Nursing homes: Will this be the next thing?

[The_Reginator]

CTV’s investigative show W5 has been doing shows on the violence in nursing homes.

Tonight they featured a different kind of nursing home. At this home they have the elderly living with those with both physical and mental disabilities.

Please give this a read:
**Sherbrooke Community Centre: A Canadian success story

**It begins:

In case after case of violence and homicides at Canadian long-term care facilities W5’s research kept pointing to patients with dementia attacking other patients. And all indications are that the problem is only going to get worse.
According to the Alzheimer’s Society of Canada this country is on the edge of a crisis – the number of Canadians with dementia will increase from 747,000 today to 1.4 million in 2031. And the costs are rising. Additional information from the Alzheimer’s Society can be found in an article they provided to W5: “People first in dementia care”.

When looking for solutions W5 found the Sherbrooke Community Centre in Saskatoon Saskatchewan. This sounds really promising:

At Sherbrooke their philosophy of care is called the “Eden Alternative” and it seems promising. They claim “to counter the three plagues of loneliness, helplessness and boredom.” But did they have the statistics to back up those words and what was the home like? We visited the Sherbrooke Community Centre in early September 2013.
Instead of living in hospital-like wards, residents live in “houses” or communal groupings living space. Sherbrooke calls them “villages”. Groups of 9-10 residents live in each of these houses and there are homes for Veterans, Aboriginal residents, Ukrainian residents, and men with acquired brain injuries. In order to give residents flexibility over when and what they eat, there are kitchens and dining rooms within each of the houses.
More importantly, there are two staff for every 9-10 residents. Based on conversations with frontline care workers across the country, the number at Sherbrooke is about double what you would find in most nursing homes.

I was unable to locate the (hour long) video on line, but this story summarizes it well.

 

[Peggy_in_Burien]

I took my husband out of a nursing facility where the care was very good, but the resident profile was beginning to change. This is becoming a more common problem here in the States. As more elderly people are able to stay in their homes, the nursing homes sometimes feel compelled to take in recovering drug and alcohol addicts. These folks are usually younger and stronger than the frail elderly residents, which has led to some terrible situations.

This particular place (which has since closed) had started taking in more and more of the addicts. So, as soon as we were able, I moved him to a wonderful, Catholic nursing home that sounds very much like the one you describe. My husband receives loving care from the staff in his “neighborhood” on the 4th floor. The residents can eat in the dining room in their neighborhood, or go to the main floor dining room. There are no smokers admitted to this facility, which has been very nice. He also can attend Mass every day. And best of all, as far as my husband is concerned, each floor has its own resident cat.

God bless the staff of Seattle’s Providence/Mount St. Vincent de Paul assisted living/nursing home.