By: Arthur Cooper
Submitted: 2011-01-26 15:41:52 | Word Count: 664
PA Nursing Homes are senior care facilities in Pennsylvania for seniors who need nursing home care as they age. Whether you are looking for senior care in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, or Altoona Pennsylvania, nursing homes serve the same purpose: nursing services for aging adults.
What if your senior loved one falls while they are at home and they need a place to receive nursing care services as well as a place to stay? This is a time when senior nursing care is helpful. Many seniors fall and some seniors need extra support and care as they heal. Some seniors may even benefit from the social interaction of a nursing home. Many seniors in nursing homes are there for health reason, so sometimes they can be a little loud, smelly, and over-crowded. Any care facility can be a change for a senior who is used to living at-home independently, but always be aware of any danger that the senior care facility may put your senior loved one into.
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Your senior loved one may not have Alzheimer’s disease or Dementia, but many seniors in the nursing home do have these debilitating diseases. Your senior loved one may be placed in a shared room with a senior who screams at all hours of the night or they may talk to someone who is not in the room. Seniors often experience new people while in the nursing home, and sometimes these experiences can be very upsetting. On the other side of the spectrum, your senior loved one may be the senior with dementia that needs medical attention and screams at night due to the disease. This senior may not know that they are in a nursing home, or the nursing home may make the feelings worse. The constant movement in the nursing home, the sounds of the medical machines, the lights in the hallways, the screaming residents, and the commotion of daily life can be upsetting for a senior in a nursing home, and many seniors “want to leave”.
Sometimes, nursing home staff seem to be too busy to help a senior in the nursing home, or so it seems. Nursing homes are usually under-staffed compared to the amount of seniors in the home. Therefore, a lot of nursing aides neglect seniors. Often, the senior cannot speak for themselves due to a senior aging disease, and the nurse may not realize that the senior needs to be adjusted in their bed. Or, a senior that needs thickened water from a sippy cup will receive regular water in a cup. The senior is then unable to drink the drink that was given to them, it is a health hazard, and the senior remains thirsty for hours until a family member arrives to relieve them of their thirst.
A true story about PA Nursing Homes: a senior sat in her chair awaiting dinner (she is too frail to feed herself, therefore she is at an assisted feeding table in the dining hall). Family members popped in to have a quick visit with the senior. They notice that the senior smells like urine and her pants are all wet. The senior wears adult diapers, but apparently the diaper is too large for the senior because when the senior urinated, the urine went all over her and her clothing. How long was she sitting like this? Why didn’t a nurse see this? The family asked a nurse to change their senior loved one into a new diaper and clothing before dinner, and the nurse replied that it was “probably just water and it could wait”. First of all, it was urine. Secondly, if it had been water, the senior should not have to sit in her chair for two hours until she is changed and placed into dry clothing. Either way, the nurse had it all wrong: do not undermine a situation or sugarcoat it, the senior needed help, that is that! The family ended up requesting a change that moment and waited until the senior was dry before leaving the nursing home. Unfortunately, this true story proves that nursing home staff do not always care for seniors in the way that they should. Accidents and mistakes happen much too frequently, and seniors suffer from the nursing home staff mistakes. Not all nursing homes put the lives of seniors at risk, but you should be aware that many nursing homes are under-staffed, have poor ratings, and can potentially put your senior loved one at risk.
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