The Which? survey that found appalling treatment of the elderly

was reported on BBC News yesterday. "The standards of care provided for older people in their homes in the UK has been labelled "shocking and disgraceful" by a consumer group. Which? found cases of missed visits, food left out of reach, medication not given and people being left in soiled beds during its investigation." And the rest.

It is only the most recent among torrents of similar reports with their litanies of neglect, indifference, inhumanity, etc. resulting in very great suffering for far too many elderly and vulnerable people. These people have a right to expect better of society and of the workers who are employed to care for them on its behalf. My understanding is that health workers like doctors, nurses, dentists, etc have a 'duty of care' toward the people for whom they provide care, and that this 'duty of care' is a phrase with legal standing. Do carers employed to provide care in the domestic home rather than in hospitals and care homes have a similar 'duty of care' towards their charges/clients? - If so, then it's Heaven help the vulnerable! 'cos nothing at all is ever done about the staff in the hospitals and care homes who treat elderly patients with scandalous cruelty - nothing effective, nothing significant, nothing that appropriately punishes the wrongdoers or discourages others from similar behaviour. Nothing worthy of the name of action. Nothing.

Is this the way we want old people to be treated? - Our elderly relatives? - Ourselves? - Of course it isn't. - Then why do successive Governments permit it? and by permitting it, encourage it?

Anti-depressants increase the risk of falls for elderly people with dementia

BBC News reports that anti-depressants increase the risk of falls for elderly people with dementia. "Many dementia patients also suffer from depression and drugs known as selective serotonin uptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are frequently prescribed. But the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology reports that the risk of injuries from falls was tripled."

Now that's a real shame, because anti-depressants should not be being prescribed at all, since research has shown that Anti-depressants are 'no better than dummy pills'. People who are suffering from dementia have enough to contend with, without having to cope with an increased risk of falling and all the other adverse effects of anti-depressants. - Rather than these unhelpful, harmful meds it would be better to try to improve the nutritional status of dementia sufferers. I suggest, for example, making sure they are not deficient in vitamin D. An adequate level of vitamin D would strengthen their muscles and bones (and immune system) and would render falls from any cause less likely to result in hip fractures and other broken bones. It's well past time that prescribers read the relevant research and acted on it, instead of carrying on in their own sweet uninformed way regardless.

Study links high salt intake by elderly people with increased risk of dementia

A Canadian study links high salt intake by elderly people with increased risk of dementia, as the Daily Mail reports. So salt can impair brain power and memory, as well as increasing blood pressure, risk of stroke, heart attack, heart disease, diabetes, depression, arthritis, asthma, kidney damage, liver damage, most cancers, osteoporosis, increased risk of fractures and many other degenerative health conditions.

The good news is that if you have had your health damaged by eating too much salt, you can immediately, dramatically and safely improve every aspect of your health and every organ of your body by seriously cutting down on salt and salty food. - And if you are overweight or obese you will also lose weight when you reduce your salt intake. - Go on! - Try cutting down on salt and salty food! - You will feel sooo much better...(o:

Vitamin D deficiency is associated with risk of cognitive decline in the elderly

A research team from the Peninsula Medical School, University of Exeter, has established the first clear link between vitamin D deficiency and the development of cognitive problems that are a key feature of dementia. Findings from the study led by Dr. David J. Llewellyn are being published in the prestigious journal Archives of Internal Medicine, and are the result of an international collaboration involving researchers from the University of Michigan, the UK Medical Research Council Biostatistics Unit, the Perugia University Hospital and Medical School in Italy, and the US National Institute on Aging.
Read article at physorg.com

Three Cheers for Vitamin D!

Three Cheers for Vitamin D! - There are many health benefits from making sure you are getting enough vitamin D.

Maybe you are like me - not able to get out in the sun much, and so not getting much vitamin D from sunshine on your skin. If you are rather weak/frail/infirm, this lack of sunshine could be part of the cause, especially if you are elderly. Maybe, like me, you would benefit from taking in more vitamin D by way of your food or in vitamin D tablets.

I've found that after a few months taking vitamin D tablets I really have benefited from them. - I feel much stronger. - My arms and hands are stronger. My legs are stronger. It is much, much easier for me to get up from a chair, which had, as a steroid victim, become a really difficult feat.

Many people suffer, unknowingly, from vitamin D deficiency and would, as I did, benefit from increasing their intake of the sunshine vitamin. There are many health benefits from this, apart from the ones I have mentioned here. - If you click on the vitamin D tags in the list of tags under this post, I'm sure you would find much that will interest and help you.

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain is concerned about elderly people taking so many prescribed drugs and being unsure of side-effects.

The Telegraph reports that a survey by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain "shows that nearly half of over 65s are currently taking over five medicines at any one time," and "Royal Pharmaceutical Society spokesman and pharmacist, Paul Johnson says; “It’s not unusual for older people to get confused with the medicine they are taking, particularly when they are on numerous types of medication.""

The Society is seeking to promote an annual review of the medication elderly people take and says that pharmacists are ideally placed to do such reviews.

Well clearly somebody should be reviewing prescribed meds! - A cocktail of prescription drugs is fraught with risk, especially with confused older people. - You'd think our highly-paid GPs would be doing reviews as a matter of routine and culling the drugs. - Taking more than 5 prescription drugs at the same time, which each have potential/actual adverse side-effects, and causing the side-effects to be increased in number and severity when taken with other drugs... This seems a recipe for harm for most of the patients taking them, though clearly it is of great benefit to the drug manufacturers.

What motivates multiple drug prescribing like this? I consider it irresponsible.

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.

Harmful side-effects are associated with dementia drugs

Harmful side-effects are associated with several dementia drugs commonly prescribed for elderly people.
Read article at sciencedaily.com

Dr John Zeisel has a kinder, safer, drug-free alternative to offer for elderly people with dementia. See http://www.imstillhere.org/

Many older people are being prescribed medications unnecessarily and without sufficient consideration of adverse side-effects.

Elderly people are being turned into patients by GPs blindly following guidelines to hand out pills for high blood pressure and cholesterol, a professor has said. The ‘paternalistic society’ and medicine by ‘tick box’ has overtaken personal advice, Michael Oliver, emeritus professor of cardiology at Edinburgh University wrote in the British Medical Journal online. He said many of the drugs including those for high blood pressure and statins for raised cholesterol have side effects which many elderly people find debilitating.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)

Georgian seniors need nutrient supplementation, finds study

Researchers at the University of Georgia (UGA) report that elderly people across the state are largely deficient in vitamin D, calcium and B12, and should consider dietary supplementation. The new study conducted by nutrition researchers at the university noted that nutrient deficiencies are making the elderly more vulnerable to chronic health problems such as osteoporosis, anemia and cognitive impairment.
Read article at nutraingredients-usa.com

Survey discloses that three out of four councils have cut free home support services for the elderly and the disabled in order to save money.

Three out of four councils are cutting care for elderly and disabled
Telegraph article

Extracts:

"The poll by the Local Government Association found that town halls are increasingly withholding support for all but those with the most severe needs, as Britain's ageing population puts their budgets under increasing strain.

This means that thousands of pensioners and disabled people must either pay for their own care - and scrimp on food and heating - or remain effectively trapped in their own homes with no help to carry out basic tasks such as eating or washing.

The LGA, which represents local authorities across the country, is calling for the Government to use a forthcoming Green Paper to simplify the social care system and increase its funding to ensure those in need are not denied help."

"Gordon Lishman, Director General of Age Concern, added: "These figures are further evidence that the care system is coming apart at the seams and needs urgent reform.

"It is disgraceful that people who need care and can't afford to pay are being told they simply won't get any help. It is positively Orwellian that these cuts are being delivered through a process known as 'Fair Access to Care Services'."

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"."

Many elderly denied care in their own homes

Many elderly denied care in their own homes

Extracts from the Telegraph:

"The drastic tightening of rules affecting which elderly people qualify for state-funded care in their own homes has left hundreds of thousands bereft of help and in dire straits, a report published on Tuesday is expected to say.

The report, by the care watchdog, the Commission for Social Care Inspection, comes as dozens of councils in England start to "pay by the minute" for care which elderly people receive in their own homes.

The CSCI will highlight an appalling lack of provision for the elderly and say that while many services are improving, others are absent or do not rise much above national minimum standards."

"Seven in 10 councils in England have been forced to "ration" services since Labour came to power.

Most town halls now provide services - including meals-on-wheels, trips to day centres and home visits from social workers - only to pensioners with "substantial" or "critical" needs.

Lack of funding means many councils help only those who are seriously ill or incapacitated. In some cases, pensioners have had to sell their homes to help pay for private care, or ask their families to pick up the bill."

Elderly people need better foot care service

Care failure traps elderly - Telegraph

Extract:

"ELDERLY people are being left housebound as a result of a lack of basic care to help them look after their feet, it was claimed today (Mon).

Thousands of pensioners are becoming increasingly disabled because the NHS is not providing simple services such as chiropody.

According to a report by Age Concern, many elderly people now risk hurting themselves in dangerous falls as they are not being given adequate care to help them look after their feet.

The NHS has recently cut back on services such as chiropody clinics in which elderly people are provided with basic services such as toe-nail cutting and relief for aches and pains.

As a result, a high proportion of older people have suffered a loss of mobility and independence because they can not walk.

Some are being forced to wait for weeks on over-subscribed waiting lists while others do not have access to any NHS clinics in their local area.

Gordon Lishman, Director General of Age Concern, said: "Foot care services are failing older people and a postcode lottery is leaving those in some areas without any services at all.

"Some of the older people we have talked to are taking desperate measures including cutting their nails with gardening shears or kicking solid walls in their bare feet to break their nails."

One of the main reasons that old people are unable to cut their toenails themselves is that they have put on a lot of weight and they find it difficult to reach their feet properly. Cutting down on salt and salty food is the safe and simple way to lose some excess weight as this reduces fluid retention which is what has caused the weight gain.

Lose weight and improve your health 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.)

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

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

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."

Age Concern attacks 'care lottery' for elderly

Charity attacks 'care lottery' for elderly - Telegraph

Extract:

"Elderly people in some parts of Britain are up to 160 times more likely to have their bills for long-term NHS care paid for by the health service than others.

The unjustifiable postcode lottery was a public scandal and "beggared belief", said Age Concern, which obtained the information from the Department of Health.

The issue of who pays for "continuing care" is highly contentious as thousands of elderly people have to use their savings or even sell their homes to pay bills, while others get their care for free.

It is estimated that more than 70,000 elderly people have been forced to sell their homes.
Continuing care is defined as where the NHS is responsible for, and fully funds, health care outside hospital. It mostly affects very ill, older people in nursing homes, but the NHS can also fund care in a person's own home.

Age Concern's analysis of continuing care figures shows that in March, Derby City Primary Care Trust was giving just seven people continuing care, a figure which represents 0.26 people per 10,000.

Age Concern contrasted the figures with Harrow, which was giving 826 people continuing care, at a rate of 41.75 per 10,000 people, 160 times higher than Derby."

Joan Bakewell draws attention to how elderly people are vulnerable to abuse.

Joan Bakewell: It is easy to abuse those too vulnerable to complain - Independent

Extract:

"Why do little children pull the wings of insects? Because they can. They have the power and the curiosity to do so. Why do pigs hunt down the runt of the litter? Because in the pecking order of nature, to have someone clearly weaker than you, endorses your own power. Why do some men beat up their wives in the privacy of their own homes? Because they have the need to assert their will and the opportunity to do so undetected.

Hierarchies of power and dominance exist in human society every bit as much as in the animal kingdom. Civilisation is the way we tame our impulses to exploit. But civilisation wears thin when we have the need and the chance to assert our own superiority.

Our supposed civilised society is nowhere more culpable than in the appalling treatment regularly meted out to the very old. Over and over, the cry goes out from charities, and concerned families and carers, that there is widespread and serious abuse of the very old. Now comes another report, this time from the King's Institute of Gerontology in London, launched in association with Action on Elder Abuse and based on two years' research, that declares that the violence, bullying and neglect of the old are far more extensive and serious than we ever thought."

You can protect/improve your own health and that of others you care for by reducing the amount of salt in the meals you provide. - 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.)

Would you rather live to be old or die before you become old?

Editor-At-Large: I wish The Zimmers long life. But I hope I die before I get old - Janet Street-Porter writing in The Independent on Sunday

Extract:

"And talking of care homes, I once wrote that if I start to go senile, hand me a plastic bag, because I'd rather end it all quickly than spend my last decade watching daytime telly in a room reeking of boiled cabbage and stale urine. Loads of you wrote to agree. And finally our wonderful government has woken up to the fact that voters are the crumblies, the pensioners and the middle-aged, all of whom probably view the prospect of spending any time in a care home as a thoroughly grim prospect to be avoided at all costs. Only this week, 15 elderly residents in a care home in Lancashire owned by Brightcrest Ltd were told to get their stuff together by 2pm THAT SAME DAY and vacate the premises by 8pm because the company had gone bust.

Time and time again, there are stories of homes closing without warning, of appalling standards, of fires and of lifts breaking down, leaving residents marooned on an upper floor for weeks on end. Sensing a vote-grabbing initiative, the Department of Health last week announced it was going to spend £67m refurbishing 7,000 UK care homes. Shall I do the maths for you? That's a paltry £9,571 per home, not even a well-equipped new kitchen, not a new roof, not a new garden, enough for a new telly, a couple of cheap three-piece suites, a few beds and a lick of paint. BIG DEAL.

And four out of 10 old people in hospital are malnourished because the Department of Health can't be arsed to spend enough on nursing auxiliaries to make sure everyone gets help to eat. At present, two nurses and a couple of helpers per 25 people are all that's allocated. So The Zimmers can sing about "Their Generation" but the tragedy is that 3.5 million older people live alone, and it's not a lot of fun singing along to the telly by yourself, hoping that Meals on Wheels doesn't forget you, is it?"

Social care services for elderly people are being cut back.

Cutbacks 'rationing services for elderly' - Sunday Telegraph

Extract:

"Hundreds of thousands of elderly people have had their "social care" cut in the past decade.
Seven in 10 councils in England have been forced to "ration" services since Labour came to power, according to the Local Government -Association.

Most town halls now provide services - including meals-on-wheels, trips to day centres and home visits from social workers - only to pensioners with "substantial" or "critical" needs.

Lack of funding means many councils now help only those who are seriously ill or incapacitated. In some cases, pensioners have had to sell their homes to help pay for private care, or ask their families to pick up the bill."