Older adults in long term care may not realize they have rights from ensuring basic personal dignities are respected to choices that frustrate and challenge providers. How do we weigh self-determination and safety? What's best for the individual vs the group? Ombudsmen step in and offer insight, direction, education and support for both residents and facilities.
Aging with Altitude is recorded in the Pikes Peak region with a focus on topics of aging interest across the country. We talk about both the everyday and novel needs and approaches to age with altitude whether you’re in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida or Leadville, Colorado. The Pikes Peak Area Agency on Aging is the producer. Learn more at Pikes Peak Area Agency on Aging.
Transcript:
You're listening to Studio 809. This is what community sounds like.
Michaela Nichols:
Hello, and thank you for listening to Aging with Altitude, a podcast series about how we rise above the day-to-day issues that surround aging. This series is sponsored by the Pikes Peak Area Agency on Aging. Today's episode is "Start with Dessert" about long-term care. My name is Michaela Nichols and I'm here with Scott Bartlett. Scott is currently an ombudsman at the Pikes Peak Area Agency on Aging Ombudsman Program. He has been with the agency and working as an advocate for older adults in the community for fourteen years. He's been nationally recognized for his work in long-term care services and support. So Scott, can you tell us a little bit about what you do in your role as an ombudsman?
Scott Bartlett:
Sure. So what an ombudsman is, we are advocates for residents of long-term care facilities. So when I say long-term care, what that means is state-licensed assisted living and nursing homes. The majority of the residents there are older adults, but there are quite a few young people with mental illness and traumatic brain injuries or disabilities that also reside in long-term care facilities. So what we do is help to increase the quality of life for people in long-term care. We are an intermediary or an advocate when there are problems in care, or rights, or just general. Any areas of conflict, everything from the coffee might be cold to assisting with allegations of abuse and neglect. And so really, just to sum it up in a few words, we are a voice for people that often don't feel like they have a voice. Sometimes this is also for family members. But also we are there to align with the facilities, because we need them to be on board with us and vice versa, to make sure that people have a good quality of life, and they retain their civil rights while in care. And so we do a lot of education and consultation with facilities to help them be better at what they do.
Michaela Nichols:
Can you tell us about some of the most rewarding parts of the position?
Scott Bartlett:
Yes. You know, there are a few cases that come to mind that I think we feel good about. Often, those cases are about either protecting somebody from abuse and neglect or restoring their civil liberties. There was a case where a resident disclosed to us some pretty severe abuse allegations. Ultimately, that place ended up, because of this, having their license suspended and then later terminated because the abuse was substantiated. But the resident that first came forward after she moved out of the home, and was free from this abuse and neglect. Her family took her on kind of a tour of the western states of the United States and sent us postcards and thanked us for allowing the end of her life to be happy and that we had assisted her to be free from this oppressive environment but she was living in. We feel good about those kinds of cases where the resident is satisfied with the results and feels that we help to make their life better. Those are the best cases.
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