Ventura County social workers developed an assessment tool aimed at ensuring elders get necessary medical care. A federal grant of $654,000 will fund the project, sending medical specialists into the homes of elders or disabled adults who neglect their own needs for shelter, nutrition and healthcare in the face of deteriorating conditions or chronic diseases.
Currently, Ventura County social workers make home visits to isolated seniors who may need assistance getting proper nutrition, making and getting to medical appointments, and even paying their bills. But social workers lack ability to render medical care or force the sick to seek medical attention. The program hopes to establish that when an elder is visited at home by a doctor, he or she will be able to take prompt medical intervention in the face of an impending crisis and avoid a catastrophic consequence of self neglect.
Elders and disabled adults are particularly vulnerable to self-neglect due to their age, frailty and medical conditions. They feel isolated and lack resources to get the care they need. Of course, when someone is unable to care for their needs at home, placement in a nursing home is one option. One of the benefits of this study might be that home support services enable an elder to avoid a nursing home. One obvious benefit to avoiding the nursing home (as long as the elder's needs can be safely met at home), is to avoid being set up for abuse and neglect in a facility. It is not uncommon for an elder's condition to deteriorate and go un-noticed in a nursing home, because the volume of patients is high and the number of staff low. Another obvious benefit is that the cost of caring for someone in a nursing home is very high, and often paid for by government assistance (Medi-Cal). If this program can help keep elders who are largely capable of providing for their own needs, but need some help and supervision from time to time, out of a nursing home and in their own homes, it would create a win-win situation.
