Department of Aging Reports Show Elderly Abuse

| Monday, August 15, 2011
By Jan Thompson


Having a batch of elder care data to go through and look at infractions can help in quite a lot of ways to determine what assisted living facility is the best. These elder care facilities have such an easy time of it these days in building new facilities and immediately making a handsome profit as new residents move in and pay monthly rent. Once the residents are all moved in they realize that the quality of care staff is deplorable and sometimes there may be only 1 care worker for every 40 residents.

It is important to understand that an ugly looking facility that does not cost as much as the nice one across the block isn't always all that bad. Some of the larger nicer facilities sometimes cut costs by not having as many care workers. These facilities try to have a McDonald's approach by getting one care worker to handle 30 residents at a time. In this situation they feel that the facility is setup in such a way that the care worker can handle this work load. This situation can easily lead to neglect and abuse which is why data is so vital.

You will never find the best assisted living community in town as that does not exist. What you can find in a good facility is care workers who have worked there for years. If an assisted living community has care workers who have worked there a year or more it is likely they have enough staff on hand and they are paid well. Looking at the data showing a low staff turnover rate and meeting the staff in person is enough to calm most of your fears.

The occasional fire test mishap at an elder care facility is not a huge issue compared to a high resident to care worker ratio. With a low number of staff the care workers get stressed and this leads to the residents getting stressed and taking it out on the care workers for not being there for them. Care workers eventually snap and the violent ones may fail to feed some of them out of revenge. There are also situations where an elderly person that needs round the clock care is left soiled nightly in their clothes until the morning or afternoon.

In summary an assisted living will have many hard to deal with residents who never get visitors. These residents will take out their depression and frustration on the care workers that take care of them on a daily basis. Care workers are trained to not take the verbal abuse of an elderly resident personally but when care workers are left understaffed some of them with violent pasts will snap and react violently. Care workers have been caught leaving residents soiled in their clothes over night, not feeding them an entire day, yelling at them, hitting them, and even stealing their valuables. It is important that an assisted living is staffed correctly and these are some of the findings one can see in department of aging data.




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