Reply to To those that believe the elderly should always make their own decisions

Forum Index » Eldercare

Reply to "To those that believe the elderly should always make their own decisions"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I was one of those social workers who investigate people for elder abuse. What I did in reality wasn’t anything like that sounds. Someone would call us worried about an elder, and I’d go figure out what was going on, and do everything I could to help. I did lots of listening, hand holding, phone calling insurance plans, finding Medicaid beds in assisted living, lining up care givers, and finding mental health providers. Oh, and lots of cleaning for people with hoarding disorders. My clients were almost always mentally ill or had some level of dementia. It was truly, truly rare to have a situation where some one was abusing an elder for malicious reasons. It was almost always a situation where physical health and mental health decline simply made the family system collapse. Unless there was violence or outright theft of assets no one was ever “brought up on charges” or “charged with elder abuse.” We were just social workers, not police, and the only tools we had were help.

OP, I know this is hard. I hope you find some peace and some enjoyment this holiday season.[/quote]

Haven't you encountered the elder who is able to present as absolutely logical, or who at least is able to present as legally competent but exercises rights to his/her own decision making? And perhaps a spouse who is totally on board, or presents as being totally onboard? I'm thinking of 2 situations. One where an elder relative wanted help from adult services but due to problems with decision making let others make the call, and when investigated still wanted the help but was deemed too capable (his physician, nurse, and the social worker they worked with knew better, but adult services  gave a thumbs down). And one involving hoarding, some long standing MH diagnosis where treatment is refused but where the mental situation is not dire enough to warrant hospitalization, even though the hoarding has long reached the point where it is life and health threatening. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics