Exercise should be fun

What a Saturday! We purchased a table tennis set a while back, so today my brother and I played table tennis for two hours. I'm sure I will pay for it tomorrow but what fun. If a person can find an activity they enjoy the exercise is bonus. Losing extra weight and toning up the muscles does a great deal for maintaining balance and keeps the old brain juices flowing.

Fourth of July

My family and I want to wish all of you a happy Fourth of July.  Have fun and be safe.

Meetings the story of my life

Thank goodness for weekends. By the end of last week, I felt like I had been running nonstop all five days. I usually do pretty well at pacing my work load however there are those times when others re-prioritize the agenda. Meeting seem to have taken over everything we do. I counted four impromptu committee meetings last week, lasting anywhere from 30 minutes to 21/2 hours and that translated into additional work and altered schedule. I guess I need to quite bellyaching and be glad I have a job that I enjoy, find challenging and rates high on the satisfaction scale.

Intimidation

Abuse can be so subtle. Intimidation is another form of abuse of the elderly. If a resident is told that if they do something they could be discharged, that could be intimidation. The Washington State regulations are very specific in regards to circumstances for which a resident may be discharged. So if you have a loved one who has been told they could be discharged for some behavior, request to see the Washington Administrative Code that states the specific reason a facility may discharge a resident. Also speaking with the state ombudsman, they may be of assistance in such matters.

Today was a good day!

Today was interesting. I was able to visit the lady I had mentioned in an earlier post who doesn't remember talking to me. However today was a good day because she did remember talking to me on the phone and was very delighted I had time to visit with her in person. She talked for an hour and fifty minutes. The power went out for about ten minutes in the facility, just after I arrived to my friend's apartment and staff quickly came around to check on each resident. My friend did not seem surprised that the young girl came to check on her so apparently this is a routine; when the power goes out at anytime residents are checked on. During my visit, three different staff stopped by and my friend knew them all by name. Yes, today was a good day.

Lock it or lose it!

In keeping with the theme of prevention of abuse something that families can do to curb financial exploitation of a resident being moved to an assisted living center is to purchase and install a lockable cabinet for valuables and money before they move in. Most assisted living centers do not have lockable storage in the apartments. The container needs to be bolted to a drawer in a dresser or to a cabinet. There should be two keys, one for the resident and one for a family member. Keep a record of items and dates when things are put in and taken out of the locked valuables box. I have numerous examples where money, jewelry, and valuables have been taken from residents. Seldom are the valuables recovered. Most facilities reveal in their resident handbook or facility rules book that they are not responsible for valuables that disappear. The best plan is to prevent theft before it happens. The turnover as a whole is high in assisted living centers and boarding homes. Although facilities are required to complete background checks on all persons having unsupervised access to residents, this does not prevent theft. If theft does occur report it immediately to the administrator of the building, not anyone else. The administrator is responsible to conduct an investigation and put policies in place to see that theft does not occur. Also, for the state of Washington the Complaint Resolution Unit (CRU) is supposed to receive a report about the allegation of theft from the facility.

On the front page of our town newspaper was an article about a gentleman being evicted from his home at an assisted living center. It is beyond my ability to understand how a corporation can take money from an individual for 3 years or more, tell them "not to worry they will be taken care of," get the business up and running, pay for the building and then after they take all the resident's money then up and say we don't take anymore state assisted clients you have to move. The lobbyists for the Assisted Living are so strong in the capital that whatever laws get passed they have worked them around so the Assisted Living contingent can get what they want and the residents are the ones that suffer. We've seen this happen all over Washington State. Moving is so traumatic often times the move literally kills the resident.