Page 1800 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 7 June 2006
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The complex care needs of young people in care mean that there is limited accommodation available which is designed to meet their specific needs. The type of care offered by the disability and acute care sectors is either unsuitable or places are limited. Families will often do anything it takes to support a loved one, but they cannot always keep it up in the long term. The primary caregiver may get sick, or as parents age they no longer have the physical strength to care for their disabled child. Unfortunately, some young people’s families cannot look after them because the burden of care is too much to handle, both financially and emotionally.
These young people often have acquired disabilities, caused by accidents, brain injuries or genetic disorders such as degenerative neurological conditions like multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease or muscular dystrophy. Twenty years ago their lives may have been lost, but with the advent of modern medicine they are surviving and the challenge now is to give them quality of life.
The combination of these factors often leaves young people with no option than to live out their youth in the confines of nursing homes alongside frail, aged and dying residents who have reached the final stages of their life. This has become such a huge issue in our community because nursing homes create huge lifestyle and care problems for younger residents.
First of all, aged care nursing homes are designed to manage the end stages of life and not the living life. This culture is very different to what is needed for successful rehabilitation. Aged care homes focus on ensuring that the elderly are comfortable at the end of their lives, which means they do not provide younger residents with the best therapy and support required for recovery.
Another problem is that the needs of young people with disabilities require more funding and support than is provided by nursing homes. Without the specialist disability services they need, the overall health and wellbeing of young people in care can deteriorate over time.
Young people in nursing homes also suffer from social isolation. Nursing homes are not funded to provide elderly residents with access to the community, so there are very limited opportunities for young people to participate in the community or do social activities like shopping, eating out or visiting friends.
A recent study conducted by the Youth in Nursing Homes organisation revealed that 34 per cent of young people in nursing homes almost never participated in community activities and 21 per cent went outside the nursing home less than once a month. Also, as you can probably imagine, visiting hours in aged care nursing homes do not feature highly on the weekend plans of friends. A study has found that nursing home environments tend to deter young visitors and that 44 per cent of younger people receive a visit from friends less than once a year. Adding to this feeling of isolation is the exclusion the young residents feel because of the huge generation gap between them and aged residents.
In all of this, it is not surprising that many young people in care suffer from depression and distress. The negative effects of young people living in nursing homes affect not
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