There is evidence that people do get physically abused in care homes because in the newspaper that I was reading there was an article about an elderly woman who had bruises on her body. Michael who is the son of the elderly woman said, “She had 23 unexplained injuries, cuts and terrible bruises all over her body over the past two years.” (Daily Mail, Saturday, October 6, 2007)
Rough handling is basically when you treat someone with force and you usually do not take any notice about the amount of strength that you are using and the way you handle them. This is another type of physical abuse this could occur if a service user is trying to fight a member of staff away from them because they may not want to do something that the staff says they have to do but you have to realise that many vulnerable adults may not realise what it is that they are doing depending on their disability. At this stage the staff may become annoyed and feel as though they should be in charge and do not want a service user to try to use force onto them so they will be forced to use strength on the service user and become rough with them.
For example when I was at my placement I witnessed one of nurses treating an elderly patient in an inappropriate manner, the nurse had very little respect for the service user as when dealing with the patient she was quite rough. She would constantly push the elderly woman down into the chair as the woman tried to sit down slowly according to her disabilities. In other circumstances I noticed that the nurse would force one of the elderly women to take their medication. Mrs D was the elderly woman who did not like to take her medication so she would leave it on the table and the nurse mixed the medication with her food and made her eat it, she would then close her mouth to make sure that she swallowed the food. During this period of time I noticed Mrs D begin to cry but the nurse told her to stop being silly and did not take any notice of this and she.
Misuse of medication also known as (substance misuse) “is the use of any legal, prescription, or over-the-counter (OTC) substance for a purpose not consistent with legal guidelines or medical recommendations for dosage intervals or amounts.” (Public Health Agency Of Canada) What this is saying is that substance misuse is when you take an overdose of medication, even though the medication is legal you will be taking it illegally if you take too much of it.
Misuse of medication is an extremely important and big issue that occurs in the care homes. “Medication misuse is a serious and growing problem among older adults. Older adults can be particularly vulnerable to dangerous medication interactions and other problems related to medication misuse given age-related physical changes, cognitive changes, health problems with related numerous medications, and social isolation.” (Medical Misuse Prevention Volume 1) I have read in a number of articles in newspapers that state that care workers and staff drug and overdose the service users, this is commonly known to make it easier for the staff. In a newspaper that I read called the ‘Daily Mail,’ there were quotes given by children of the service users in different care homes that have explained issues that have happened to their parents.
“Hunter Watson, a 71 year old petitioned the Scottish parliament for adequate safeguards to prevent vulnerable adults being given ‘chemical coshes’ inappropriately. Mr Watson was alarmed to discover that the care home staffs were giving medication to his 90 year old mother disguised in her meals. His mother told him she was being drugged up and staff confirmed they were putting sedative in her food.” (Daily Mail, Saturday, October 6, 2007)
This was said by the son of the lady who had been given the medication in her food illegally. Mr Gary Fitzgerald is the chief executive of the campaign group on elder abuse. He stated that illegal action was being held in some care homes one of the issues that he was saying happens is “The medication should be dispose in such instances, but that doesn’t always happen. What often happens is that a sedative which has been prescribed for one person is then used on somebody else who has not been prescribed it, in order to keep them quiet.” (Daily Mail, Saturday, October 6, 2007)
If a service user was to experience physical abuse they will most likely to become angry and scared, they would also feel as though they can’t trust anyone. I have acknowledged this from one of my placement. When I was at my placements I noticed that one of the staff hit the service user. After the service user hit the staff. This made the service user become very scared and fragile. Each time a member of staff came next to the service user they would become jumpy and fidgety. Also the service user was scared to ask to go the toilet because the staff would either take long to bring her or be extremely rough and push her down.
If an elderly or vulnerable adult has come across physical with themselves and a staff member this can affect the service user in a terrifying way this can in some cases cause them to do self harm on themselves. The type of self harm that one of the service users may do is take drugs meaning overdosing themselves because they may feel hurt and feel as though they do not
Sexual
Sexual abuse is when someone touches you inappropriately without your consent. “Sexual abuse involves forcing or enticing a child, young person or elderly to take part in sexual activities including prostitution, whether or not the individual is aware of what is happening. The activities may involve physical contact, including penetrative (e.g. rape, buggery or oral sex) or non-penetrative acts. They may include non-contact activities, such as involving children in looking at, or in the production of, pornographic material or watching sexual activities, or encouraging children to behave in sexually inappropriate ways.” (Kid Shield)
The only main type of sexual abuse that occurs is touching this can take place within many different places such as in a care home, at school or work, in the streets and even within your own home. Sexual abuse can arise and be witnessed by a service user in a care home. This can happen if a member of staff touches a service user inappropriately if they are bathing the service user or assisting them to the toilets.
If a service user was to be sexually abused, I believe that they will feel disturbed and they will most probably act in a way that they will feel scared to talk to anyone and they will most probably isolate themselves from everyone else.
The type of self harm that an individual may result to because of this type of abuse is wounds meaning cutting their wrist and in some cases they could result to trying to commit suicide. The reason for someone trying to wound themselves is for the fact that they may feel that if you cut yourself it is a way of releasing your pain. The reason why people may use committing suicide as a way of self harming may be to try and forget and leave all of the bad memories, so they think that if they kill themselves then this may be a way of running away from and not being able to get hurt again
Psychological
There are many effects of psychological abuse and many ways in which you can act this type of abuse upon an individual. These ways can involve threatening, humiliating and bullying. In many cases there are a number of elderly and vulnerable adults who face psychological abuse. Threatening is near enough the same as bullying although there are differences. When you threaten someone you are bribing them and intimidating them so that they feel scared of you, when someone threatens you they often say that they will hurt you in a way if you do not do what they want you to, an example of threatening an elderly or vulnerable adult is by saying, if you do not give me your money I will not allow you to see your family members.
An example of psychological abuse happening in a care home is the elderly not getting the privacy needed, for example they could make the care homes so that two people may have to share a room and it may be the case that it is a male and female that has to share a room, this is
Financial
The types of financial abuse that you can get are theft of money and possessions. This type of abuse comes about in countless care homes within the UK. In many cases I have experienced financial abuse; when I was in a care home I saw that a care worker took a service users money and told him that she would hold the money for him and give it back to him after he had finished eating however when it came to the tome that she had to return the money back to the service user she had told him that she already gave it to him before he went in his room and made it look as though he was forgetting things.
In the Daily Mail I have witnessed an article about financial abuse.
“Her wedding ring has gone. My mother said to me: “The woman took my ring away” – meaning one of the staff – but the staff just say it must have fallen off her finger and accidently been vacuumed up.” (Daily Mail, Saturday, October 6, 2007)
