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Thursday, 13 December 2012
People prefer to stay at home versus going to nursing homes
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| http://www.liveincareuk.net/live-in-care/ |
Many people in Uk and in Greater Manchester area are turning 65 each day this year, and the senior population is expected to be around 11 million by the end of this year. By 2025, that number is expected to grow to nearly 23 million.
These are pretty astounding numbers, and for some businesses, they provide big business opportunities.
“There are certainly good companies out there, but with the aging baby boomers, people with disabilities, new moms, people coming out procedures or physical therapy – we see and know there’s a real increasing need out there to create a provider that really has high brand awareness and really has a high culture of care,” “We see health-care reform actually as being a generator, an accelerator, for the need to our services. It’s helping to raise awareness.”
Plus, home care is typically cheaper and tends to bring more personalized service.
The recession is also serving as a boom to home health care franchises. Many laid-off or unemployed workers – particularly those nearing retirement – see getting into this business as a way to change careers, doing something in which they can give back in the later years of their life.
“A lot of people are saying, ‘I don’t want to go through a layoff again. I want to be in control of my destiny. I want to be my own boss. I want to give back to the community,’” an official said. “Those are all additional factors fueling our growth.”
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Sunday, 2 December 2012
Home Health Care is a Better Choice Than Nursing Home Care
As parents get older and their health deteriorates, people seek advice from the family doctors. Doctors and friends most likely wil suggest a nursing home. The social workers at the nursing homes tell families that it will be impossible to care for loved ones at home; the best thing to do is place them in a nursing home.
Think twice. When a person is young and a long way from needing nursing home care, it is often hard to imagine how bad it can be.
Lerna was placed in a nursing home after suffering a massive heart attack and then a stroke induced by an overdose of heparin. The doctors, not willing to admit to the overdose, diagnosed Lerna with Alzheimer's. Standing over Lerna as she lay sedated in her hospital bed and with their backs to the door of her room, they discussed her massive bruising and swelling after angioplasty. "Well, she was given .20 and it should have been .02, but we will just change it on the chart." Two of her children overheard this statement, as they walked into Lerna's room. With Alzheimer's it is typical that once a person forgets how to do something-such as dressing themselves-this is never relearned. Lerna, when first discharged from the hospital couldn't dress herself, could barely talk, and forgot what a toilet looked like. She tried to defecate in a wastebasket. But, eventually, as her brain created new neural pathways, she relearned how to dress herself and where to go to the bathroom. Her communication skills improved, although coherent speech was sometimes difficult, she could understand what others were saying to her.
By Lerna's second year as a nursing home resident, most of the money from the sale of her house and car had been taken by nursing home care. After that she went on Medicaid.
Lerna hated being in a nursing home. Often, when I went to see her, she would tell me, "Just get me out of this nut house. If you aren't crazy when you come in here, you will be before long There is a woman across the hall who repeats a thousand times a day, over and over, "I can do all things through Jesus Christ who strengthens me." Another lady down the hall screams and cries all day long. She also hated the "mush that they call food." Let's go get a hamburger at Dairy Queen, she would tell me. Many times she informed me that her belongings were being stolen-especially white socks (like CNAs wear). Her children learned that anything fashionable or pretty should be kept at their houses, otherwise it would disappear.
That wasn't the worst of it. Corine, the daughter who had power of attorney over Lerna's healthcare, received a call at 2 AM one morning from the charge nurse on duty, telling her, "Your mother fell out of bed. We checked her vital signs, and don't believe she needs to go to the hospital. The bruising looks worse than it actually is because she is on blood thinner." Lerna had been a resident less than a year.
When the second youngest daughter, Beth, arrived on Tuesday, the next day, to see Lerna, she could not believe how bad she looked. Both cheeks swollen with black and blue bruises, her right eye black and blue and swollen shut, her neck had purple marks on it--like handprints, and a one inch goose egg on her forehead. Her beautiful mother with the soft, warm brown eyes, whose appearance-before nursing home life-was always immaculate, now looked like a derelict. It wasn't only her bruised face. Her hair was dirty and unkempt. The nursing home staff had not bathed her-typical of most nursing homes, residents received baths only once a week. She smelled, as she had urinated in the pull-ups the staff forced her to wear, so they wouldn't have to assist her to the bathroom throughout the day. And, of course, the pull ups were left on her for hours at a time.
Beth went to see her mother again on Friday of that same week. Lerna was sitting in a chair in the hall-the nursing staff knew Beth always stopped by around 5:00 PM, right after getting off work. The nurse on duty at the desk, went into the dining room and began dispensing pills to the residents sitting at the tables.
While the nurse was dispensing pills, a kind CNA approached Beth. "I know what the nurses are telling you-that your mother is fine-don't believe them. We can't even wake her up for meals, she isn't eating and sleeps all day long. If it was my mother, I would take her to the emergency room." When the nurse on duty, returned, Beth told her "I am taking my mother to ER to get her checked out." The nurse became very huffy with Beth, slamming her chart down, and telling her it wasn't needed, to which Beth replied, "I am taking her anyway." Finally, the nurse said "Well, I will call the hospital and tell them you are bringing her."
After X-rays and a CT scan, the hospital informed Beth and her sister, Corine, (who had power over Lerna's health care) that everything looked fine. On Monday morning of the following week, Corine and Beth took Lerna to her family doctor for a routine checkup scheduled months earlier. They informed the doctor about Lerna's fall. He ordered his technician to immediately take xrays and another CT scan. That afternoon, Beth received a call from her sister, Corine, "The doctor just called, and he wants me to take Mom to a neurosurgeon today. He called the neurosurgeon and told him we are coming."
After another round of X-rays and CT scans, the neurosurgeon decided to admit Lerna to the hospital. As the hospital was located 35 miles away from all of the family's homes, they hired a home health aid to feed Lerna breakfast and lunch every day, as she now required spoon feeding. The doctor also began intraveneous solution for "slight dehydration." The CT scans showed massive swelling on her brain. The neurosurgeon diagnosed Lerna with "Shaken Baby Syndrome--like her head was forcefully shaken back and forth, or she suffered a severe blow to the head." He also stated, "This could not have been caused just by falling out of bed."
The family reported the nursing home to the state of Illinois, for 1) not taking Lerna to the hospital, 2) not charting the accident, 3) refusing to let the family see notes on the night of the so called "accident." The state of Illinois found the nursing home had "committed no wrongdoing," and continued giving the nursing home a five star rating--the highest rating possible.
Lerna improved with the hospital and home health aid care. The family encouraged Lerna by telling her she would not be taken back to the nursing home. After her discharge, Corine placed Lerna in a different nursing home.
Two ladies from the church Lerna attended took turns coming to see her and feeding her every day for a whole year. Slowly she improved, learning to walk and eat again, although because of the severe brain damage, she could not hold an intelligible conversation again. Watching her, you could tell she wanted to communicate, but got the words mixed up or just couldn't think of the words. She communicated with her eyes, by pointing and with hugs.
Once when I went to visit her, the CNA's told me that they thought it so cute, that Lerna and another resident walked down the hall everyday holding hands. When I pointed the man out to Corine, she told me "that man is a known child molester." About this time, Beth noticed when she assisted her mother with bathroom duty, that Lerna became very agitated, slapping at her hands as she tried to unbutton her pants for her, yanking them back up, and screaming at Beth "Stop it, stop it." I wondered if the child molestor had anything to do with this new panic.
Beth received a call to interview for a job in Florida. The position, paying around $70,000 a year, would pay enough to get Lerna out of the nursing home, and into home health care. Beth decided to go for the interview. Before flying to Florida, she took Lerna to Dairy Queen for lunch. Not wanting to miss her 2 PM flight, Beth rushed Lerna back to the nursing home right after lunch. She placed her mother in front of a chair by the bed.
As she turned around at the door, Lerna lifted her right hand and waved to her with a look of sadness and resignation in her eyes. It would be the last time Beth ever saw her mother alert and conscious.
When Beth returned from Florida, she stopped at Corine's house. They planned to go together to see Lerna. Beth had been at Corine's less than an hour-it was about 2 PM on a Monday--when the phone rang. A nurse from the nursing home, stated, "We have been trying to wake your mother all day, and we can't wake her up." Corine sternly told her, "Well, call an ambulance." Beth and Corine raced to the nursing home, both incredulous that the nursing home waited so long to do anything about their mother's condition. When they entered their mother's room, it was obvious to both of them that their mother was comatose. The ambulance arrived and took Lerna to the local hospital. The nursing home doctor claimed that an infection from diverticulitis had caused Lerna's problem, and started her on antibiotics. Beth spent the night sleeping in a chair by the hospital bed. The next day, Beth spoon fed Lerna and helped her drink a glass of water. Lerna actually got up to go to the bathroom with assistance, but didn't seem to know what was going on, and immediately got back in bed and went to sleep.
Beth felt comfortable enough to go home for a bath. She and all of her sisters returned to the hospital that night at 5 PM to find Lerna, lying with her neck stretched out to one side and her head cocked at an odd angle. They could not awaken her. The oldest sister touched her forehead and found it to be extremely warm. All of the sisters went to the nurse's station and informed the charge nurse of their concerns. The head nurse said "Oh, that is just her position. And, she is just sleeping." When they informed the nurse that they wanted the doctor to see Lerna, she said "He has already made his rounds and he won't be coming back until tomorrow." The sisters insisted that the nurse call the doctor. He told the family exactly what the nurse had told them-he already made his rounds and would not come back.
The sisters then told the nurse that as the hospital refused to help Lerna, they were moving her to a bigger hospital, 35 miles away. The nurse called the doctor, who agreed, with the stipulation that the family sign a paper stating Lerna's move was against his recommendation. After they signed, the nurse called the ambulance service. The ambulance service, located no more than two blocks from the hospital, in this small town, population 10,000, took over an hour to arrive. The youngest sister rode in the ambulance. She asked "You people must be awful busy tonight?" The ambulance driver's partner, responded "Oh, no. Actually, it has been slow." The driver would not turn on his siren nor drive over the speed limit on the way to the hospital. Once the ambulance arrived at the emergency room, the driver immediately went to the ER desk and began whispering to the charge nurse.
The hospital admitted Lerna and kept her till her Medicaid ran out, then declared her care custodial and discharged her to the nursing home right before Thanksgiving.
Lerna remained in a coma until she died on December 21 at 10:00 AM. As Lerna fought for breath, Corine (the sister in charge of her health care), could not approach her bed to tell her goodbye. The oldest sister brought Gwen, (not the good witch) the nursing home's social worker, in to help Corine deal with their mother's impending death.
The twenty-something social worker leaned over Lerna's bed like a vulture over its prey, placed her hands on the foot of the bed for balance, and chided Lerna, "Come on, Lerna. Say goodbye, Lerna, say goodbye." Beth believed Gwen was encouraging Lerna to die because the nursing home needed her room for a new family she had seen them interviewing. At that point Beth stonily requested "Will you please leave us alone with our Mother." As Gwen walked out, she told the oldest sister (who chastised Beth for saying this) "It's okay. I'll leave."
Around 2 PM, Beth, recovered from her shock somewhat and decided she wanted to know what killed Lerna. She contacted the funeral home to request an autopsy. Lerna, who developed diabetes after being admitted to the nursing home, took insulin shots, heart medication, blood thinner, and an estrogen patch. The funeral home informed Beth that it was too late--Lerna had already been embalmed.
The service was held at 10 AM Christmas Eve day, with the funeral home assistant rushing them out of the funeral home after the service and to the cemetary. Apparently, he didn't want to miss the day with his family.
Beth's father-in-law, on the other hand, began receiving home health care around the same time that Lerna, entered a nursing home. He lived seven years from the time of his stroke until his death. He often told Beth and her husband how fortunate he was to be able to afford home health care. His home health care aids took him out for dinner, visited with him, brought their children and grandchildren to see him, bathed him everyday, and served him home cooked meals. He lived a quiet, peaceful existence surrounded by people who loved him and cared for him, with friends, neighbors, and family visiting him.
Beth's mother lived a life of loneliness and torture imprisoned with people with whom she never would have associated in regular society.
Many people rarely or never went to visit her in the nursing home, finding nursing home life too unpleasant. Even some family members stopped seeing her as often.
The typical life span of a nursing home resident is about three years--possibly connected with the length of time that Medicaid will pay for a resident's care. Lerna lived not quite three years till the time of her death, still a relatively young woman when she died.
Homecare in Great Manchester and live in carer London UK
While the medical home is not a "magic bullet" that will provide an immediate return on the investment, studies have demonstrated tangible benefits, including improved quality, lower costs, and fewer disparities in care.
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Sunday, 25 November 2012
Manchester Live in care
At Special Care 4 U we specialize in providing live in carers in Manchester, London and the UK the help and support that can help make your life that much easier at prices that are value for money and less costly than most other companies. Maybe you just need a helping hand around your home with cleaning, cooking, ironing or even shopping or maybe your needs are much greater than that.
Deciding which method of care is best for you or your loved one is a decision that should be thoroughly considered. Live-in care from Special Care 4 u allows you or your loved one to stay at home, retaining independence at an affordable price.
All of our live in carers are hand picked and fully trained and we check references for each person we employ. We also provide 24 hours 7 days a week back up for all our clients who can contact our Directors at any time of day or night should any problems arise. All our advice is free of charge so you have nothing to lose by comparing us with any other company you may wish to contact.
Contact us to find out how we can offer live in carers in Manchester and London, UK.
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