Another 'You can't make this up"

[blume357]

My sister in-law is in an assisted living home, memory care, and when we bring her over for a meal or such I get the 'pleasure' of taking her back to 'the home'. This place of course has Locke doors and you can't get out with out the help of one of the attendants... which are sometimes hard to find at night... So, I got locked in this past Thanks Giving evening and was trying to find someone to release me.... and I looked at the sign under the key pad to the lock..... if you want to get in and no one is in the lobby you ring the door bell on the outside of the door... this is what they put on the inside where you are locked in:

 

[Jeepnik]

As good as the government.
At the local DMV there is a sign that says “ No Loitering”. Immediately below is a sign that says “wait Here”.

Or the sign in a hospital boiler room that says “Hot do not touch”, in Braille

 

[Dave P.]

Depending on how long I had to search for the warden I might have been grumpy!

 

[blume357]

I just emailed the 'Warden' of the facility asking for the code and included a picture of the sign suggesting that they might want to make a correction to it. The really funny part is it would be really sad if it was just hand made and stuck up there but it is actually put in a nice frame. Which to me makes it just way too funny.

 

[contender]

I know how you feel.

My helper is in physical rehab in a similar facility. I can get in by following the code posted outside. Getting back out,, you have to have someone working there let you out. But at least the place I go doesn't have a stupid sign like that.

 

[nekvermont]

Sounds like a fire trap.

 

[Brant]

My grandmother was in a nice nursing home in Fort Worth. There was a code to get out. It was a game to her to figure out all the ways she could get out and sit outside the door. She never wandered off. Just wanted to show them that she was smarter than they were.

 

[blume357]

Brant, your grandmother sounds like my kind of woman. If they put me in one of those places that's exactly what I'm going to be doing.... figuring out ways to escape.....

the place does have fire exists that I guess you can go through.. and and alarm goes off. You'd think with all the 'shufflers' wandering around lost alarms would be going off all day long.

 

[JiminMaine]

My sister in-law is in an assisted living home, memory care, and when we bring her over for a meal or such I get the 'pleasure' of taking her back to 'the home'. This place of course has Locke doors and you can't get out with out the help of one of the attendants... which are sometimes hard to find at night... So, I got locked in this past Thanks Giving evening and was trying to find someone to release me.... and I looked at the sign under the key pad to the lock..... if you want to get in and no one is in the lobby you ring the door bell on the outside of the door... this is what they put on the inside where you are locked in:

View attachment 34219

I used to work for a long-term care pharmacy delivering meds to nursing homes, group homes, etc. One day one of our new drivers went to a facility with multiple wings. The Alz. care wing didn't need a code to get in, but needed one to get out. She went in and could not find any staff to give the meds too. So she decided to go to another wing and find a staff member there. She didn't have the code to exit. After wandering around for a 30 minutes she just went in to a bathroom and pulled the cord there for assistance. The staff member showed up in seconds.

 

[vito]

Having cognitively impaired individuals wander out of a safe facility is a major risk in both assisted living and skilled nursing facilities. And the government regularors treat any such "elopement" as among the most serious violations under Federal and state law, with hefty fines and other sanctions on the facility possible. Any such facility that does not take such matters seriously is just playing with fire.

I was a Nursing Home Administrator for 23 years (my second career after 24 in the Army) and for most of those years managed anywhere from 10 to 18 nursing homes. At one facility, the nursing staff was apparently lax on keeping residents safely inside and an elderly woman got out and was later fround frozen to death about 50 yards from the building in sub freezing weather dressed only in a nightgown. I ended up firing both the Administrator there and the Director of Nursing, in great part due to this unnecessary death of this woman.

I agree that the wording on the sign is not very bright, but the concept of exercising strick control over the building's access and egress is essential when dealing with residents who tend to wander. Often those with Alzheimer's or other dementia disorders are physically capable but mentally impaired, and who feel the need to try to "go home" even if once outside the building they would have no idea how to get to wherever they remember "home" to be. And some can seem quite clever despite their cognitive impairment, doing things like lingering near the exit door and trying to blend in with some departing visitors. In many of the facilities that I used to manage we used unobtrusive electronic devices which would either set off a loud alarm if they passed through the doorway, or would actually lock the doors which otherwise were unlocked.

 

[Dave P.]

Having cognitively impaired individuals wander out of a safe facility is a major risk in both assisted living and skilled nursing facilities.

Need to get some tracking chips implanted.

 

[peachhead]

 

[coach]

My wife had the same thing happen over the weekend visiting her mother. Only she was already in the vestibule and the door was closing and she thought she was going to be locked in but she was able to catch the door. No receptionist or nurse in sight of course.

 

[contender]

vito is 100% correct. You need to have things in place to prevent the wandering residents from exiting a building unassisted. Before I found Miss Penny, I lived with a girl who was a CNA when we met,, and while together she became a LPN. Her specialty was geriatric care,,, working in such facilities. She was very good & caring in that area. So for the 7 years we were together, I was around a lot of things like this. It was a real education for me. In fact,, I like to think God put me with her for that time to teach me how to handle things when my Dad & later my mom both got older & had issues. And right now,, Miss Penny's mom is suffering from such things. She's in assisted care, and her memory is very bad. Plus,, I'm visiting a rehab facility weekly to keep my helper's spirits up as he tries to get back on his feet. I see it all over again.
I often feel it's a cruel world where we live beyond our faculties. Each & every person in such a place at one time was not like that.

 

[Bob Wright]

One of my favorites, from a motel in Texas:




Bob Wright

 

[Bob Wright]

Another favorite, from a roadside vendor:



No, he wasn't selling dirt, but farm produce.

Bob Wright