The assisted-living facility in Edina, Minnesota, where Jean H. Peters and her siblings moved their mother in 2011, looked lovely. “But then you start uncovering things,” Peters said.
Her mother, Jackie Hourigan, widowed and developing memory problems at 82, too often was still in bed when her children came to see her in midmorning.
“She wasn’t being toileted, so her pants would be soaked,” said Peters, 69, a retired nurse-practitioner in Bloomington, Minnesota. “They didn’t give her water. They didn’t get her up for meals.” She dwindled to 94 pounds.
Most ominously, Peters said, “we noticed bruises on her arm that we couldn’t account for.” Complaints to administrators — in person, by phone and by email — brought “tons of excuses.”
So Peters bought an inexpensive camera at Best Buy. She and her sisters installed it atop the refrigerator in her mother’s apartment, worrying that the facility might evict her if the staff noticed it.
Monitoring from an app on their phones, the family saw Hourigan going hours without being changed. They saw and heard an aide loudly berating her and handling her roughly as she helped her dress.
They watched as another aide awakened her for breakfast and left the room even though Hourigan was unable to open the heavy apartment door and go to the dining room. “It was traumatic to learn that we were right,” Peters said.
In 2016, after filing a police report and a lawsuit, and after her mother’s death, Peters helped found Elder Voice Advocates, which lobbied for a state law permitting cameras in residents’ rooms in nursing homes and assisted-living facilities. Minnesota passed it in 2019.
After watching The Rule of Jenny Pen recently, I’m really sad at the thought of elder abuse, a quick death feels more humane than an old age home.
I’d say putting up cameras violates the person’s dignity, but knowing how hellish these places can end up I’m not surprised well-meaning people have to do that to protect their loved ones.
A thought. We should probably have an AI model trained on proper elder care. Detecting when someone is gotten out of bed, clothed and/or changed, brought food, If they’re eating the food, falls, shouting, screaming, crying, gruff tones. On an average day a human wouldn’t need to look at the footage. An administrator would receive a message that they need to go back and review certain clips.
They actually already have a thing that basically turns the people on camera to stick figures. You can turn it off if you need to, but a quick check can see that they’re up and moving around vs fallen down without invading their privacy too much at least
There could be room for error there. An alert could read that a patient is getting out of bed when they’re just tossing and turning. Not that this isn’t a good idea, I would just use it in addition to human observation.
Good. These nursing homes need some serious accountability.
They’re straight up prisons. I visit them frequently as an advocate, and here’s my advice:
if you can manage it, don’t send your family to them. Skip Assisted Living and only break down at skilled nursing care when it’s medically too much to handle.
I mean that’s tough. Unless you have an unemployed family member who can take on the care, and even then it has to be a physically strong and frankly mentally strong person to do the kind of care elderly folks require. It’s just not feasible for most families.
My grandmother is physically disabled and has dimentia. Some weeks are hell taking care of her, and she’s one of the gentlest people with dimentia I have ever met. ( I used to work in a memory care facility, which is a big reason she’s at home with us)
Of course! I want to stress the if you can clause. If you can’t do it, it’s understandable - it’s one of, if not the hardest job there is.
They’re practically living coffins. I’d rather die than ever live in one.
It’s only going to get worse. I’m truly hoping personal robots will be available in 20 years.
like baby monitors, sometimes we end like we started
We’re born naked, covered in goo, and getting spanked, and we die naked covered in goo, and getting spanked.
Well…if you plan it right anyways…
Elder abuse.
Not sure what exactly you mean by that, whether you mean the cameras are elder abuse, or whether they’re to uncover elder abuse. But as a partner to someone who worked in long term care facilities, I’d say that although putting a camera in your loved ones room seems incredibly dystopian, the bigger concern is definitely monitoring the treatment of your loved one. Even in canada with our healthcare system, the long term care homes are disturbing. More and more of them are being bought out by private companies who understaff them to the point of criminal neglect. And when the staff are so extremely overworked and underpaid, then it begins to attract a disturbing element. I would be extremely wary of placing anyone in one of these homes, which is totally fucked because there isnt really an alternative in many cases. My partner used to work on a floor with 22 patients, and it was just one psw per floor, and one nurse for four floors most nights. People would go days without being showered, brushing their teeth or hair, without being changed if they had an accident, because there wasnt physically enough time to care for everyone. And thats someone who cared and was emotionally affected enough that they ended up leaving the field altogether. Not even taking into account the possibility that these jobs and conditions, with their lack of care and oversight can atteact significantly more sadistic personalities.
I think the commenter was replying to the title. “Why cameras are being added:”
Yeah, they went all out on misinterpretation.
