Alzheimer’s is a neurodegenerative brain disease that slowly destroys memory and thinking skills. Phone numbers and addresses become hard to remember. Familiar routes taken are forgotten and sometimes the person will get lost. Eventually the simplest day-to-day tasks like bathing and cooking become impossible and even dangerous to complete. Then in the mid-stage of Alzheimer’s the personality changes may emerge. The person you once knew to be sweet and loving instantly becomes combative and maybe even violent. Family members are taxed with caring for their loved one emotionally and physically. Most of us don’t have the skills to take care of an elderly parent with dementia or Alzheimer’s. The decision of putting our loved ones in the care of others is probably one of the most heartbreaking choices to make. There are 5.4 million Americans with Alzheimer’s and the number is growing rapidly.MacDonald suffers from dementia and caring for her is a full-time job.
To date, Parent has yet to be given an explanation how she got a black eye by the administration team at St. Joseph’s.
What he found was alarming. “It’s despicable,” he said. Elders abused are at 300 per cent higher risk of death.
In one clip, an employee is shoving a wipe with the woman’s faeces near her face.
The National Council on Aging estimates five million elders are abused every year in the United States.
According to NCOA “recent studies show that nearly half of those with dementia experienced abuse or neglect. Interpersonal violence also occurs at disproportionately higher rates among adults with disabilities.”
Despite the police investigation, no charges were laid. “If you hurt somebody or abuse somebody, you either go to jail or you get charged,” Parent reasons.
Once Parent heard one of the care workers was getting their job back, he removed his mother from the nursing home.
“I think it was disgusting. I think it was an obscenity what they did to that woman and if it had been a child or a younger middle-aged person, they would have never gotten away with it,” McDonald said.
“The message out there is that this is what is tolerable and what will be accepted,” Parent says. “For this to be a Christian facility…it should be sacred. It’s a gross indecency.”
->**This is a clip of the abuse MacDonald endured at the hands of the staff.**<-