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.

Would you smack your grandfather or sit back and just let another.visitor assault him.

The OP is not a paying client. She is visiting one resident in a nursing home where other individuals are also resident because they are unwell.

The nursing home would be perfectly entitled to stop the OP visiting the home as she has a track record of hitting residents, seems to take no responsibility for avoiding other residents and is willing to hit them again.

You have admitted assaulting vulnerable people, and that you plan to continue doing so. On a public forum in the UK. Don't be too sure someone isn't informing the police. Safeguarding is everyone's duty.

I expect OP will carry on until she gets walloped back. If this isn’t completely confected.

I do genuinely wonder how far people who believe you should never use force on someone with dementia (or another brain issue) would take that.

If they grope your breasts or bum through your clothes? If they put their hand up your skirt and try to force it under your knickers? If they try to snog and grope your 12-year-old daughter? If they pin you down, and try to rape you? Unlikely perhaps, but in principle what should a person do if there is no help on hand? At what point, if care home staff are failing to prevent the assault and come to your aid, is it permissible to use reasonable force?

THINK about whether your grandad should be in this care home at all. The staff have managed to let residents assault you multiple times and you don't even live there.

I mean if you had said it was the only time it had happened, I was going to say you were in the wrong and should be banned from visiting, because you'd walked voluntarily into a load of people who have little or know control over how they behave and hit one when they behaved badly.

But if this has happened "multiple times" to just one visitor, it sounds like the staff are making no attempt to safe guard the residents or staff. How many times has your grandad been assaulted? Like obviously there will be slip-ups, failing binding the residence to their beds, the staff can't pre-empt every inappropriate action, but one visitor? Multiple times? That becomes saying they have demetia and can't help themselves so NO-ONE'S safety matters... and people with that attitude need to be miles away from running a care home. Say someone hit another resident's baby grandchild or elderly, frail spouse, that could be very serious...or even fatal.

Hopefully.

You understood perfectly. Well done 👏

@Bridgertonisbest Your time working in a nursing home clearly didn't teach you anything about dementia.. Being overtly sexual is really common in some types of dementia.

This and i think you should follow up with management because the attitude of that staff member is out of order.

It could well be true. I once had the misfortune to work with a former care home nurse who gleefully told me she stuffed an elderly man’s socks into his mouth because he swore at her. There are some really messed up people around.

Fucking hell. That’s disgusting.

Quite a few people on this thread think it is for fine for women to be assaulted by people with dementia. Hitting back as a reflex is a crime apparently.

Well said. Couldn’t agree more.

It turned my stomach. I now have my 85yo dad living with me, his Alzheimer’s is progressing and I dread the day he needs full-time care.

Also, I wouldn't be upset if a parent or grandparent had dementia and was groping someone, and that person swatted their hand away without injury. I'd be apologetic that my elderly relative had done that, and would try to redirect them elsewhere. I'm 100% sure that my parents/grandparents, while in their right minds, would have wanted to be swatted away!!

This is a major failure on the part of the care home staff, but I don't blame someone for reacting by smacking the person's hand away in a manner that doesn't cause injury.

I suppose if I was visiting a relative with dementia regularly & knew this was going to be an issue I’d ask the staff about ways to mitigate it.

It’s one thing to hit back if it happens unexpectedly on a first visit, but another if you know it’s likely & why.

You’ve already admitted it’s not a reflex. Stop pretending it is.

You can’t lash out, if carers smacked out for this they’d be arrested.
I understand the reason you did, but you can’t be in that environment with the risk of lashing out.
My Dsis is a care home manager, she has had poo and semen threw at her, she cannot and wouldn’t react. I don’t know how she does it personally, unless private visits can be arranged then you’ll have to stop going.

I agree. It can be similar on men’s psychiatric wards too. You have to accept it as fact. Ask if they have a visitors room so you can see your grandad in there. They often do.
If the behaviour is from disinhibition, they genuinely can’t help it and that is part of the reason they are in a care home in the first place.
You are going to where they live. You do have some control over the circumstances.
People genuinely do things that they never ever would’ve done when their brain is affected. I have known patients with dementia (female) to strip naked and behave exactly like toddlers at sundown. You have to try to have some understanding, because they really don’t know what they’re doing.
It can be very upsetting visiting care homes or psych wards. What you are describing is unfortunately right at the tamer end of it.

My parents were in a care home where they were treated compassionately, kindly and respectfully. They do exist and you can tell what they’re like the moment you walk in. Sadly you can’t mitigate for visitors like OP.

You weren’t being unreasonable because while he couldn’t help touching you due to dementia, you also couldn’t help swatting his hand away due to a PTSD reaction. But your ‘could not help it’ would not apply to every woman similar to his case not applying to every man.

For most men, it would be sexual assault.
For most women, it would be common assault.

That is encouraging, thank you

This is so on point. I have seen the brain scans of patients with dementia, post stroke or other brain damage and you can see the damage to the part of the brain that regulates these impulses as well as to the parts of the brain that regulate memory, speech, executive functioning, and in severe cases continence.

It is not a lowering of inhibitions to reveal the ‘true pervert that was always there’ as I have heard on some forums where people don’t understand how dementia slowly destroys one’s brain.

You are victim blaming. Very disappointing to read. In a lounge, if OP approached her grandad, then she can’t stop another man coming to her from behind and grabbing her bum etc. These places have communal areas and are mixed. Other than a resident’s room, anyone could be anywhere. And how should OP know which man is ‘handsy’ anyway. Stop blaming her.