Common Sense and Action

How do we ensure tangible change? Why don’t we see actual change at the rate we want? Well perhaps we need to understand that any change is a win, it moves us in the right direction. The problem is we ( people living with dementia ), don’t have time, the clock is running for us. So although we should be happy to see that there is at least some form of change, here we are waiting.

One of the things I see as the biggest problems are policies, regulations, and government red tape hinder us from doing things in a manner that are proactive and person-centered but instead are money pits that they keep throwing more and more money at studying, trying to reinvent a wheel that has never worked. hiring more managers, doing more reviews.

What we need to start fresh with fresh ideas, people need to get thier egos out of the way so that real changes can happen. And they can happen quickly, and easily and if we allow these things to happen, we not only will fix the problems found in Long Term Care we will fix the problems facing the industry, with burnt out workers, and people no longer wanting to work in the profession. All of these things would require a committment of resources to get up and running, but would safe money in the long run.

We only have to look to the Netherlands and Scandanavia to see how much better people do living in small scale homes. Living in community type homes/ farms. These types of homes enable instead of disable. And for those that believe the bottom line is about $$$ vs. Being about Humane, you need to take a better look, these small homes will safe $$$ on many different fronts, and imagine it can even allow for a persons dignity, respect to remain to the end of life.
After being at a TREC webinar yesterday looking at the “ farm homes” vs care “home homes”, I cried, literally cried, as a person living with dementia who has been saying for years we need these small homes, that are actually “homes”, not institutional settings that they try to make look like homes, actual homes where people participate to whatever level they can, in real life time in real life activities things they would have always done. I cried because we are so buried in a bureaucratic mess in this country, that my hopes to see this here will likely not happen in time for me. That I, when asked yesterday afternoon by another person living with Dementia “ what are you going to do”, what’s your plan, yes most of us living with young onset have a plan so that we will not go into care. How tragic is that. We discussed my plan, we discussed his plan, we discussed the plan of others, when all it takes is getting rid of the bureaucratic mess and put some common sense into building proper small scale homes within communities, to fix this nightmare called Long term Care. Common Sense can solve a lot of problems if people would go back to using it.

I’m deeply saddened, deeply troubled, by the inability of those in the positions to look outside the box and see the common sense solutions can’t think beyond further reviews, further reports and discussions, about an issue that just needs common sense and action.