Nursing homes
February 8th 2008 07:04
My wife used to work in a nursing home as a caregiver, and later on one of my daughters carried on the work. It’s tough and back-breaking (sometimes literally) and though both my wife and my daughter are good with people, they both found it demanding and tiring.
I had an aunt in England who went into a nursing home (one of the BUPA homes, in fact, a name that still strikes me as rather odd and uninviting), and because we were in New Zealand and she was in the UK, it was hard to gauge how she fared there. I remember ringing up more than once to see how she was going and having trouble trying to get anyone to understand me let alone find her. In fact, even when they did understand me they sometimes seemed to think I’d got the wrong place.
Nursing homes obviously vary a lot, and they’re not a place I’d like to wind up in. My mother occasionally said she’d go and live in one in her old age, but we wouldn’t have let her, (unless she became completely beyond our care). I’ve seen perfectly intelligent old people go into nursing homes and wind up going crazy with the lack of stimulation. Seeing a bunch of old people sitting around a large lounge doing nothing, the tv blaring away (or muted so that no one can hear it), and none of them able to move, doesn’t strike me as an ideal way to end your days.
I know nursing homes in the UK can be just that: places where you get nursed for a while until you’re recovered from something; that doesn’t happen so much here in NZ. Most of the nursing homes we experience are for the elderly, and they’re usually the last place the elderly live before they die.
For a very brief period, when I was out of work nearly two decades ago, I had to go and get an old lady out of bed in the morning, and put her back to bed at night. (Someone else came during the day). It was a fairly embarrassing time for both her and me, but we got there, and she was always bright and chatty, in spite of her disability. However, when she was taken away from her own home and put into a nursing home some time later, she deteriorated quickly. We went to visit her, and she barely knew us.
Having your own home surroundings seems to keep your brain functioning a lot longer, strange as it seems.
I had an aunt in England who went into a nursing home (one of the BUPA homes, in fact, a name that still strikes me as rather odd and uninviting), and because we were in New Zealand and she was in the UK, it was hard to gauge how she fared there. I remember ringing up more than once to see how she was going and having trouble trying to get anyone to understand me let alone find her. In fact, even when they did understand me they sometimes seemed to think I’d got the wrong place.
Nursing homes obviously vary a lot, and they’re not a place I’d like to wind up in. My mother occasionally said she’d go and live in one in her old age, but we wouldn’t have let her, (unless she became completely beyond our care). I’ve seen perfectly intelligent old people go into nursing homes and wind up going crazy with the lack of stimulation. Seeing a bunch of old people sitting around a large lounge doing nothing, the tv blaring away (or muted so that no one can hear it), and none of them able to move, doesn’t strike me as an ideal way to end your days.
I know nursing homes in the UK can be just that: places where you get nursed for a while until you’re recovered from something; that doesn’t happen so much here in NZ. Most of the nursing homes we experience are for the elderly, and they’re usually the last place the elderly live before they die.
For a very brief period, when I was out of work nearly two decades ago, I had to go and get an old lady out of bed in the morning, and put her back to bed at night. (Someone else came during the day). It was a fairly embarrassing time for both her and me, but we got there, and she was always bright and chatty, in spite of her disability. However, when she was taken away from her own home and put into a nursing home some time later, she deteriorated quickly. We went to visit her, and she barely knew us.
Having your own home surroundings seems to keep your brain functioning a lot longer, strange as it seems.
Not necessarily a typical nursing home
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