Reckless over-prescribing of anti-psychotic drugs (so-called chemical cosh) to care home residents continues.

The Telegraph again carries a report on the reckless overprescribing of anti-psychotic drugs (so-called chemical cosh) to care home residents.

That many of the residents suffer from dementia is no excuse for dosing them with these harmful drugs, because anti-psychotics are rarely appropriate for dementia. The article says that, "Only around 36,000 of the 180,000 people on the drugs in the UK derive any benefit from them," and that "Over-prescribing of the drugs is linked to an extra 1,800 deaths a year among elderly people."

The matter was being reported and discussed on the radio today and I heard a medic blaming the care homes for this scandalous practice, and a care home spokesperson blaming the GPs. - Well there's a great deal of blame to share out! - While it's clearly the prescribers who are mainly to blame, there is equally clearly no proper regulation of this dangerous prescribing. - and here surely blame lies with the government for giving doctors a pretty free hand (misnamed 'clinical judgment!) in their reckless prescribing habits. Blame also lies with the Department of Health and the NHS. And a whole heap of blame lies with the drug companies, who are the main beneficiaries of this wicked, cruel perversion of health care.

It isn't as if they don't know about the harm done. - To quote further from the article:

"Paul Burstow, a Liberal Democrat MP who has led a 10-year campaign highlighting the risks of over and inappropriate prescribing, said: "This review comes much too late for thousands of elderly people whose lives have been cut short by the reckless prescribing of anti-psychotic drugs.

"The evidence that anti-psychotic drugs do more harm than good has been mounting for years. There is next to no benefit for the older person and prolonged prescribing can lead to premature death.

"The Government has sat on this review for long enough. What is needed now is leadership and a relentless drive to end abusive prescribing.""

It is my considered opinion that many of these avoidable deaths should be regarded as manslaughter, and that the harm done to health not resulting in death should be regarded as actual or as grievous bodily harm, i.e. crimes have been committed.

Sort out the blame. Get the offenders tried in court. Some of them surely would warrant custodial sentences. Most should never be allowed near a prescription pad or a patient again.

A few doctors and drug company executives in prison would ensure a rapid reduction in this terrible cruelty inflicted on vulnerable people by the medical profession who often claim that they 'first do no harm'.

The Telegraph reports that care homes are still administering anti-psychotic drugs to dementia patients.

The Telegraph reports that care homes are still harming dementia patients by administering 'chemical cosh' drugs (aka anti-psychotic drugs) to them.

D-Day Hero was not allowed to leave care home to go home to his wife.

The Daily Mail reports that a D-Day hero, age 93, was not allowed to leave a care home and return to his wife of 68 years because social services had said he was suffering from dementia, though it seems he was only mildly forgetful. He was waiting in the care home for months for a care package to be arranged for him and became very depressed about it. It appears that Mr Alfred Tonkin then went on hunger strike because of this refusal to let him go home. This hastened his death and he never did return home.

Surely social services should have been more responsive to the wishes of someone so old, who was depressed away from his wife and real home. They should have tried harder to get him home with minimum delay to spend the remainder of his life with his wife.

I welcome Dr John Zeisel's advocacy of non-pharmacological treatment for people with dementia.

The Telegraph reports that Dr John Zeisel, president of Hearthstone Alzheimer Care, an international provider of non-pharmacological treatment for people with dementia, is advocating a change of attitude and policy toward people suffering from Alzheimer's Disease. He states that his research and practice "has proved that non-pharmacological treatment of Alzheimer's, such as environmental design responsive to their capacities, caregiver education, and visits to museums with research-based selection of art works and specially trained guides, can be just as powerful as other medicinal treatments in reducing symptoms of dementia and the big four A's of Alzheimer's: agitation, anxiety, aggression, and apathy."

He is against dementia sufferers being confined to their homes, to hospitals or to care homes, and says they should be treated as and recognised as real people who are "still there".

This is surely the way to go, especially as so frequently in this country (the UK) psychotropic and other prescription drugs are often used for the convenience of the staff in old people's homes, rather than to be helpful to the residents. See the Telegraph articles: Half of nursing home residents wrongly drugged, study shows and One in five care homes lacks respect for elderly

You can reduce your risk of developing dementia by improving your nutrition and avoiding salt and salty food.

Charities are calling for new laws to protect the elderly as a study shows that more than 300,000 cases of abuse go undetected each year.

Call for new laws to protect elderly from abuse
article in the Sunday Telegraph

Extract:

"Cases of abuse of the elderly uncovered by inspectors include care homes where residents were routinely tied to their beds and chairs, locked up or dragged around by their hair.

Other residents, many of whom had dementia, have been refused food and denied trips to the lavatory in punishment for "bad behaviour".

Investigations have revealed a woman of 85 who had her fingernails ripped off by a care worker, a 78-year-old covered in cigarette burns, and a number of thefts of pensions by care staff paid to look after the elderly.

Government research suggests that 340,000 pensioners suffer some form of physical, financial or emotional abuse each year.

Action on Elder Abuse investigated local authority records and found that fewer than a tenth of that number of cases are ever investigated by social services.

The charity, together with the Alzheimer's Society, Age Concern, Mencap, and the Commission for Social Care Inspection, is calling for laws to be introduced which would place a duty on all agencies which work with vulnerable adults to log and investigate reports of abuse – either in residential care or in family homes – and to share information with other agencies.

Currently, different bodies set their own rules about how to protect the frail elderly, and disabled, from harm.

The charities made the plea as part of submissions to a Government consultation on the protection of vulnerable adults, which closed yesterday.

Gary Fitzgerald, chief executive of Action on Elder Abuse, said: "We are simply not doing enough to protect old people facing abuse, and we are challenging the Government to listen and to introduce safeguards that make this a priority."

Neil Hunt of the Alzheimer's Society added: "We need to fight any abuse of people with dementia and that means putting systems in place early to avoid putting them at risk.""

You can reduce your risk of developing dementia by eating less salt/sodium.

Dr Max Pemberton reflects on the disrespect towards old people which he says is endemic in our society

Finger on the pulse
Article by Dr Max Pemberton in the Telegraph

Extract:

"If Age Concern objects to the semiotics of a hunched back and walking stick to depict residents of care homes, presumably they would rather an image that more accurately reflects older people in institutions.

Should the signs depict an elderly demented woman tied to a chair while staff ignore her? Or an elderly man in bed, slowly starving as his food tray is placed slightly out of reach day after day? Or people going blind because primary care trusts won't fund the medication to save their sight?

This is the plight of the elderly in hospitals and homes up and down Britain, and it's this that Age Concern should be concentrating on. I'm not sure how you'd capture these images in a sign that was easily readable at 30 miles an hour, but if you could, they would certainly make you slow down and think."

To stay as healthy and fit as possible as you get older, you need to minimise your intake of salt and salty food.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Elderly people are being "mistreated and abused" in hospitals and care homes, according to a new report by Age Concern

Elderly people abused in hospitals and care homes
Article in the Telegraph

Extracts:

"Age Concern criticises the lack of progress made a year on from a parliamentary report that recommended an "entire culture change" to tackle human rights abuses experienced by older people in the NHS and care system.

The new report includes examples of older people being left to sit in their own excrement or denied food and water because the staff are too busy, being left naked in front of other patients, or being heavily sedated so they are easier to care for."

"Norma Scott said her father died of renal failure after the way he was treated in a Yorkshire hospital.

She said: "We were told my father needed to be given extra fluids for his kidneys, but he wasn't given any help to drink water or to pass fluids. He couldn't use the water jug left by his bed as he couldn't sit up.

"After six days I spoke to a doctor. When a drip and catheter was fitted, two litres of urine were drained off. He died of renal failure.

"My father should not have been treated this way. It took months to get my complaint heard and I have been battling for many more months to get the hospital to implement the Action Plan. No one checks change has happened - it's all taken on trust.""

And British politicians have the cheek to criticise other countries about human rights! Our dreadful, uncaring, extremely expensive NHS system should be scrapped.

One in five care homes is failing to treat its elderly residents with dignity and respect, according to study by Commission for Social Care Inspection

One in five care homes lacks respect for elderly

Extract from the Telegraph:

"The report by the Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) found nursing homes where vulnerable pensioners were treated like objects or patronised as if they were children. In some, staff laughed at the disabilities of the elderly or gave them drugs so they would sleep all day.

The survey of 100 care homes also discovered lonely residents who had no one to speak to, and were prevented from walking around the wards by nurses. Referring to the terms of the Human Rights Act, the report concluded: "One in five of the homes we inspected did not meet the requirements of the law in terms of affording people dignity and respect."

The CSCI issued half of the homes it surveyed with "statutory requirements", meaning they must improve their services in order to comply with official regulations. However, the true number of failing care homes is likely to be far greater, as the CSCI focused on those which it had previously rated "good" or "adequate"."

A nursing home manager who failed properly to feed a former soldier who later died in an "appalling" catalogue of neglect has been jailed for 6 months

Nursing home chief jailed over patient's death

Extract from the Telegraph:

"Kathleen Vitturini was supposed to be in charge of caring for Peter Giles, but instead she allowed the 57-year-old Parkinson's disease sufferer to lose two stone in just 10 days.

Mr Giles, who also had mental health problems, suffered a "rapid deterioration" and died from pneumonia and septicaemia contracted during his stay at the Abbeycroft Care Home in Bispham, Lancashire.

Vitturini, who ran the home, was arrested when a coroner who examined Mr Giles was so concerned about his appearance that he contacted police."

Tens of thousands of vulnerable old people are suffering appalling abuse in homes for the elderly, experts are warning.

Thousands of elderly abused in care homes

Extract from the Telegraph:

"The first ever audit of calls to England's social care watchdog shows that more than 1,000 were made in just six months by people who suspected their relations or friends were being abused by care workers.

Social services chiefs estimate that a further 60,000 "alert calls" are made directly to local councils every year.

The Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) has uncovered homes where residents were routinely tied to their beds and chairs, locked up or dragged around by their hair. Some were refused food to punish "bad behaviour", denied trips to the lavatory or stolen from by staff."

"The audit was disclosed by the CSCI as it prepared to publish, on Wednesday, its first guide to all 4,000 residential homes in England for the elderly and disabled, giving each a star rating so that relations can compare factors such as the use of sedatives, staff training, and social activities.

The inspectorate has already said 248 homes do not meet basic safety standards. Investigations have revealed a woman of 85 who had her fingernails ripped off by a care worker, a 78‑year‑old covered in cigarette burns, and a number of thefts of pensions by "home helps"."

"Gary Fitzgerald, chief executive of the charity Action on Elder Abuse, said: "If you include abuse carried out by relatives and friends, studies suggest there could be 500,000 cases each year across Britain.""

www.elderabuse.org.uk

Report slams appalling treatment of elderly people in care homes

Report slams elderly care home treatment

Extracts from the Telegraph:

"The appalling treatment of elderly people in care homes has been laid bare in a report which found some are dragged around by their hair, strapped into wheelchairs, locked in their rooms and sedated.

The Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI), describes how frail and vulnerable people are mistreated and often threatened or intimidated. Its 65-page report, Rights, Risks and Restraints, is based on a survey of 253 older people and their carers and an analysis of complaints and official inspection reports."

"Charities for the elderly were united in regarding the stories of abuse as "horrendous". They include:

· A staff member dragging a resident by her hair and tying her to a chair.

· Two staff routinely wrapping immobile and incontinent residents tightly in sheets to prevent them moving.

· A woman being kept waiting up to three hours before being taken to the lavatory.

· A resident locked in a bathroom with a chair under the door handle and the light put out. Staff were told to serve her coffee in the lavatory."

Coroner has criticised 'lamentable' care at nursing home

Coroner faults veteran's care at nursing home

Extract from the Telegraph:

"A war veteran died after being treated "like a parcel" by nursing home staff, a coroner has said.

Charles Hounslow, a former RAF pilot, was left to die in agony after carers failed to notice that he had a broken hip for two days.

Veronica Hamilton-Deeley, the Brighton coroner, used his inquest to demand better care for the elderly.

She summed up Mr Hounslow's treatment at Miles Court Nursing Home in Brighton, East Sussex, as "lamentable" and said she feared thousands of pensioners nationwide were suffering the same fate.

Mr Hounslow, 85, had suffered from vascular dementia since 2005 and needed round-the-clock care. He was admitted to Miles Court on April 7 and died on May 16.

Mrs Hamilton-Deeley said he "was treated like a parcel in the last few weeks of his life with insufficient emphasis placed on his wellbeing and care".

"There was a catalogue of incidents leading up to Mr Hounslow's death, all of which are examples of gross mismanagement at this nursing home," she said."

Report demands law to protect elderly people in hospitals and care homes

A catalogue of abuse: report demands law to protect elderly in hospitals and care homes - Guardian

Extract:

"Vulnerable elderly people are being subjected to neglect, abuse, discrimination and ill-treatment in the hospitals and care homes that should be looking after them, according to a report published today by a parliamentary committee.

The study by the joint committee on human rights warns that many older people are facing maltreatment ranging from physical neglect so severe they are left lying in their own faeces or urine to malnutrition and dehydration through lack of help with eating.

Lack of dignity, especially for personal care needs, inappropriate medication designed more to subdue patients than treat them, and over-hasty discharge from hospital are also causing suffering for many older people, the MPs and peers conclude.

The report, the most high-level to date to highlight disturbing levels of neglect and abuse of the elderly in Britain, argues that the law should be strengthened to compel hospitals and care homes to protect the human rights of older people in their care.

The committee says that "an entire culture change" is needed to ensure that patients and staff who work with them are aware of their basic human rights. While there have been some recent signs of progress in policy and guidance, the rhetoric has not translated into practice on the ground, the report concludes.

It criticises the Department of Health and Ministry of Justice for failing to give leadership and guidance to providers of health and residential care. While overt age discrimination has reduced in hospitals and care homes, it still persists "in more subtle and indirect ways than in the past", says the report, which also criticises government moves to allow organisations to investigate complaints against them themselves.

The committee chairman, Andrew Dismore, said: "Neglect and ill-treatment of the elderly is a severe abuse of human rights. It is a serious betrayal of trust by the very people upon whom older people depend for care." Charities strongly backed the study, branding the treatment of elderly people in some hospitals and care homes scandalous and shameful."

The human rights of thousands of elderly people are not being acknowledged in hospitals and care homes

Elderly 'are being denied human rights' - Observer

Extracts:

"Basic human rights of thousands of elderly people are failing to be acknowledged in hospitals and care homes, an influential parliamentary committee will conclude next week.

MPs and peers on the Joint Committee on Human Rights will call on health managers and carers to be more sensitive to the needs of the elderly. Andrew Dismore, Labour chairman of the committee, said: 'The Human Rights Act is not just about terrorists and criminals. It is also about ordinary people's rights in the way that they are dealt with by public bodies.'

The plight of elderly people in care was highlighted last week by a woman of 103 who was forced to leave a nursing home in a row over funding. Esme Collins, from Worksop, Nottinghamshire, who needs 24-hour nursing care, moved to a new home 10 miles away.

The spectacle of a centenarian having to move home has prompted the government to pledge a change in the law. At the moment elderly people whose care home fees are paid by a local authority - a portion of Mrs Collins's fees are paid this way - are not covered by the Human Rights Act."

"The committee will touch on many issues examined in The Observer's Dignity at Home campaign, which calls for elderly people to be allowed to live in comfort in their own homes."

Care home owner jailed for stealing from residents

Care home owner jailed for stealing from residents - Guardian

Extract:

"A care home owner who stole from residents with learning difficulties has been jailed for 12 months.

Caroline Jane Rice, 54, was entrusted with looking after the financial affairs of people living at Dove House, in Kirby Muxloe, Leicestershire, but she "looted" more than £1,200 of "pocket money", Leicester crown court was told.

Rice was previously convicted by a jury on three counts of theft and eight counts of false accounting to conceal thefts.

Judge Philip Head told her: "The public must have unqualified confidence when they entrust vulnerable people to the proprietor of a care home. I conclude that your offences were such dreadful breaches of trust that no sentence other than immediate custody is possible."

Rice was also ordered to pay £1,245 in compensation to her victims and £2,500 in legal costs."


Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
How to Lose weight!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html and other pages on my website.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foodsand Associated health conditions

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

Health Spa in comparison to a care home...

Why bankrupt yourself in a so-called 'care home'? Try a health spa - it might actually be cheaper - Guardian

What a good idea! - I've visited lots of people in lots of care homes, and almost all the care homes are pretty ghastly...)o: - Here's a small extract from what Michele Hanson has to say on the matter:

"When my mother was alive, I took her to both Rosemary's health spa and to a local care home. It wasn't a nursing home - my mother was able to wash and dress herself and move about - but entertainment and activities were minimal and the food was grim: the customary dessicated chicken legs and bits of quiche and (imagine this for an elderly Jewish woman prone to constipation) white bread ham sandwiches for supper. This wretched place cost exactly the same as the health spa. How can the spa do it for that price, and also manage respect for guests, fabulous food, wholemeal bread and attractive surroundings? We just can't work it out."

I went a couple of times to a health spa for a holiday years ago and it was very nice: - efficient, polite, attentive staff, lovely food, pleasant surroundings...


Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
How to Lose weight!

See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
and see http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/steroids.html
and http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ami.html
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free...(o:

Care homes 'can evict elderly residents' - Telegraph

Extract:

"Hundreds of thousands of elderly people in private care homes are vulnerable to eviction, abuse and neglect after a House of Lords ruling that they are not covered by human rights laws, according to campaigners.

In a bitterly-fought landmark case five deeply divided Law Lords ruled by a majority of 3-2, that an 84-year-old woman with Alzheimer's disease threatened with eviction from her care home, did not enjoy the protection of the Human Rights Act given to residents of local authority run care homes.

The decision could affect up to 300,000 residents throughout the country who have been placed in private homes by their local authorities.

Nine out of ten care homes in England and Wales are now run by private firms.

Lawyers for the unnamed woman had argued that her threatened eviction from a private home, because of an alleged "irreconcilable breakdown" between her family and its management, was a violation of her right to family life.

But, the Law Lords ruled that a private home was not exercising a public function when it care for people referred to it by a council, and therefore was not bound by the Act.

The civil rights group Liberty condemned the ruling saying urgent legislation was now needed to change the Act to prevent local authorities from "contracting out of dignity for Britain's elderly".
Help the Aged said it was "a sickening blow to older people and their families everywhere" and that it left "vulnerable older people open to neglect, abuse and eviction, without redress through the Human Rights Act"."

You can reduce your own and your family's risk of developing Alzheimer's disease and many other chronic illnesses, including obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, gallstones, stroke and cancer, by cutting down on salt and salty food. - See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/conditions.html

Care home residents poisoning allegations: exhumation

Care home poisoning probe police to exhume body - Independent

Extract:

"Detectives investigating suspicious deaths at a Somerset care home, which has since closed amid allegations of poisoning, are to exhume a body.

The body of Nellie Mary Pickford, 89, a former resident at Parkfields residential home, will be exhumed at midnight by officers at Glastonbury Cemetery.

Police are also investigating the deaths of six other elderly residents at the home, in the village of Butleigh.

The home's former managers, Rachel and Leigh Baker, were arrested following the death of 97-year-old Lucy Cox on New Year's Day. They have been released on police bail. "

Further about poor care in care homes...

The consideration missing behind closed doors - Guardian

Extract:

"But it is not just a lack of care, it is a lack of common sense among care home staff. Rarely after calling an ambulance do the care home staff have the sense to unlock the front doors, or send someone to lead us to the patient.

All too often I have gone to care homes where the staff seem to know nothing about the patient. The patients aren't spoken to, just washed and watered. I walk past rooms where the bedbound are left staring at the TV for hours. I witness the nurses giving drugs to patients without knowing what the drugs are for, or their possible side effects. All this while cold food sits on tables, untouched because the patients aren't helped to eat it.

It's not just the homes that can be at fault. I recently put in a report about a doctor who prescribed a "teaspoon of salt in a cup of lemon juice, to be taken three times a day" to a 93-year-old woman. An ambulance officer will be visiting the GP and investigating this dangerous advice."

What is to be done about these care homes that provide 'uncare', unkindness and a ghastly end to the lives of so many old people? - And who in possession of a scrap of sense or common decency could prescribe a "teaspoon of salt in a cup of lemon juice, to be taken three times a day" to anyone? - And how can drugs take priority over food? - Good food is the best medicine...

Elderly nursing home residents left in pain by care staff

Scandal of elderly left in pain by care staff

Extract:

"Elderly people in nursing homes are being left in "shocking pain" says a survey today, with two in five saying they are in constant agony, and others admitting to having suicidal thoughts.

The research, conducted confidentially among residents whose average age was 82, reveals the extent to which the frail and vulnerable are made to suffer unnecessarily.

It was carried out by the Patients Association, the independent lobby group led by Claire Rayner, a former nurse and midwife and well-known agony aunt."

Many painful conditions, e.g. osteoarthritis, can be improved and made less painful by reducing salt intake. See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/conditions.html

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)