Abuse in many forms

When most people think of abuse on Long Term Care patients, they automatically think of physical abuse. Unfortunately, many residents are inflicted with more than just physically abuse, the worst be emotional. Because of the fragility and dependency on their caregivers, it is sometimes easy for them to be taken advantage of. Especially because some of the abuse inflicted may be subtle and unintentional. For example, "rushing a resident through a meal because there are so many others to feed, taking too long to respond to a request for a bedpan, or even speaking too harshly are all minor incidents that can be blames on lack of adequate help."1 Sexual abuse is another type. This can be to the extent of not providing adequate privacy while the resident baths or dresses to the actual forcing of a resident. Fortunately, this is rarely that case. Emotional abuse is the worse because it is to them the last piece they have of themselves since they are loosing any physical mobility. Emotional abuse can be to the extent of yelling at residents to just using intimidation to on them. With all these different types and use of abuse, I believe that the worse to me would be the intentional abuse afflicted on residents. This is because this is beyond getting impatient with a resident and rushing them through a meal of accidentally raising your voice. Intentional is preconceived and thought of to actually physically or emtionally hurt a residents. These residents are entrusting their entire being and life to be taken care of by their caregivers and for this reason legal protections have been developed to protect some residents that are being harmed who cannot defend for themselves. There are requirements that health care professionals have to follow and can have legal consequences if not. This could include protection of a residents money or be overcharged for services, life support, the will to live and things of that nature. Training requirements have also been enforced to prevent and avoid abuse of residents. In general, anyone could take advantage of the elderly, but Long Term Care facilities need to make EXTRA effort not to because that is the reason they are here, to care for the ones that cannot care for themselves.