41–50 of 339 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Live in multi-generational family units where the family shares responsibility for (and benefits from) their own elders.
It'd be remiss to not note most of the time in culture where multi generational family units are the norm, responsibility lands on women in the home or household support in extended families and the economy doesn't often require two incomes to be middle class.
Phony Diagnoses not just at nursing homes, also in mental facilities. Was really surprised (better word-traumatized) that one flippant casual mention of not valuing my life in a private text message was enough to to get me detained by police in a facility for a night. "Doctor" threatened me with drugging just because I refused to answer some of their questions and instead insisted on a lawyer. Funny how freedoms can…
I work in developmental disabilities, the situation there is much the same. A lot of the time their lives just suck and the consequences of that is "solved" by giving them behavior controling medication because giving them good fulfilling lives is hard and expensive. I don't see any reason it would be different for nursing homes.
Personally, if I'm at the point where someone wants to give me haloperidol because of age related dementia, it is probably long past time for me to depart from this Earth.
Antipsychotics have horrific side effects but are useful in institutional settings to make residents/patients/inmates easier to manage - psychiatry is the tool used to legitimize drugging people without need for their consent in such settings, for the benefit of others and the institution. It makes me despondent to read an article like this as I believe there are too many perverse incentives and cultural taboos for t…
Not all antipsychotics have horrible side effects. Let’s not lose nuance in response to the terrible unethical behavior depicted here. Modern antipsychotics often do good in helping people function when they wouldn’t otherwise be able to. The illnesses they treat are ones of terror and loneliness. I will note however that there’s no purpose in them here except to force submission, and that’s abuse and spits on the go…
The issue is as you note in this instance, their use for something otherwise, that is, to force submission to make others' lives easier. It is not just in care homes that they are used for this purpose. Psychiatry as is practised within institutions such as prisons, schools, or care homes, serves as a way to legitimize dealing with difficult people using forced or coerced drugging, something we would not otherwise accept on the face of it. I don't see any good solution to this issue, especially not in the case of a care home where many residents will be deemed by all to not have capacity. Oversight can only do so much and when there are loopholes like the three excepted diagnoses mentioned in the article being exempted from public tallies, incentives will do the rest to close it.
EDIT: I'd like to add I have considered a bit more about other people I know who have taken or are taking antipsychotics (voluntarily), and they have never expressed extreme distress at their side effects. So I should have said 'can have' rather than 'have', my initial wording being influenced by my own experience.
Antipsychotics are not something to be handed out like candy. They have serious, sometimes permanent and sometimes fatal, side effects in anyone of any age. The article notes how that class of medication increases mortality in elderly people in particular. The fact that some people were prescribed haloperidol as the first line of treatment instead of a newer, safer antipsychotics also blows my mind. I'm terrified of…
The solution in my opinion to this problem is to permit euthanasia and for assisted suicide to become culturally accepted as an alternative to a drawn out death of dementia in a care home. The quality of life for many (not all) care home residents who are on these sorts of drug regimens is dire and in reality not entirely for their benefit, as is apparent to everyone including those responsible for oversight like Med…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The solution in my opinion to this problem is to permit euthanasia and for assisted suicide to become culturally accepted as an alternative to a drawn out death of dementia in a care home. The quality of life for many (not all) care home residents who are on these sorts of drug regimens is dire and in reality not entirely for their benefit, as is apparent to everyone including those responsible for oversight like Med…
Okay, let's assume we do exactly what you outlined there. In 2031, do you not expect to read an exposé on how many "care home" residents are being pressured into signing euthanasia papers without understanding what they're doing? How do we avoid that world?
Antipsychotics are not something to be handed out like candy. They have serious, sometimes permanent and sometimes fatal, side effects in anyone of any age. The article notes how that class of medication increases mortality in elderly people in particular. The fact that some people were prescribed haloperidol as the first line of treatment instead of a newer, safer antipsychotics also blows my mind. I'm terrified of…
The truth we fail to face is that, in the grueling task of caring for the elderly and all the perverse incentives to cut corners, providing holistic care is an enormous labor of love that will tend to not work well outside of family, despite all the money we throw at it.
Over prescription of antipsychotics is still common in US psychiatric facilities, and even if not there are alternatives, like very high dosages of SSRIs or other specific medications with complacency as a side effect.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Live in multi-generational family units where the family shares responsibility for (and benefits from) their own elders.
This is typically true for the elderly who can take care of themselves or require minimal help. Once you need round the clock dementia care, it is more than extended family can provide — unless one or more adults take themselves out of the workforce for years.
Antipsychotics are not something to be handed out like candy. They have serious, sometimes permanent and sometimes fatal, side effects in anyone of any age. The article notes how that class of medication increases mortality in elderly people in particular. The fact that some people were prescribed haloperidol as the first line of treatment instead of a newer, safer antipsychotics also blows my mind. I'm terrified of…
> I'm terrified of growing old in this country. Have kids, raise them right, and you’ll be fine. It’s worked out pretty well for a couple thousand years.
This problem will only get worse. A lot of it is driven by demographics:
(1) fewer children being born means fewer blood-relatives to share the home care
(2) although medical treatments can often improve lifetimes, they can't necessarily improve life quality
(3) as people stop dying from ever more diseases (e.g., cancer, cardiovascular disease), they'll start to succumb to psychological and physical ailments resulting from isolation and sedentary lifestyles, and these have no cures - only treatments.
(4) people often don't live where they grew up, which means that married couples can face a double-whammy of declining health of both parents, right about the same time and a geographical conflict that gets worse with time.
Those claiming the solution is multi-generational households haven't done the math. And I doubt they've attempted to care for a geriatric relative with rapidly-compounding medical conditions while trying to stay afloat financially after having raised a kid or two themselves.
And then there's the problem of medical costs that relentlessly rise much faster than inflation, putting ever more pressure on nursing homes, families, and governments.
A big squeeze is coming as the boomers enter extreme old age in droves while needing round-the-clock care, possibly for a decade or more, for geriatric conditions without cures.