When we contact the nursing home the stories never match. My mother is currently in a nursing home ( she cannot walk, cannot transfer herself to/from her wheel chair and is bowel and bladder incontinent) and often tells me and/or one of my siblings things that are happening at the facility that bother her . After she continues to complain about a situation for many days one of us contacts the facility and almost always the stories do not match. We do not normally see the issue when we are there ( one of us visits for 2-3 hours 5 of the 7 days a week) . Does anyone have any suggestions on how to tell who is right ? The staff claim she is just not remembering things correctly mom claims they are lying.
I sit with my father and other residents for hours sometimes and that helps figure out the real story. Also some of aids that are around a lot will often stop and talk with dad and I and dad will say "isn't that right?" and often they will have a more accurate version than my dad or the head nurse.
What your mom claims are all very valid and often true. Much of what the elderly say is ignored even in hospitals for serious stays. I have found that my dad will tell the wrong person like the girl filling the water each day, or the person who comes in to just check his blood sugar...... they don't pass on the information so he feels his comments were ignored.
The people in nursing homes and hospitals are so distracted and pulled here and there they forget so much.
I was appalled at my dad's last hospital stay and one of us kids had to stay there all the time just to make sure he had food. They bring the tray, leave it an hour, pick it up. No one knew if he was eating or not so we began staying all the time to feed him.
Same thing happened to my in-laws.
If you (family) are at the nursing home that often then I would think you'd see how often nurses visit her room and if they take notes of her complaints and needs. If they don't take notes... they are not accurately passing on the information.
YOU CAN also request all records on your mom if you are POA. It will show if they are noting your mom's requests or not.
" party line" that is not always accurate. There are two truths here. Residents often complain to family and refuse to tell staff what is wrong. They feel vulnerable. My advice is to get to know the direct care givers and encourage them any way you can. Let them know that you want to help them to help your loved one. The higher up the administrative line you go, the less credible and helpful the information will be.
If you (or other relative) have to address your mom's complaints directly to the nurse... don't be shy. You are her advocate. With some nurses, I will take the resident's complaints to the nurse and they will just poo-poo it. But they jump and ask how high when family speaks up. Ask her how she's feeling today, ask her if anything hurts, Look her over for bruises and skin tears especially on the upper arms. Someone can easily knock a knee, forearm or hand into a door jam and bruise up. Upper arms are usually from staff getting a little too rough. Oh, and another good indicator of quality of care is check how clean their sheets are. Yup, peel back the bedspread and top sheet. Is it a bed you'd sleep in?
As many has mentioned, she may have a skewed sense of what is really going on because their brain is misinterpreting the information due to their medications. When the dr comes to the NH, they are in and out of there so dang fast it's hardly worth anything. It may be worth your time to make an appointment at her Primary's office, bring a list of all her medications and have him review them to make sure she is not being over medicated and that everything she is taking is appropriate for her. He can also check her for any cognitive decline... that's when they ask them what year it is, who is the president, what is 19 less than 100, repeat these 3 words then will ask them a few minutes later what those 3 words were. If you guys can verify that your mom is 100% all there, it narrows things down considerably. Could be a behavioral problem, some people just like to play the role of the poor victim and you know your mom well enough to know if this is something she has done all her life. I have one resident who is still sharp and always claims none of her daughter's have visited her since April. The truth of the matter is 2 of her daughters are there every Sunday like clockwork. If her boyfriend there has a stomachache, she suddenly has a stomachache. If he is constipated, so is she. She could have had her bed stripped overnight because she was incontinent, she'll say it hasn't been stripped in 2 months. Now if your mom is not like this, then yes I would take a hard look at the care she is receiving from the facility and maybe start looking into other facilities.
A record must be created. Report these incidents to the State, County and Municipality where the incidents occurred. Get specific names, if possible.
I immediately drove to the nursing home....about 20 min drive. She was still warm...they never closed her eyes....and they had all her belongings packed up and on a dolly ready to get her out. That was at 4am. They were so cold and heartless.
My mom was in an AL for just 3 days after a surgery a couple of years ago and she really was neglected by the staff. They ignored complaints she had about the rehab and totally did some damage to her leg. They also allowed other patients to walk around freely, one of those would walk in and wake mom up and take things off her dresser. I was glad she was able to get out of there but because of their neglect she ended up back in the hospital.
Some people do complain and want more attention but sad to say some of those individuals often do not get enough attention. There should be someone around to interact more with these individuals. And the homes are often short staffed. There are many people who want to put their loved one in a nursing home and expect there never to be a problem...well hello! You have a loved one in the hospital or nursing home, etc. stay involved and your loved one will get more and better attention....at least they will probably not be abused. It is amazing what a little touch or pat on the cheek can do for the happiness of one who is shut in.
My mother used to tell me she was unhappy at the nursing home and would rather be dead than to be living there...I live in Fla but she wanted to stay in the Va area where her boys were...So .I would drive 1000 miles to try and figure the problem ...and she would tell them she liked it there. After a few trip I made a surprise visit and found what was going on! What was happening was her room mate was taking almost all the closet space and taking the only hook in the bathroom for her personal items...took up the most space in the room, etc. The room mate after she received her noon meds would become agitated with my mother who was afraid to tell what was happening. The nurses told me the room mate had this problem, yet they were going to move my mother to an area with those who were so medicated they were always in a stupur..or screaming, etc. . I immediately removed my mother from the home. (I spent about three minutes in that section and thought I was loosing my mind) I could not subject my mother to that. The other thing was my mother did not want to drink water as she did not want to have to urinate and ask for help. I continued Digging for info and also found that the room mate did not want her to turn on the light at night so mother did not want to have to go to the bathroom. This had all gone on for over a year and I felt really bad but it was not easy to find out what was wrong. The room mate was given a lot of freedoms because she would make a scene and my mother who was shy anyway was living in fear 24 hours a day. These things happen a lot!!!!
When she came to live with me mother was on about 13 different meds...The bill was always high there were many extras added. I was able to get her to a doctor that cut the amount down to about 8 meds....and I am not sure she needed all of those either. Getting rid of the meds made a big difference in her attitude, actions and quality of life.
Another thing I noticed at the nursing home.... those individuals whose mind appears to be gone will often cling to stuffed animals and are calmer around those who are attentive. I feel this is in someway of our human instinct to clutch to things that make us feel connected in some way. I have also noticed that some of those who are highly medicated are scared of the shower yet they have the water sprayed on them anyway. Whenever I notice anything or I am told anything out of the ordinary I make it known....And I wish others would do the same thing. I know that some of the nursing homes are very nice but there is no way they can control all the employees and some just do not like their jobs nor do they enjoy working around seniors. We have to face the fact that it is often just a job. So we can do our part by staying involved and helping them at the nursing home to understand our loved one so they can give them the best care.
My mother passed but I still viist several little friends at the nursings homes . One who recently passed never wanted to eat or she had difficulty feeding herself and I would often see that a whole plate of food was left....the aid would say she did not want to eat....what I had observed once was they were trying to feed her too fast and I think she had problems swallowing such big bites. She lost a lot of weight once she was in the nursing home. Her family placed her there and almost never came to see her...thus she was resentful and often took it out on others. I threw a big birthday party for her the year she died and all the residents showered her with attention and started noticing her after that. But.. I have seen so many sad things it breaks my heart to even think of them. Take good care of your loved ones....my mother used to say "What goes round comes round"... I enjoyed reading all the posts...and I hope I did not sound as though I was preaching to you....it is just that I am very passionate about all this because I have seen so much! Love and Blessings ~ Bobbi
There are two sides to every story; that's why we have courts.
In my opinion nursing home workers don't really care that much about the patients and are over loaded with them on a daily basis with all the budget cuts.All it takes is one bad employee who takes things personal when they have a difficult patient then the abuse starts .It can start maybe in their room when no one is around or in the shower etc.I believe the Nurses and others document a lot of stuff that really isn't done or didn't really happen to make their facility in compliance with state regulations.Just because she is older doesn't mean all of a sudden she is making things up just to get you to listen to her.