For millions of Americans the issue of aging parents and where and how to house them has become huge. And the bad news is it is only going to get worse. With more baby boomers getting to retirement age, a big demand is being placed on nursing home and assisted care facilities and especially their staff personnel. So far the existing system is strained to say the least.
What this leads to is nursing homes, assisted care and long term facilities sometimes making compromises when it comes to hiring staff. A missed background check, a missed reference check and worse add up to unqualified personnel being employed there. And home care caregivers and domestic help-OMG!
Even if you use an employment agency, there is no guarantee the person they send you is qualified-maybe just a warm body!
What can you do to protect your senior loved ones? Over one out of three assisted care facilities report some form of abuse or theft from patients. Seniors with dementia and Alzheimer's are particularly vulnerable.
In a home care situation the figures largely are undocumented so we really have no idea. I get anecdotal evidence from customers that are scary to say the least. I hear stories of trusted housekeepers stealing from the home; stories of new caregivers who are incompetent and are in the U.S. illegally; theft, elder abuse and more.
One way to prevent or catch the bad guys is to install a hidden spy camera. That is a small hidden camera with built in DVR that records images on an 8 GB SD card for easy retrieval and play back. Just remove the card and plug it into your computer and see what happened when you weren't there.
These new hidden spy cameras are disguised as everyday household items like an air freshener, alarm clock, wall clock and more-14 in all. No one would ever suspect that inside these working products is a camera and DVR to record video too.
Some new models are considered body worn applications making audio recording legal. They are disguised as a car key remote, wristwatch, ball point pen and stick mini camera. They all have a camera, microphone and DVR just less memory on the SD card. Of course these are less likely to be of assistance in a nursing home or for in-home surveillance but they do have their place.
When you need to keep an eye on a caregiver at a nursing home or caregiver and domestic help at your home to prevent nursing home elder abuse this is the best way to do it.
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