to think it is acceptable to smack someone if they touch your body, even if they have dementia?

[haleey]

I visit my grandad in a care home regularly and sometimes male residents will touch women unexpectedly. I’ve had my waist touched, boobs grabbed and one man touched my privates while smiling at me. I know they are ill and confused, but honestly I think people act as though women are supposed to just tolerate it because “they can’t help it”.

Part of this for me is that I have been assaulted before, so my reflex when someone suddenly touches me unexpectedly is to hit out before I even properly think. It is an automatic panic response.

Recently one resident suddenly grabbed me and I instinctively smacked his hand away. One of the staff immediately told me off and said “he can’t help it”. I understand that dementia affects behaviour and judgement, but I found it upsetting that the focus instantly became about him rather than acknowledging that I had just been touched without consent and panicked.

I’m not talking about beating vulnerable elderly people or deliberately hurting confused residents. But I also don’t think women should be expected to quietly accept unwanted touching because the person is elderly or cognitively impaired.

Ah, so now you're telling me that her sexual dis-inhibition is strictly limited to your husband, and your husband only? Talk about a (convenient) dripfeed.

It's amusing to see you respond to my very reasonable advice of "If a resident is repeatedly sexually violating visitors, then they should visit with their family in their room during visiting hours, to avoid it happening again" with such manufactured horror. The dramatics do explain why you think a slap on the hand is practically grievous bodily harm, though.

And I'd offer the same advice to you; I think your concept of compassion is very severely blinkered.

No, it’s the same mentality.

The right of a man not to have any of their rights infringed in the mildest of ways, such as having their arm slapped lightly as a women tries to evade his groping, is prioritised over the impact of the woman experiencing the assault. Frankly it’s sick.

It is apparently their responsibility to be impeccably restrained when being assaulted.

Tapping added to swatting and swiping. I wonder why people supporting the OPs actions have to pretend a slap is something else.

The right of a man not to have any of their rights infringed in the mildest of ways, such as having their arm slapped lightly as a women tries to evade his groping, is prioritised over the impact of the woman experiencing the assault. Frankly it’s sick.

This all day long.

Slap, tap, swipe…. It doesn’t matter. They are all reasonable and instinctive reactions to a man groping you.

People with dementia often lose the ability to lack in what we accept as moral behaviour. Managing that in a dignified, respectful way is not dehumanising them.
With OP’s dx of PTSD she has a responsibility to manage her own behaviour when she knows she may be exposed to uninhibited behaviour from very unwell patients (after all, this was the FIFTH occurrence).
She could discuss with the manager how she could visit her grandad while ensuring her own well being.
People discuss visiting arrangements with staff all the time eg whether it’s suitable for young children to visit.

I think 'slapping' is a fine word. No one is going to be traumatised by an instinctive slap on the hand, meant to prevent worse things from happening!

While managing a newborn, a 3-year-old, and cooking tea, I did the same thing to my child instinctively in sheer panic, to knock her hand away from touching the hot stove element - and she was perfectly fine. Much better than she would've been had she touched it!

Also, because some people refuse to acknowledge any distinction between a premeditated fierce and powerful assault,
with a light tap…. and deliberately misinterpret the word “slap” to be a full bodied, full force beating of the person with someone’s open hand, and therefore say it must be wrong.

Of course what you did was fine. Some people would want to criminalise you for it though!

Do you? Well I think the same about you. Do you have family in a care home or a locked ward?

If I saw someone slap my FIL I’d be really upset and would take measures to protect him and also reassure myself measures were in place to manage his uninhibited behaviour.

Could you not just have moved her hand without "slapping" it? Was the hot stove particularly low?

They DON’T always recognise what they are doing though. Why don’t you get this? Why is it that if a younger person has SEN people fall over themselves to explain that they don’t understand what they are doing so allowances need to be made. But as soon as someone is older with issues, they OBVIOUSLY know exactly what they are doing. There’s a lot of ageism about really.

What do you want to happen to these people in care homes? Put them in straight jackets? Tie them down? In threads about violent autistic children in schools people say “well what do you want to do tie them to a radiator???”. So honestly what do you want staff to do with dementia patients in what is their own home? Tie them to the bed?

What about the man with Tourettes who was shouting racist things? Should he be muzzled so he doesn’t offend anyone? Or should people shout awful insults back at him? Or should people understand he can’t help it?

The staff were at fault. The person with dementia will have no idea why he was hit, but will have the effect of the adrenaline in his system. Loss of short term memory is total - people get to the stage that they have to be told to put food in their mouth (or be spoon fed) and to chew it, and to swallow it. For every single mouthful. Every meal.

Very sadly, some men do behave inappropriately, sometimes because that is the type of man they were, but also often because some medications strip away the lifetime of impulse control.

Unlike a baby they cannot learn and remember. They can no longer make the link between action and consequence.

So the staff should protect them from visitors and visitors from them.

I'm not blaming you for your instinctive reaction, just saying why it was pointless and, sadly, cruel.

You already said that.

I have had close family in rest homes, but they've both been dead for over a decade now. They were in lovely homes, though, well-looked after with fantastic staff, and had serious issues other than dementia so weren't in the (separate) dementia ward. The residents in the area of the home I visited were either close to catatonic or fairly mentally sound, and the worst we had to deal with when visiting was having our ears talked off by other residents, or wanting to coo over the baby.

If you genuinely think that people living in a home with dementia "recognise what they are doing" then I am embarrassed for how clueless you have just made yourself appear online.

The first documentaries about John were called " He can't help it" and then "He really can't help it". And he can't! If you get a chance you should watch them.

Aah, there we go. Picking things apart right on time, as expected. Try re-reading my post. I think I was quite clear.

But perhaps I should've stopped and thought about my reaction a little more, instead of reacting entirely instinctively, because a slap is just so terrible, and she could've ended up with a wonderful burn on her fingers and palm. Or perhaps not.

But how low was the stove?

I agree. I’m using him as an example for people who cannot help doing some things. The person I was quoting seems to think people with dementia can help it and should be stopped somehow. So I was asking them how. Tie them up? So I used Tourettes as an example to see if they feel the same about that. Whether they would want them muzzled and banned from places or would they understand he can’t help it.

Measures to protect him? Like what?

And really? If I saw my FIL grab a woman's breasts and she slapped his hand away, I'd be mortified and apologise to her, while my husband escorted him away and soothed him, and then we'd talk to the staff, because clearly the care home is failing to protect both residents and visitors, and we'd be very worried.

It's a slap on the hand, not a knee to the balls, or a right hook to the face.

Look at you go! You're like a wind-up toy.

Clearly the stove was within reach of my child, or I wouldn't have panicked, would I?

What about if you kept allowing her to play next to the stove, and she had no capacity to understand at all why it was dangerous, nor any memory of any previous events where you'd told her not to or smacked her. And you just repeatedly put her in a situation where she was playing next to the stove and then getting smacked by you. And being incapable of remembering it, or learning from it. So she's just being hit and doesn't know why.

Would that still be OK?
Or would a better solution in that circumstance be, for example, to make her play somewhere else.

I agree with this. If residents are regularly groping visitors, there is something very wrong with how this risk is being managed.

Slapping a hand away is an understandable instinctive reaction but won't make it less likely to happen in future.

I have said quite clearly, in previous posts, that the OP should report the issue. So I'm not sure that's relevant? Although clearly, the staff know what's happening as they witness it, and they just brush it off/dismiss it.