring for her eight hours a day, it would cost $5,000 a month. So you can imagine how much 24 hours a day would cost. In my opinion, the rehab center didnt sustain blue jean at all. I would say it make her worse. Her anxiety developed when they do her leave her home and her dementia got much worse from there.In the year 2000, two thousand breast feeding homes were studied. The findings reported that 44% said they had been abused. 95% said they had been neglected or had seen ano ther occupier be neglected. The matter Center of Elder Abuse (NCEA) shows the majority of elderly abuse is physically, resident to resident, or psychological. Nearly 1 in 3 nursing homes have been cited for violating national standards for treatment of the elderly. Over 50% of nursing home round has admitted to mistreating older patients through violence, mental abuse, and neglect, two thirds of those incidentsinvolved neglect. A discern of Certified Nursing Assistants (CNA) found that 17% of CNAs had pushed or grabbed a nursing home resident, 51% had reported yelling at a resident, and 23% had sworn at residents. A U.S. GAO report to Congress states Our conk out shows that nursing home residents need both stronger and more immediate protections. More should be done to protect nursing home residents. Another issue I would like to discuss is abuse of the elderly by family or friends. There are some families in this world who have older people in their families who can no longer t ake care of themselves to the family these people are vulnerable. The family will begin to care for the elderly person and judge compensation of some sort. Many drug maltreaters look to take notes from the parents or grandparents and are the most likely to abuse a relative. 66% of elderly abuse cases are caused by adult children or spouses. 42% of murder victims over the age of 60 were murdered by their own offspring.While we can all agree that abuse of the elderly is a despicable act. It is possible to slightly justify the actions of the abusers. Elderly people arent the most enjoyable people to take care of. I can provide a small testimony to that as I work in fast food and I am often given over a lot of crap from elderly customers. Honestly, there is no beneficial way to justify elderly abuse, while the actions of the abusers may seem justifiable to them, they arent. You cant justify abusing anyone, but I understand that the abuser had a reason to do what they did that may ha ve seemed right to them.Jean Marcussons case is different though, the things she dealt with at John Knox might not have been on purpose. Even if they were, there is nothing we can do to prove it and it would be a waste of time to try. Ensuring that the people that made those mistakes are punished wont make Jean any better. It severely disturbs me that a person can be okay with smart a person, especially an elderly one.It amazes me that our parents or other relatives raise us and teach us how to live. Yet when they become old and need our help some refuse because they think that you shouldnt rely on other people to take care of you. What would have happened had our parents just left us to fend for ourselves andlearn the ropes of surviving in this world. We would probably be bushed(p) or much different than we are now, that is something I dont want to imagine. Take care of the elderly as if you were in their redact and wanted someone to take care of you. Youll probably be in that po sition someday and expect someone to be there to help you.