A New Yorker in Oslo: rage

Showing posts with label rage. Show all posts

Sunday, December 1, 2019

Rage and fear in nursing homes

The Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten published a rather unsettling article in its A-magazine this weekend about violence within elderly care centers/nursing homes in Norway. At first glance, I thought it would be about abuse of elderly residents by nursing home employees. This is not unheard of, and has been written about for a number of years now. No, this article was about abuse of elderly residents and nursing home caregivers by fellow elderly residents, and it is more widespread than one might think. The nurses and care workers do not report all of the incidents that occur, hence this type of violence is under-reported. Many of the violent residents have been diagnosed with dementia, and even though they are cognitively-challenged, they still retain their physical strength and their voices, both of which they use against their fellow residents and the caregivers. In some cases, the violence was directed against visitors, who ended up terrified. Most of the violence has to do with the rage some of these residents feel, most likely rage against their illness, their mental incapacity, the fact that they know they are in a nursing home and perhaps feel like prisoners, their sense of having lost their identity--the list is long. The point is that their dementia makes them angry, makes them rage, makes them act out, and when they do, much of it takes the form of physical violence, but also verbal abuse (yelling and swearing). Some of these residents throw glasses, cups, chairs; others hold others down, slap them, punch them, kick them, bite them, spit at them, and try to break the fingers of the care workers. Still others (men) were sexually abusive toward some of the elderly women living in the homes. In most cases, the care centers and nursing homes were understaffed, especially at night when some of the demented residents wandered through the halls and into and out of other residents' rooms. It is up to the residents to decide if they want to lock their doors or not; the nursing homes cannot make this decision for them without their permission unless violent situations such as described in the article arise. These situations cannot lead to any repercussions in terms of prison sentences either, since demented individuals cannot be prosecuted.

Any way you look at it, this is an impossible situation. If employees and non-violent residents end up terrorized by violent residents in nursing homes, it will not end well for anyone. I can envision a not-to-distant future where few to no young people will choose to work as nurses or aides in nursing homes. The number of elderly with dementia is predicted to double by 2050, thus need for round-the-clock care will only increase. I don't know what the future holds, but I do know that if something is not done to tackle the problem, it will not go away. I don't know what the policies are for tranquilizing such people, but it might be one way to proceed in order to keep them calm. I don't know how elderly with dementia are currently treated (with drugs), but at least if they are tranquilized they cannot be a danger to themselves or others. I know it sounds harsh, but the alternatives are harsher. If nursing homes end up being more understaffed than they are now, they will close, and then it will be up to individual families to take care of these violent demented individuals (most of whom were men in the Aftenposten article, but there were some few women). I feel sorry for them, but they cannot be allowed to destroy the peace that the non-violent elderly deserve after a long life. The latter deserve respect and the right to live out their lives in peace and without fear of being harassed or physically assaulted by fellow residents or anyone else. I applaud Aftenposten for raising this issue, which is most difficult to discuss and even more difficult to solve.

Apparently, this is a global problem, as I have seen online. In other countries, there are special nursing homes for elderly with severe (and aggressive) dementia. Anger is a part of dementia, and in other countries tranquilizers are often prescribed for such people. But they do not always take their medications. So it remains a problem--how to deal with these elderly, how to respect them but at the same time limit their aggression, and how to protect the non-violent residents and caregivers.

Sunday, November 11, 2018

Why is there so much anger?

I googled 'why is Trump always so angry?', and these are some of the hits that were returned. I've read a number of them, and they are worth reading, even if the messages are unpleasant:

And finally--an article from a man who is rabidly anti-Trump:
https://www.gq.com/story/anger-management-in-the-age-of-trump

It's as though a rage hysteria (think 28 Days Later: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0289043/) has overtaken us as a nation. You might want to watch that film--it's quite scary. In any case, this focus on rage is not leading the nation anywhere good. We would be better served by men and women who were truly interested in sitting down to discuss the real issues and to find logical workable solutions. It can be done.

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

An all-encompassing rage

I haven’t wanted to comment the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 last week that killed 298 people before now, mostly because the news is filled with reports about the plane, the crash site, the bodies decomposing in the sun waiting to be transported for autopsy, the search for the black boxes, the confusion about whether the crash site has been tampered with—all those things. It is unrelenting coverage, as well it should be. But I have thought about it every day since it happened. And instead of my rage against the perpetrators of this atrocity abating as time passes, it has only increased as I read about the horrors that this flight and its passengers must have endured, and what family members and loved ones are enduring as they wait for information about when the bodies will be transported home to the Netherlands and to other countries. I need only read about the type of missile that was allegedly used to take down the plane, one that explodes under the plane, facilitating the destruction of the plane via shrapnel that pierces the plane’s skin in multiple places, causing the plane to shear apart, and my rage intensifies. I realize that this tragedy, like the destruction of the Twin Towers in Manhattan on September 11, 2001 that killed almost 3000 people, and the murders of 92 people on the island of Utøya and in Oslo by the Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik three years ago today, are versions of hell that are beyond our most horrific nightmares and imaginings. Hell exists, make no mistake about it. Unfortunately, it seems as innocent people are the ones who experience this hell on earth, not the evildoers who rightly deserve it.

There is a lot of evil in the world. We cannot close our eyes to it. We cannot pretend that it does not exist. Endless dialogue and peace conferences are not enough to convert evildoers to good people. That’s a fantasy. Evildoers must be punished. To ignore the existence of evil, to explain it away, or to feel sorry for the evildoers only allows for more of it. The downing of a civilian plane is an act of war; the perpetrators need to be brought to trial in an international court of law, found guilty, and sentenced. Whether or not that sentence is life in prison or death does not bother me. When you drag 298 innocent people into your war, you may pay with your life. That is justifiable, in my book. If you live by the sword, you die by the sword. I don’t know how this particular case will be handled. I only know that there has to be swift and hard retribution so that the families and loved ones of those who died get justice.

But what does one do with the rage that one feels when faced with dealing and absorbing the impact of these events? I did not know anyone personally who died in any of these terrorist attacks, and yet, I have a rage inside of me that scares me. I don’t know what to do with it. It is an all-encompassing rage, an absolute rage, a rage that desires annihilation of the evildoers. It is a rage without end; years can pass, and suddenly I can watch a TV report about 9/11 or read an article about it, and the rage returns. If I have this kind of rage, what do those who lost family members and loved ones in these attacks feel? If they feel rage like this, how do they deal with it? I don’t consider myself an evil person, but certainly some of my thoughts are evil, in terms of the afflictions I hope the perpetrators of all these attacks will eventually suffer.