Why do we send people to the nursing home and how would you feel if your family send you to nursing home?

Answer 1

I agree, why. Better yet, why do we keep extending life ex[ectancy, just so the children can get tired of taking care of you and put you in a home and never come visit. I love my grandparents, but I couldnt imagine putting them in a home.

Answer 2

Well... I have views on that that vary.

Today, we send people to nursing homes because it is easier on us. Sometimes I agree, sometimes I don't. If I was to be sent to a nursing home by my kids.. I may or may not be okay with it depending on the situation. If my kids were in school, or had very young families.. I would understand and be okay if they sent me to a nursing home, because the last thing that I would want would be to be a burden on a family.. my children or not.

If my mother was to require someone else to care for her right now, and the choice was stay with me or go to a nursing home, I would have to send her to a nursing home, and she would understand. I have 2 small children. One of them has special needs, and I am stretching the energy string to care for the family that I have now... there would be no way that it would be in her best interests to stay with me. I would not be able to care for her.

On the other hand, if in 25 years my mother required care and all my children were gone. I would take her to live with me and give her all the care that she showed me when I was a child. It's circumstance and ease..

I don't agree with people sending their parents to homes because they are simply to busy partying and living their lives to care for someone else. Sometimes, there's no other way. I would hope that people would look at their lives, and evaluate the decision from there.. keeping in mind the care and attention you received as a child.

Answer 3

I used to think it was mean to send people to nursing homes until my father and father-in-law got old. My father didn't even know who he was. One night he got up to go to the bathroom and somehow couldn't find his way back to his room and the police found him miles away in the bitter cold barefoot with only pajamas on. The police knew where he lived, he had wandered off so many times. My father-in-law would try to make a cup of tea but didn't turn on the stove correctly so the gas was coming out with no flame. They need to be watched every minute, and it is not possible to do at home.

Answer 4

Elderly people are usually sent to a nursing home when they need specialized care and their family is not able to give it to them. Some care takes special training. Most families don't have the time or patience for their elders and that's a sad thing! A new law was recently passed and I don't know if it's only here in MA or not, where the elderly who cannot do a lot of things for themselves will be eligible for a lot of homecare that they weren't eligible for before. This was passed to be able to let them stay in their homes instead of going to Nursing Homes. I wouldn't be very happy if my family sent me to one and I wouldn't send my Mom to one! I would make sure she got the help she needs. I hope this answers your question for you!

Answer 5

People seem to send their parents/grandparents to nursing homes so that they will not have to take care of / take responsibility for them. I've never done that/would never. I suspect my son would not send me, but he's only 12.

I watched my grandmother die in a nursing home; it was not a pretty sight, and it horrified me. Now my best friend's grandmother has put HERSELF in one, and watching the incompetent way they treat her is bringing it all home to me again.

Answer 6

My father in law became ill with Luey bodies a type of Parkinsons, at the age of 46. My mother in law looked after him at home for ten years.

This is ten years of not being able to go out without assistance. Ten years of friends to 'busy' to come and see you, because they were uncomfortable with a man who sat there drooling, unable to speak and sometimes wetting himself. Ten years of NEVER going out for more than a couple of hours, and then only if the ground was fairly flat, you could be sure their were no mirrors and just hope no one had a newspaper with photos on, as he would think the people were real. Sometimes he would just talk to them, other times he would get aggresive. No holidays, because the strange environment was too much for him to cope with.

Their two children did what they could, but working full time to pay mortgages, not to mentionyoung families meant that nearly all the burden fell on the mother.

Then he got aggressive through frustration. Pinning her up against the wall by the throat. Then he started falling over. Sitting down wherever he was, even on the stairs, in the muddle of the road, anywhere. With no downstairs bathroom, bedroom or money to adapt he was having to be strip washed in a bowl. We found carers for respite or help for dressing etc. When they turned up most of them just didn't care. I know of the 4, only one of them could tell you his name. Then he lost the ability to eat. The swallowing reflex stopped working, and he started to choke.

After ten years, and lots of medication, for all of us, he went into a fantastic home. His wife goes every day, his kids and grandkids go weekly,subject to colds and infections. He doesn't know who we are now, he doesn't know anything. He just sits there most days and we play music, or films.

His wife has no free money, no big saving account. However the house is a nice house so the govenment now own half to pay for his care. When she dies the house will be sold and they will take that before the rest of the estate is settled. His pension to is gone, even though she doesn't have one of her own, as that is what they did then, you payed the married person tax, knowing that you would have enough to live on between you.

So she has gone back to work, visiting him on the way home every night, sometimes calling in to see her parents who are in their 90's and wondering when it will start again. Then going home to face the guilt and anger at herself for not coping and the unfairness of life.

Please don't judge people. You don't the whole story. Sometimes a home is the easy option, sometimes it is the only option.

Answer 7

My mother had congestive heart failure so we moved her across the country (from Massachusetts to California) so she could be near us. She lived in senior citizen housing until she was unable to care for herself - take her medications, clean up after "accidents," etc. Then we moved her into my niece's house because she was the only one of us who didn't work outside her home. Then, when my mother's mind went south and none of us could handle her, we put her into a nursing home. It was a lovely place and they did wonders for her. But she was 89 and eventually her liver failed and she died. But she was medicated and went peacefully. The nursing home took better care of her than we could at that stage of her life and it was the best thing we could have done for her.

Answer 8

I would never do that. But sometimes it cant be helped. When they need round the clock care. We had to do it with my g-ma. But it was only for two weeks. Those places r scary. Some people just cant take off work to take care of the family member or have the money to hire someone to take care of them. And some of those people r in there by choice.

Answer 9

I agree seem like some people cant wait to put their loved ones in a nursing home!!!! We get so busy with our own lives we forget that someone had to care for us until we were able to care for ourselves!!! Why does it seem so inconvenient when its time to care for our loved ones!!! My Mom would never be a burden to me I would care for her in a heart beat!!!! My Dad and my Husband as well! What are these days coming to when we forget to return the love that was given to us!!!

Answer 10

Sometimes older people literally lose their minds, end up needing an exhaustive amount of care while becoming combative and confused. I take it you have never tried to clean up a sh*tty bed while an old person tried to smear it all over you and pull your hair. I take it you have never had to deal with daily required nursing procedures like intermittent catheterization,
while dealing with someone that keeps screaming you are a communist infiltrator.

THese other answerers should not be so quick to judge people. Sometimes its as simple as grandpa is 300 pounds, and everyone in the family eventually develops a slipped disk getting his rear out of bed every morning.

I have taken care of people all my life. In most cases people who finally have to place their loved one in a home have probably devoted years of exhaustive care until they are worn out, with broken backs and hearts, and finally need some help.

Even professional health care workers, after an 8 to 16 hour shift depending on the day, become overwhelmed and exhausted. At the end of the day they get to walk away, shower, eat , sleep, sometimes get a day off...and pray for the strength to go back. A daughter, son, husband, wife who is caring for someone at home does not get to walk away, even for a minute. The exhaustion sets in and becomes overwhelming very quickly, and there are not always people lined up ready to take over so you can get a break.

I have worked in nursing homes. I cared for one of my grandmothers while she died years ago, and now I am doing it again with the other grandma. I am currently caring for my 90 yo grandmother with congestive heart failure at the same time I am caring for my paralyzed son with kidney failure. I haven't put anyone in a home yet, but I certainly can see why many people have to make that choice. Working this hard day and night at home is hard and thankless, I'm not making any money doing this and in fact it has cost me several jobs because of taking too much time off work to take loved ones to appointments and hospitals for tests every other day...
I seriously can barely manage. It makes me mad when people are judgemental about the need to sometimes place a relative in a home because I think they have no idea what amount of work constant home care can entail.

I have wasted the best years of my life, day in and day out, never a break or a vacation, wiping up other peoples crap while getting beat in the head... and now I am getting old myself, my back is ruined , my nerves are wrecked, and other people who have no clue what this is like want to lecture me about the right thing to do.
I don't think nursing home care is always a bad choice. In fact, if most caregivers at home are THIS overwhelmed and can barely keep up with what needs done, consider the possibility the patient might get better care from professionals who thankfully change shifts just when they are getting too exhausted and impatient to deal.

Not all people abandon their loved ones at the nursing home and never come back. I saw one married man come every single day to sit with his wife and spoon feed her every meal, because he was worried about her losing weight. But it took two people to lift her because she was stuck curled up in a fetal position and her muscles were so tight when she was lifted she stayed curled up. It was really hard to bathe her and she was prone to bed sores. The poor man didn't stop loving her, he just wanted help.

Tell you what, if this matter is important to you, go volunteer at a nursing home and make a difference in some older persons life. Some of those old folks just have no one left. Everyone else, sisters, husbands, etc all dead. Not everyone has surviving children to care for them.

Go volunteer and after you have some experience under your belt you can better educate the world on what needs done.