A Christmas Message

LeadingAge offers a daily news clipping service as one of its membership benefits. So each day I get an e-mail with links to a half dozen or so current news articles that relate to aging and aging services. This morning one of the articles is from an article originally in The Boston Globe, but quoted from the San Francisco Chronicle. The article is about lack of enforcement for inappropriate use of antipsychotics on nursing home residents in Massachusetts, particularly those living with dementia. It's not a happy Christmas Eve message, but one that too often is found in newspaper and journal articles -- reflecting a tragic reality for too many elders in our country.

I quote just one sentence here, but include the link to the article also:

“A few reports detailed cases when residents were so overmedicated

they were unable to open their mouths to eat or do much but sleep.”

I venture to say that in too many “typical” traditional nursing homes it would not be unusual for a visitor to observe one or more residents at the dining room table so sedated that it was difficult for staff to assist him/her with the meal. Do we just smile such scenes away with some misguided, “sweet” myth that elders just sleep more?

Federal and State regulations forbid use of antipsychotics for the “treatment” of “behaviors” for good reason. Such use does not address the issues at hand, does damage to the resident physically and psychologically and is a cruel imposition of “treatment” – fierce and deadly chemical restraints – on helpless individuals. It is abuse clear and simple and must be stopped.

Not a pleasant message to post on Christmas Eve. However I am reminded of Howard Thurman’s message, “The Work of Christmas.” I offer it here. We must do what we can to “heal those broken in spirit” and to “radiate the Light of Christ . . . in all that we do

When the song of the angels is stilled,

when the star in the sky is gone,

when the kings and princes are home,

when the shepherds are back with the flocks,

then the work of Christmas begins:

to find the lost,

to heal those broken in spirit,

to feed the hungry,

to release the oppressed,

to rebuild the nations,

to bring peace among all peoples,

to make a little music with the heart…

And to radiate the Light of Christ,

every day, in every way, in all that we do and in all that we say.

Then the work of Christmas begins.

Newspaper article quoted can be accessed at:

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Report-Mass-rarely-nixes-nursing-home-sedatives-4141901.php