Elder Rights – The HPP Resource Center

Category: Elder Rights

Behind Locked Doors: Segregation in Memory Care

Memory care is the fastest-growing area of senior living. It is now standard for assisted living communities and nursing homes to designate an area for a secure unit, usually with a coded keypad on the door. This is where the residents living with dementia will live, segregated from the rest of the residents. Often these secured units, with their extra charges, are the most expensive areas to live. I have worked as a registered nurse long enough to remember when it was also standard to tie people in their chairs or beds “for their own good.” None of us would…

Resident-to-Resident Incidents: An Invisible Source of Harm in Nursing Homes

A White Paper by Eilon Caspi, Ph.D. Dwayne E. Walls was an investigative reporter at The Charlotte Observer. Throughout his career, he wrote stories on social justice issues from the inner circles of the Ku Klux Klan and the homes of poor Black farmers; he also covered hunger, voter fraud and the dysfunctions of the coroner system. Some of his most compelling stories reported on challenges experienced by vulnerable populations. Late in his own life, he joined a different vulnerable population: elders living with dementia. In 2001, Walls was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. When his condition declined and his wife…

The Top 3 Things You Need to Know About Harmful Interactions Between Residents with Dementia

In his book, Understanding and Preventing Harmful Interactions Between Residents with Dementia, Eilon Caspi, Ph.D., has three key things he wants readers to know about this phenomenon. 1. In the vast majority of distressing and harmful resident-to-resident interactions, people living with dementia “fight” with each other in an effort to preserve their dignity. In the words of Joanne Koenig Coste, “Alzheimer’s disease doesn’t take the person’s dignity away. We do.” Next time you notice a resident with dementia engaged in an episode with another resident, observe it carefully, and try to look at it through the lens of…

7 Strategies to Address Racism and Stereotyping in Long-Term Care

Many elders grew up in an era and in regions where racist practices were prevalent and accepted as the norm. Some of these people held racist views from their youth and continue to hold these beliefs throughout their lives, whether they openly express these views in public or suppress them as racism becomes increasingly unaccepted and condemned over the years. When these individuals develop dementia and move into long-term care homes, some may continue to express their long-held racist views toward other residents and direct care partners, especially under distressing day-to-day situations. As Alzheimer’s disease progresses, the cognitive filters that…

5 Solutions to Improve Communication and Reporting

The majority of distressing and harmful resident-to-resident interactions (DHRRIs) remain unreported. Underreporting of these episodes limits direct care partners’ ability to understand the root causes of these behavioral expressions; identify underlying unmet needs, situational frustrations, and triggering events; and anticipate and prevent future incidents. This lack of reporting is important generally but also because many of these behavioral expressions are recurrent. In addition, problems with information transfer between direct care partners, between direct care partners and managers, and between employees from different departments and disciplines is also a persistent problem in many long-term care homes. These communication lapses and breakdowns…

Why We Don’t Call it Resident-to-Resident “Aggression”

Words matter, a lot. Words used to describe elders living with dementia reflect and shape the ways in which they are perceived by direct care partners, which profoundly influences the ways in which they are approached, cared for, and treated. Imagine that you and I are elders with dementia living in a care home. I invade your personal space ten times over a period of 15 minutes. At first you respond politely by asking me to leave the area, but the invasions continue and gradually you lose your patience and become very angry. Direct care partners are not in the…

A Mindshift: 14 Terms to Know

What holds us back in transforming senior living? In Disrupting the Status Quo of Senior Living: A Mindshift, author Jill Vitale-Aussem says it is a combination of societal views on aging, the persistence of institutional culture in every level of living, and communities that continue to operate based on processes and policies infused with paternalism, ageism, and antiquated thinking. To truly transform senior living, we need a MINDSHIFT. Here are some critical terms for guiding important new conversations. SENIOR LIVING Congregate living for older people. Includes nursing homes, assisted living, memory support, senior housing, and retirement communities/life plan communities. HOSPITALITY…

Our Devastating Disregard for Elder Care Workers

By Jill Vitale-Aussem, LNHA, MMH, author of Disrupting the Status Quo of Senior Living: A Mindshift This post was originally shared on www.jillvitaleaussem.com and has been re-posted here with permission. View the original post here. I thought perhaps a few of my friends would check out my first blog post, “Nursing Homes Need Support, Not Blame.” To my great surprise, over 144,000 people have read it so far. What that tells me is that our field is in desperate need of validation and support. In the past couple of weeks, negative…

Creating Cultures of Dignity

These days, it feels the whole nation is watching the long-term care communities with an array of emotions: judgement, compassion, sympathy, and sometimes outrage. Living and working under this microscope can weigh heavily on the entire long-term care community. Stress levels begin to run high and relationships among care-partners can become strained. When the outside world makes us feel unworthy of honor and respect, we begin to pass that sentiment on to our teammates and our capacity to build strong relationships begins to diminish. We must look within ourselves and: Believe we matter Know our value Understand our WHY Believe…

Nursing Homes Need Support, Not Blame

By Jill Vitale-Aussem, LNHA, MMH, author of Disrupting the Status Quo of Senior Living: A Mindshift This post was originally shared on www.jillvitaleaussem.com and has been re-posted here with permission. View the original post here. I had hoped, with the current focus on healthcare workers as heroes, that the demonizing of nursing homes would cease during the pandemic. It hasn’t. I’ve seen very few news stories blaming hospitals when patients die from COVID-19 but nearly every story about people dying in a nursing home outbreak somehow blames the nursing home. While there are always some bad apples,…

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