Dementia common among Maryland AL residents, but treatment isn't.Your resident in an assisted living as·sist·ed living n. A living arrangement in which people with special needs, especially older people with disabilities, reside in a facility that provides help with everyday tasks such as bathing, dressing, and taking medication. facility has a good chance of developing develop dementia--and your staff may not properly handle it. That's the conclusion reached by researchers at Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University, mainly at Baltimore, Md. Johns Hopkins in 1867 had a group of his associates incorporated as the trustees of a university and a hospital, endowing each with $3.5 million. Daniel C. in Baltimore in their recent study of Maryland assisted living facilities. The report, called the "Maryland Assisted Living Study," found that two-thirds of participating AL residents in 22 randomly selected facilities had some sort of dementia. Slightly more than half were adequately treated for the disorder while another 33 percent received partial treatment, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. the report. In addition, 26 percent of residents had other psychiatric problems, including depression, anxiety or psychosis psychosis (sīkō`sĭs), in psychiatry, a broad category of mental disorder encompassing the most serious emotional disturbances, often rendering the individual incapable of staying in contact with reality. . Of these, slightly more than half received proper treatment, and another one-third received partial treatment, the report noted. "This (situation) contrasts sharply with the frequent depiction of assisted living facilities as a residential setting for cognitively normal elderly people with minor functional limitations# said the report's author, Dr. Adam Rosenblatt, assistant professor of psychiatry at John Hopkins University. For the report, 198 volunteer residents--and their families--were surveyed at 10 large and 12 small assisted living facilities in Baltimore and seven Maryland counties Maryland County is the southern and easternmost county of Liberia's 15 counties and shares a border with Côte d'Ivoire. It is named after the state of Maryland in the United States. The county comprises some 5,350 km²., its capital city is Harper. . Three-fourths of the residents were age 80 or older. Isabella Firth firth or frith, Scottish term applied to an arm of the sea, usually an estuary or strait. For Firth of Clyde, see Clyde; for Firth of Forth, see Forth. , president of Mid-Atlantic LifeSpan in Columbus, Md., the state's affiliate to the Assisted Living Federation of America, said she "absolutely was not surprised" by the low treatment findings. "There are a lot of factors that come into play," Firth said. "Some of it has to do with the sophistication so·phis·ti·cate v. so·phis·ti·cat·ed, so·phis·ti·cat·ing, so·phis·ti·cates v.tr. 1. To cause to become less natural, especially to make less naive and more worldly. 2. of the assisted living provider and the training and orientation the provider has in dealing with mental health issues. Many organizations don't actively pursue training and treatment in those areas. And some of it has to do with our societal attitudes about dementia and dementia-related conditions. There's a lot of denial going on--the 'Mom's not sick, she's just forgetful' things." Part of the problem stems from a lack of available mental health care professionals in senior care, Firth added. "Assisted living is the 'un'nursing home," she said. "As a culture, we don't want medical care workers in assisted living. People place their loved ones loved ones npl → seres mpl queridos loved ones npl → proches mpl et amis chers loved ones love npl there to get away from the rules and regulations and the hospital-like settings that nursing homes often are." |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion