A Visit Of Charity By Eudora Welty

Barry Corbet states his experience in a nursing home in his essay “Embedded.” A nursing home is a private institution for elderly or sick people who are unable to care for themselves. Corbet’s essay says “Nursing homes are environments of isolation and disempowerment” (Corbet 165). “Nursing homes are not just for old people, they can be for people with disabilities also” (Corbet 164). Both age and disabilities can be a huge factor when considering a nursing home.

“The Palace” is located in the heart of the gables. It is one of the top notch awarded nursing home facilities for seniors stated by many families. Currently being an employee at this facility, I am learning the frightful stories of senior living. Even the Palace one of the most expensive, awarded senior living is actually a terrible place for the elderly. Especially, working at the Front Desk as the receptionist, I have seen firsthand how these poor seniors are forced into these haunted “luxurious” homes. The marble of the building has been often a misleading reason for placing their parent or grandparent in such terrible care. Most humans tend to judge by the appearance of the nursing homes rather than further investigating any violations that the facilities may have. From my own experience with my grandmother, I know it can be very difficult to take care of a senior citizen, especially when they suffer from various conditions and are just not safe in their home. Once adults become seniors, they require a lot of attention and assistance, which is hard when running a whole household and a career. But placing your loved one in one of these facilities can just shorten the amount of time they have to live. Also, it can be very expensive. Lastly, nursing home makes seniors feel the lack of freedom.

They were running up the road to a barn and I followed them to a little grassy patch. They all went to a shady spot under a tree and laid down under the trees shade. I slowly walked up to them they looked hungry and lost so I went to find some hay, luckily there was a patch of hay nearby. So she went and pulled a patch out of the ground and went back to the horses. The horses were still there laying under the cool shade. I slowly came to the first one. It was small with a white dot around its eye and other white dots on its sides. I started to put the hay down the horse got up and started

In the stories “A Worn Path” by Eudora Welty and “The First Seven Years” by Bernard Malamud characters persevere for love. In “A Worn Path” Phoenix Jackson, an old grandmother, goes through a long journey and overcomes multiple obstacles to get medicine for her sick grandson. Phoenix perseveres through emotional and physical trials because of her love for her grandson. Likewise in the story “The First Seven Years” Sobel perseveres for seven years of unfair pay to try and marry his love, while Feld perseveres to make his daughter's life better than his own. Both of these stories exemplify that humans will go to great lengths for the ones that they love.

There were small sheets of paper in each resident’s room, saying what their favourite things are, what they used to do, about their family and life, which was very touching for me to see the preservation of dignity throughout the facility. Although these write-ups were in everyone’s room it was as if there was not a human laying in that bed. It was like they were all mannequins and there was an indiscernible race, the focus was shifted from the individual to the completion of task at hand. Many care aides would have conversations about their weekend, or talk about the resident right in front of them. Some residents could hear and some could not, never the less,

Like demonstrated in chapter four of the book, they lose all sense of independence and privacy, and are forced to get dressed, take their medicine or do activities when told to instead of being able to decide for themselves. With the idea of assisted living, Keren Wilson will allow her mother to “be Jesse again, a person living in a apartment instead of a patient in a bed.”(Gawande, 2014, p. 89). I feel it is important to treat those with serious infirmities, like physical or mental weakness, with respect and independence because many of them don’t have a say or voice on where they are placed. They are unable to live on their own so they are forced to be put in nursing homes, where they become sheltered, abandoned, and sadly sometimes forgotten. This is why showing them respect, dignity, and giving them some independence will go a long way.

One thing every living organism has in common on this planet-- age. No one wants to age or face the fact that aging is inevitable. However, since it’s impossible to beat the never ending time clock that is life; everyone wants to be as comfortable as possible when age finally does catch up with them. When the majority of people think of comfortability in old age, they think of living in their own homes and being surrounded by their loved ones. Not many individuals want to be placed into a nursing home type facility because they can’t imagine themselves being comfortable that way. Nonetheless, even though being placed in a home does take away some of an elderly person’s independence, usually the independence lost is in activities that person can no longer do for themselves. Indeed, nursing homes do have their own set of scary stories behind them; life lost, independence lost, and privacy lost, yet many of those stories are outdated. Upon investigation, it would be easy for anyone to scare themselves out of a nursing facility due to the stories that are out there. Yet, upon even further research people would be able to see how far the United States has come in their development and evolution of nursing care facilities. The care of the elderly in the form of nursing homes has faced a tough evolution starting off with a harsh past, to what nursing homes are like now, and what people can expect for the future of these homes.

The nursing homes also provide opening hours for resident’s family and friends to come and visit them which prevents social exclusion and isolation. Family and friends can be a vital part of the resident’s emotional and social development.

Most people have heard of the American Red Cross. But most people do not know who started it and how it all began. The founder of the American red cross is a heroic woman named Clara Barton in 1863.

I ambitiously decided that I would brighten the lives of the elderly by volunteering at a rest home, but discovered that the elderly were being neglected, shoved aside and forgotten. As I stepped into the home a pungent odor penetrated my nostrils, causing an instantaneous gagging reflex. The place was abounded with neglected and subdued inhabitants, yearning for attention. Anybody that passed them caused a sudden outburst of ranting. The negligence and disregard the home displayed appalled me, but helped me to realize that I wanted to make a difference and change the condition people live in.

Both of the gentlemen stated they had been in other homes and that this was the nicest home they had been in. Kenneth complained of his first home ¡°smelling more like a zoo than a nursing home.¡± John told me that his last home was on the South Side and that the neighborhood was filled with gang bangers and hoodlums. When his family visits here though, they wheel him through the Lincoln Park neighborhoods and it¡¯s nice. For all of the questions that I asked these two men, they had just as many questions for me. Heading in to this assignment, I hadn¡¯t really considered that someone would be asking ME questions. In the midst of all that happens in nursing homes, it¡¯s important to remember that these residents aren¡¯t just dependent, older people, but that they are still people just like you and I.

It states the difficulties in the senior homes with little staff and the many complaints received. The complaints are said to be hard to distinguish between serious complaints or just small problems. An example was given like Nancy Hardman who stated that she is removing her mother from the nursing home because it is dangerous and unhealthy to live in.

“There is some evidence that the quality of care for nursing home residents has improved, such as the decreased use of physical restraints and psychotropic medications, serious problems continue for many residents, especially those at the end of their lives.” Some of the issues have been corrected, not abusing or neglecting the elderly patients but the services are not handling the most important part of the patients’ lives. They are still having some issues with handling the patients that are at the end of their lives, they need to focus on the end of their lives in dealing with this they need to know how deal with this part with them and the families.

The book As We Are Now, written by May Sarton, targets those concerned with the care of elderly individuals in nursing homes. In the book, Sarton artistically highlights the plethora of ongoing issues social workers face in their work as they attempt to provide quality care to the elderly population. The book is written as the memoirs of a very thoughtful elderly woman, Caroline Spenser, as she spent part of her life in a nursing home; and brings to light the lack of quality of care that elderly individuals received when living in such a facility in the 1970’s.

Just the mere mention of “nursing home” causes most people to shudder and think, “I would never put my relative in such a ghastly place.” There are a great deal of horror stories that stem from nursing homes, most along the lines of , “ My mother was neglected after I put her in a nursing home. I would go to visit her and she would be lying in urine and have a new bruise, different than the one that was there last time.” There seems to be this popular perception that nursing homes are places where aging people go to wait out their final days and die; this causes many individuals to shun them. People are too caught up on these negative stories they