Every time I visit a nursing home I am overwhelmed by many mixed emotions, on the one hand I feel immense joy at the existence of such fantastic centers that cater to the elderly, receive all kinds of care and the work of all professionals is admirable. On the other hand, I feel very sad.
I did my psychology course at a nursing home and local employees pointed out to me that some seniors hadn’t been visited for months.
- I often visit my uncle in a nursing home.
- He is very well maintained.
- Clean and nourished.
- He’s not very old.
- But he can’t take care of himself anymore.
- He doesn’t have a wife or kids.
The best decision that could be made was to put it there. He’s fine and happy. He’s gained several kilos and they say he’s behaving well. I like to visit him and invite him for coffee. Are you very happy and say hello to me with one?How are you, champ?!? Although most of the time I get confused with my brother.
When I pick up my uncle from his room, I have to go through the middle of the building, take the elevator, go to your apartment and from there to your room, there’s a hallway where there are always several old people sitting in wheelchairs. . They can barely move. When I pass, I greet them with a big smile, some look at me and smile, others look at me and do not change faces, others do not notice my presence, every time I go there I see the same thing. people sitting there, alone.
Some people are always calm and discouraged and I wonder what’s going through their heads, what will their lives have been like?Above all, I wonder if you ever imagined that you would find yoursed in a wheelchair, motionless and fixed, consumed by life, society, sickness and all at once.
I remember during the internship I met an old man who was still in the same room as another woman who laughed and screamed, at first he was quite violent. He suffered from Alzheimer’s disease so advanced that he could barely speak.
One day I decided to interact with him. I sat next to you and started looking into your life. He almost always spoke in monosyllables. I got him to tell me where he was born, what I knew. From there, little by little, I began to give him more words. Even one day, despite his serious face, he smiled at me.
One day of training, walking down the aisle, I heard this man scream. I went into the room where I was and found two helpers trying to take him to the bathroom; however, he continued to move.
I entered the room, saw me and dropped into the completely relaxed chair. I had found the secret. I had the answer in front of me, behind that expressionless look, with almost dry crystalline eyes and severely affected cognitive abilities, there was one person who just wanted to receive affection.
In fact, the issue of receiving affection is so important to these people that Gea Sijpkes, director of the Humanitas Home in the Netherlands, has launched a project related to her, that in 2012 she decided to offer free on-site accommodation to students who, in return, spend at least 30 hours a month with the elderly.
“It is not possible to avoid the pain and problems that age entails, but it is possible to improve people’s quality of life”?Gea Sijpkes, Director of Humanitas-
Both in the nursing home where I was interned and where my uncle is I was able to observe the influence of the shadow of society on many of our elders, the professionals of these centers have a lot of work and cannot provide the necessary support. However, I am very sad for these elderly people who receive little visitors, behind each of them there is a soul that wants to connect with another person, loneliness consumes them little by little.
This company teaches us that what is worth taking care of is the functional, what we can benefit from. Does it hurt to see that many families think their elderly parents don’t contribute anymore?They put them in nursing homes and leave them there, they just occasionally. Our elders had a life, they had a history, they gave us a part of their lives and we abandoned them.
There is no doubt that nursing homes are a wonderful alternative in many cases and that thanks to them many of our elderly receive incredible attention, this article just wants to highlight the loneliness and abandonment suffered by many of our elderly people. They were a ballast, they are forgotten in these kinds of places.
Many families, for professional, economic or time reasons, cannot take care of the proper care of their elderly when they are no longer self-sufficient, so they choose to house them in homes, however, whenever they can, they visit, hug them, kiss them, etc.
Despite being in a nursing home, there is no sense of neglect, these houses become their new home, where they live with other elderly people and their families visit them frequently.
We must not forget the great work that these centers do, but neither must we forget the people within them, who have given years of their lives for us and we are who we are through their work, effort and education.
The least we can do is be by their side when they need it, give them back the time they have given us, make them feel that they are not alone and that they will always have us by their side. we can never forget that we are in this world because of them.