Blog13-Elder Abuse
This week’s reading described life as an older individual and how they are dealing with our ever changing society. The part that stood out to me was when it was discussed about the mistreatment these individuals face many times while in nursing homes or being cared for by relatives. As I read about this in the book I thought to myself that I wanted to learn more about this so I went on the internet and researched it and to my surprise there were over 100 pages of just news articles in which elder abuse has been documented in the news here in Tennessee and these were only the ones in which have been uncovered. Little by little as I read these stories I became increasingly upset that as these older individuals become physically frail and develop cognitive problems such as dementia we as a society have done little to protect them from becoming increasingly vulnerable to abuse and neglect.
As I read these articles it became clear that although nursing homes did have a few cases the majority of the cases were ones in which the individual was being cared for at their own home sometimes by nurses and sometimes by relatives. Although the abuse of an elder individual is not acceptable in any form it behooves me how someone would be able to hurt an older individual let alone someone you are related to. Although Tennessee has taken some aggressive steps to stop nursing home abuse it has done little in the way of protecting these individuals should they be cared outside the nursing home. I am somewhat disappointed that these reading came so far at the end of our semester and that we have already found placements in our practicum as now I find myself wanting to work with individuals and offer them the environment in which they so rightfully deserve.