School children visiting nursing home - residents screaming!

[Albless]

My DF is in a nursing home - and some of the other residents scream and cry out. I can hear this when visiting my DF, and when windows are open it is very clearly audible from outside the building. I do find it distressing - and am also quite distressed by the reality that you just have to ignore it as the people who scream can't easily be comforted or settled as their dementia is so severe. Sadly, this is the difficult reality for residents, staff and visitors.

However, the nursing home hosts visits from local school children - primary school age. They tend to spend time with the residents are more able - frail rather than demented, and are usually downstairs where those residents are mostly located. My DF is upstairs and it really can be a very challenging environment at times with disturbed mobile, or would-be mobile, residents and those who scream and shout.

I know that there can be benefits for children and older people to spend time together, but after a recent visit by local children, I can't help thinking that a nursing home which cares for those who scream, shout and behave in unpredictable ways is not a suitable environment for such visits. Maybe a residential home or sheltered accommodation for those who are frail but otherwise competent, and capable of behaving appropriately would be a better place to visit.

What do you think? My DM thinks it's ok - but she's very deaf and very often doesn't hear the screaming. She didn't realise until I mentioned it that the screams and shouts can be heard from outside the building. The most recent visit from the children had them outside in the garden with some of the more able residents, so they would have been able to hear sounds of distress from open windows.

I don't know whether to mention it to the nursing home, or to the local education authority. Maybe the latter would be better as they have a duty of care and must have to complete a risk assessment before taking the children on a visit there.

Throughout this thread I've described a situation where elderly, confused, agitated nursing home residents scream and shout persistently and in distress. You said that when you visited a similar home you and your children didn't give it a second thought and weren't upset. Assuming, given the subject of the thread, that you and your children were also in the presence of such screaming etc, I personally do think it lacking in compassion not to be bothered by it.

This is all very, very different from a school trip, where the young children would not have the level of support a family member can give.

This thread isn’t about whether young children should be made aware of the reality of dementia, but HOW.

You say primary school children but what age specifically? There’s a big difference from a child in Yr 1 to a child in Yr 6. My DD went to a care home in Yr 6 and it was done in a very positive way. They went and listened to some of the residents talk about their lives as children and heard stories. They only involved residents who wanted to be and some of them had no family to visit, it gave the children a chance to hear a little history and it gave some residents some interaction with people outside of their normal
routine. I agree that the visits should be conducted in an appropriate way to ensure that the residents and children are safeguarded but if it’s done in the right way it can give children an insight they would not experience but also offer interaction some residents don’t have and inclusion of their immediate community.

But the OPs point is that the children are being taken into an environment where they can hear the distressed shouts and screams of patients like the OPs DF. I’d say this wouldn’t be appropriate for a 5 year old or an 11 year old on a school outing never mind the fact that if the OPs DF might not want to be heard by children in this condition.

In my experience people are affected by dementia in different ways. I remember going to see my grandmother who had Alzheimer’s in a care home as a child and it was all relatively calm and not scary. My Dad had a different type of dementia that meant he suffered from hallucinations. As a result he was very scared a lot of the time and he could become aggressive. It was very hard to find a home that would take him and when we did the other patients were suffering in the same way as the OP describes - distressed shouting, sometimes swearing, sometimes screaming. It was hell on earth and I feel very strongly the vast majority of primary aged children hearing it would be scared and unsettled by it. It’s a very different proposition to a group of children visiting a home where the residents are calm or happy and they are not exposed to the ones who are not.

As I explained in my post, the residents have the option to meet the children or not. Yes it is a socially enjoyable event for some old people who have few visitors and little interaction with outside world.

Sorry your FIL is grumpy and antisocial, but not all dementia sufferers are like that!

Not sure, we stopped DD as a toddler visiting grandparents with dementia, but she goes on the school visits now from age 7, it has started her talking about what her grandparent was like, eg the the quiet smiling ones who watch them or the noisy ones they don't see. Think it's very much child dependent

Same here, I certainly wouldn't want it. I also think having random children visiting could be quite upsetting for any elderly person who wanted children, but couldn't have them. Or that simply doesn't enjoy the company of children. It's not something I would what in my old age at all.

I agree with you op.

I agree OP. I do wonder if those saying children need exposure to real life, or visiting their own relatives has been fine, have possibly not been exposed to those very severely affected by dementia and the heartbreaking degree of distress they often suffer from.

As an ex care worker,I think it’s wrong, unhealthy, I once was sent to an eating disorders clinic, and didn’t know, until breakfast, I recall I ate with the teenagers, found out by accident!
These things can be upsetting to those trained, children shouldn’t be exposed, and undignified for those suffering, ok they may not be seen.
i get embarrassed by my stage Parkinson’s at 63, and my declining mobility, tho my choice to be out

You have to think about the dignity of the residents too. It's not just that children may be scared by their behaviour, some may mock them or joke about it afterwards. They were all capable adults once, a dementia-ridden old age is miserable and undignified enough.

OP is talking about young children being exposed to dementia patients who are in distress - the patients who are not likely to have the capacity to have given their consent to be visited by school children.

The residents you are describing are likely to be in care homes rather than nursing homes, and indeed I agree that those types of visits can be beneficial for both parties.

I think in some situations it's ok, it's about learning. I used to work caring for those with dementia and on my days off I'd often pop in with my children, yes people would shout and so do young children scream and shout, it's about the education and learning empathy and understanding not everyone is the same no matter what age or condition they have but we treat each other as we wish to be treated xx

I work with the elderly in a mixed home and my children sometimes visit. The “olderlies” (as my girl calls them with much affection!) absolutely love it! She has learnt so much from them about the world wars and how things were “in the olden days”. There is people with dementia but I just explain l
”their brains are tired because they’re old and sometimes the messages get muddled” and leave it at that.

Are your children not upset to see and hear people who are constantly agitated and distressed?

I'm talking specifically about people who scream and shout endlessly - have little to no speech - and cannot be comforted and distracted. I'm not talking about people who're a little confused and can't remember things or get muddled about who they're talking to you.

I'm talking about people who have little to no speech, and whose only means of verbalising is relentless screaming and shouting. Staff simply let them get on with it, as nothing can be done to stop the screaming etc. So, you hear them! And I certainly find it upsetting.

I'd be really surprised if the residents had severe dementia and children are allowed to visit which would absolutely be inappropriate, but 100 years ago children would have been around older adults and seen Dementia and the behaviours that go with it..
They'd also have seen terminally ill adults and been around death and dying. They learned that getting old is part of life and the death is normal.
I don't think it's a bad thing for children to see adults with Dementia in fact I think we sanitise normal things way to mo readily these days and people are ill equipped to cope with very normal life situations when it comes to needing to deal with them.
if the residents on your DF's unit aren't hurting or threatening towards the children then I don't see the problem here. In fact I think k it's a really lovely thing to do.

I am concerned about the transmissible virus etc being exchanged between groups and never keen on these trips. I don’t want my kids’ cold to end up shorten elderly residents lives. It is unlikely for the young kids to get anything for them, apart from missing out routine school days. Teenagers will benefit more as they are on a journey to embracing adulthood.

True. I very much doubt the staff on a school trip have the time to explain these things to children, each of which might have a different concern or question or maybe don't feel able to talk openly to their teacher (or parent helper they don't know very well).

Of course children need to learn empathy, but I don't think a school trip exposing them to people with advanced dementia is the way to do it.

When I was at primary school I was friends with a girl whose dad was a senior member of staff at a psychiatric hospital. We used to go with him once a month on a Saturday and we would help him rearrange the canteen to make it into a dance hall for their monthly social night. So we'd move tables and chairs around, blow up some balloons. As we were walking through the hospital we could hear patients screaming and shouting. He just said not to worry, just part of their illness. It honestly didn't freak us out. I would imagine if there was a sensitive child who wouldn't cope something else would be arranged for them. Parents must have to consent so they'd know if their child would be troubled by it.

Thinking back I think the most troubling thing for me was all the locked doors and hearing them slammed shut and keys turned. Maybe I thought I couldn't get out.

Oh God, that wasn't Ashworth was it,?
They had a notorious staff paedo ring that brought young girls in on Saturday mornings.

A locked psychiatric hospital is a completely inappropriate place for children to be and a senior member of staff should know that.

No it wasn't Ashworth. We never even saw a patient. Thank God I grew up in the 50s when being supervised in an area with no patients wasn't seen as a problem.

I think I'd know if if been taken to a paedo ring so unless watching people move tables and chairs is some sort of deviance you can relax.

I would be very concerned if there was a lot of ‘screaming and wailing’ coming from a nursing home. My FIL was a dementia resident for over 6 years until he recently passed away - in a 2 different care homes in that time and we rarely heard anyone screaming or wailing. We also never made an appointment to visit him so it wasn’t as if his care homes could ‘hide’ it.

Some of the residents would come and try and interact in a slightly inappropriate manner but the staff were always around to intervene and help.

There was the odd occasion a resident got upset and would shout or cry out but it wasn’t a regular thing.

Some residents do. I worked in a care home and one poor lady constantly wailed, she sounded like a barn owl. Sometimes random noises, sometimes phrases, same one over and over for days.

It does depend on the home though, this was one you moved into till you died type place. Some will move residents on when they begin to develop behaviour that might upset the other residents.

Unfortunately, there's a small number of residents who do scream and shout. One woman is either sleeping or screaming, sadly. And I do also regularly hear screaming from a room on the ground floor which faces onto the car park.

And when my DF was in hospital there was an elderly male patient who shouted for help over and over and over again.

It's incredibly sad and I find it very upsetting as these people are just inconsolable and unreachable in their distress.

Gosh PPs are putting a lot of faith in “risk assessments”. Whoever did the risk assessment might have been totally oblivious to the emotional impact on young children of hearing people screaming in distress.