Tag Archives: health
Carer Tracey Sloan sacrificed her own health for her disabled son
A mother from Northern Ireland who has cared for her severely disabled son for almost 20 years has joined calls for carers to be given more support.
Tracey Sloan has been describing how she put her own health at risk because of the strain of looking after her son Philip who has cerebral palsy.
She postponed a cancer check-up because there was no-one to look after him, but was later diagnosed with the disease.
Her call comes as a survey found carers are sacrificing their own health.
Difficult
The study, carried out to mark Carers Week, suggested that 40% of people who look after family members or close friends put off their own medical treatment in order to meet the needs of those for whom they care.
Care home nurses to be taught to play board games with dementia patients to stop them being prescribed chemical cosh
Nurses in care homes will be taught to play board games with dementia patients to prevent them being prescribed anti-psychotic medication.
PUBLISHED: 00:22, 16 June 2012 | UPDATED: 00:22, 16 June 2012
Nurses in care homes will be taught to play board games with dementia patients to prevent them being prescribed anti-psychotic medication.
Under a Government-backed scheme, they will be encouraged to help patients with hobbies such as baking and painting in the hope it will help their symptoms.
It follows concerns that thousands of the elderly with dementia are being given drugs to sedate them and stop them wandering off.
Such drugs – dubbed a ‘chemical cosh’ – have been found to double the risk of death and actually worsen patients’ symptoms leaving them unable to walk or speak coherently.
Over the next few month nurses in 150 care homes in the UK will be trained to care for patients as people, rather than just a condition.
They will be taught to find out what hobbies patients used to enjoy when they were younger and encouraging them to take part in the activites in the care home.
The politics of self-interest in addressing elderly care
PUBLISHED: 20:36, 30 May 2012 | UPDATED: 21:43, 30 May 2012
The cost of looking after old people is almost going to double in the next 20 years, and the number of people who will have to bear the crushing burden of paying for their own care will more than double.
This is what we are told in a report backed by eminently able academic researchers and published by the Local Government Association, the umbrella body of local councils.
It is local councils, of course, which run the bureaucratic organisations currently known as adult social services which are responsible for dishing out the meals on wheels, the bathroom safety fittings, and the caring workers who help wash and dress the vulnerable elderly.
