Nursing home blogs don't fly?

I guess blogs concerning nursing homes don't fly so well, although my nursing home books are still my best sellers.

I haven't a clue why they aren't popular, but I do know, in college, students were just looking forward to working with kids and families.  It seemed like a more worthwhile endeavor I suppose.

Well, elderly people have families too and they are a worthwhile endeavor. 

Fixing nursing homes:  We can fix them by:
1) Get nursing stations out of the hallways
2) Stop making people share rooms with virtual strangers
3) Use medicine cabinets, and give medications at the proper times, not to everyone because it's convenient for staff
4) Have more staff, less psychotropic medications, this is much more cost effective, even for nursing home owners, happiness does not come from a bottle, it comes from quality of life.
5) Listen to the residents, don't blow smoke up their asses or even their family's asses, it's undignified
6) Treat the residents as individuals, not like some human cattle to be herded to meals, activities, etc.
7) Offer choices when it comes to meal times too, not just what is cheaper for the facility

God knows these are not the only ways to improve nursing homes, but it's a good basic start any facility can do, right now.  


• Assisted Living Care Guide: http://assistedlivingtoday.com/p/assisted-living/
• Memory Care Guide: http://assistedlivingtoday.com/p/memory-care/
• Nursing Home Guide: http://assistedlivingtoday.com/p/nursing-homes/
• Care Home Guide: http://assistedlivingtoday.com/p/care-homes/

• Independent Living Guide: http://assistedlivingtoday.com/p/independent-living/

Ahhhhhhhh Nursing Home Corporations

In order to be competitive, nursing homes offering a Culture Change environment, will find the list for people who actually want to live there will be long. Most people will flock to a facility that resembles their home, not some hospital.

It’s true, it will be hard for the elderly to maybe have to move, but moving to a nursing home that treats them right is a plus, not a bust. Certainly I have seen nursing homes forcing residents move anyway, for the nursing home’s convenience, so it is not as if residents have not been forced to move before, it is just that, maybe now, the moves will be for the better, for the improvement of their welfare and not at the whim of nursing home staff.

Elder care has become increasingly more competitive, like any other business. Baby Boomers are not willing, like the generation before them that was willing to simply conform and settle for rules and regulations of the ancient facilities. It’s time for a change and perhaps Medicare will be the catalyst to usher in some of the new changes.

While working in a nursing home I already knew the MDS, the instrument nursing homes and Medicare use to be able to justify the Medicare reimbursement money, has been redesigned to supposedly implement big changes. The changes are to, hopefully, make the MDS less generalized, sort of one size fits all mentally, to reflect much more individuality for each resident.

This is supposed to reflect a single resident’s personal challenges and needs much more than generic criteria that have been used, in my opinion, far too long to deliver good services to our nation’s elderly population.

Maybe the new Medicare cut backs will eventually help keep more nursing homes honest.

For far too long many facilities have, in my opinion, used Medicare to cheat the federal government out of tax monies, simply because the nursing home was able to slap a nursing home sign on their doors. Maybe this will also force facilities to have to train their nurse aides better to be able to deliver better services, since nurse aides have always been the primary care givers there. It is a popular belief, in traditional nursing homes, that treating people like humans with rights and with dignity, must be more expensive, not true.

If money were the only answer, then residents in a nursing home would be treated like kings and queens and be living in a palace. I have seen the money Medicare and residents pump into nursing homes, money that lines the pockets of a CEO or a COO and buys corporate mansions complete with swimming pools and expensive vacations. I have seen it even buying huge meeting halls and fabulous buildings called corporate offices. But I have not seen it buying a wonderful final chapter in the lives of the older people who have made the corporate head’s life wonderful.

Are the corporate heads the only ones entitled to a nice life, a life provided for them by riding the backs of older American’s miseries?

I have also seen the big money that buys the heads of pharmaceutical companies the same luxuries. It's not uncommon for a pharmacy charging older people, especially in a nursing home, $100 per pill simply because it is in the pharmacy’s best interest to prolong a life that pays $100 per pill and residents are forced to use the in-house pharmacy.

These are older people, who as a captive audience, have to sign agreements to buy medicine, while in the nursing home, from the company pharmacy because it is simply their policy under the guise that it is for the old person’s own good to do so, or that a corporation has their best interest at heart.

Traditional nursing homes are places where misery and despair come home to roost like chickens in early evening on a farm. People go to war these days and are called heroes, yet once they too are old, all of that will be forgotten until a few shovels of dirt cover their coffins and if they are lucky, when old, they will be able to live life out in their own homes, but probably not.

I look around a traditional nursing home and I see an old man slumped in a chair, a man whose parents probably once loved him and nurtured him.  A man who probably loved his children and nurtured them, who now needs some assistance with everyday tasks that we, in our younger years, take for granted.

'Official' poetry contest on HP,such crap

So I stop in at HubPages once in a while, if I didn't have a few people I like on that site, I would not stop in.  Mainly because HP has become such a farce and is just getting crappier.


They run 'contests' to pit writers against each other, while HP owners rake in dough from advertisers.  The more people who sign up for a site,the more owners of said sites can entice ads.  


Google hates HP and the love loss isn't getting any better. So HP, when it took a big hit from Google Panda just does business as usual, not learning one thing.  Sounds like politicians.  So they continue to run those bogus contests and with everyone writing about essentially the same thing, Google doesn't see any need to raise HP's status on the search engine.  


The latest 'contest' was suggested by their 'resident poet'?So out of curiosity I read that poet's stuff. Most are too short, and that is something most other writers would get flagged for.  But not this guy, hell they'll likely make him another of their HP Elite. Another who can't write either, yet he's gonna be a judge.  Hell, sure,why not!  He also has a picture, on one of his crappy poems, of a scantily clad woman,something others would also either get flagged,or have their hub pulled by the idiots running HP.  Believe me, I had a hub pulled for a much less racier pic. Guess I should have sucked up to the owner,like him, or added a crappy poem,like him. Ho Hum  HP gets the crap site award, neck and neck to another site I cannot stand, but that's another blog entirely.

This must be said

I think the anonymous blogger in the news who ranted about school lunches is commendable. However, just like when I attended Social Work classes, the news is about kids,what they eat and so on.In college, young students said:"I want to help kids, that's so worthwhile."  Really? It seems in our society kids are a more worthwhile endeavor. 
 When I was in public school we were served gooey french toast, fatty macaroni and cheese, hot dogs until they came out our ears.  Cake and ice cream for desserts, pizza, and pizza burgers.  Were we fat?  Nope. We got off our asses and went outside, rode our bikes and mom and dad had to yell at us to come in when it was dark.  We exercised it off, no video games,no sitting in front of a TV shoveling chips and soda pop into our faces.


So this brings me to how we worry about our kid's meals at school.  Blame everyone but the parents allowing those fat kids to sit and sit.  But when it comes to the elderly,we can shove mom or dad,grandma or grandpa into impersonal nursing homes because 'someone else must care for them.' 


I've written a book concerning this subject,but,alas,the elderly just don't concern much of society or TV talk show hosts.  Shame on America.  But for those who do care, I am listing some great literature concerning alternatives to nursing home care.  I sincerely hope people will check this information out and once again,give a damn about the elderly.  We have become one ungrateful nation to treat our elderly loved ones so shamefully.




 • Assisted Living Care Guide: http://assistedlivingtoday.com/p/assisted-living/

• Memory Care Guide: http://assistedlivingtoday.com/p/memory-care/
• Nursing Home Guide: http://assistedlivingtoday.com/p/nursing-homes/
• Care Home Guide: http://assistedlivingtoday.com/p/care-homes/

• Independent Living Guide: http://assistedlivingtoday.com/p/independent-living/

The aim with these guides is to help people faced with deciding what type of care to choose for a loved one make the best possible decision. 

I'm out of college now what part one

In this economy and with a college degree, the job market can look daunting and bleak.  Well, first off, just because you have a degree does not mean you cannot take a lower, base type job.  If you take a lower job, you'll learn, you'll stretch and may find either a job that has qualities you like or a job you definitely do not want to do forever.

Relax, you don't have to do a lower base, entry level job forever.  But what you should be doing is planning for your future in a job you would like to do.  A lower entry level job will probably have some features about it you do like.  So learn to glean those good qualities out and go from there.  Maybe the job is dealing with people, and maybe, just maybe, you decide public relations is fun.  I worked with many college grads who thought they would, and should, start at the top.  Yes, it's been said before, here are dues to be paid.  I don't care if your lower jobs expect you to push a broom once in a while, you will still get paid the same, so why fret?  Maybe you didn't learn that in college, but you will learn from life experience on any job and that's invaluable.  Even emptying wast cans will prove useful if you pay attention.  In this economy you need every edge of experience you can get, so make use of it all.  Every job is also good on a resume and if you do a bang up job, any job is great for a reference, even a temp job.


In the next installment we will look at how to glean some useful training from jobs to help you sit down to plan what you really want to do when you grow up. 

                                                           No THIS alone won't get you that job

                                                          No job is too lowly, learn from it!

Eventually you'll end up here!