Peru police tase Alzheimer patient

[Kutnupe14]

Kokomo Tribune : Peru police Tase Alzheimer patient

Another article...

" Officers said he was combative in the ambulance until his wife arrived at the hospital and calmed him down."

According to this article, the wife was able to calm him down. Any reason they didn't try that FIRST?

You'd be surprised how "loved" loved one are by their families. Unless they are in jail or a hospital, many simply don't care. "Do I really have to leave {insert "important" activity] to come over there? Cant you simply handle without me?" is commonly heard.

 

[Rookie]

I completely understand. My wife and I deal with it daily with her Dad (six children and we're the only ones who can be bothered to help him). This could have been the case with this situation, but, if it were, I would have been screaming from the roof top that our facility tried to contact the wife and get her input on how to proceed.

 

[Gabriel]

According to this article, the wife was able to calm him down. Any reason they didn't try that FIRST?

In my experience, many family members of someone with mental issues don't want to be bothered everytime there is an issue. I would guess that it doesn't start out that way, but after years of dealing with the same issues the person with the mental issues gets put in a facility and the famly members simply had enough. If they get a call that the person is in the hospital, it usually changes their tune for a little while.

You'd be surprised at how many welfare checks we do during the course of a shift. It's usually a son or daughter who called their parent two or three times and didn't get an answer. Instead of driving ten blocks to check on them, they call us to do it.

 

[edporch]

I have an idea, let's take those taser happy cowards and order them to jump over a building.

Then when they don't do it, tase then for not complying.
It makes AS MUCH SENSE as what they did to this Alzheimers patient.

This is a PRIME example of the downside of so-called "non-lethal" weapons.

They aren't being used as they were first intended and have become little more than glorified torture devices for sadistic cowards.


My father in the last years of his life suffered from a degree of dementia.
He died at just short of 89 years.

He didn't have it to the degree the man in the story had it.

But every time I think of this story, I picture my dad having lived longer and being mentally worse being treated like this!

 

[Kutnupe14]

In my experience, many family members of someone with mental issues don't want to be bothered everytime there is an issue. I would guess that it doesn't start out that way, but after years of dealing with the same issues the person with the mental issues gets put in a facility and the famly members simply had enough. If they get a call that the person is in the hospital, it usually changes their tune for a little while.

You'd be surprised at how many welfare checks we do during the course of a shift. It's usually a son or daughter who called their parent two or three times and didn't get an answer. Instead of driving ten blocks to check on them, they call us to do it.

Get this, last year, I did a welfare check on a 80-something year old guy that was called in by his son. Son had tried calling im wanting to borrow a truck or something, but didn't get a response. When asked, he said he hadn't talked to him in a few months, and wanted us to check it out. We arrive, and see that a light is on upstairs. A neighbor comes outside and tells us that the light had been on for at least a week. Our first thought, is that this is not going to be pleasant, and we force entry. We find the guy face down, but alive, covered in his own excrement. Not pleasant, but I glove up and help the poor guy up. He tells us that he's been on the floor for 3 days. I talk to him for a while and look around his living room and see all his pictures from the war, his decorations, pictures of his family and deceased wife.... kinda hit home for me, son ends up arriving just as the guy is about to be taken to the hospital. I tell the other guys I'm leaving before I "punch his son in the face."

 

[Gabriel]

I have an idea, let's take those taser happy cowards and order them to jump over a building.

Then when they don't do it, tase then for not complying.
It makes AS MUCH SENSE as what they did to this Alzheimers patient.

This is a PRIME example of the downside of so-called "non-lethal" weapons.

They aren't being used as they were first intended and have become little more than glorified torture devices for sadistic cowards.

 

[hornadylnl]

Get this, last year, I did a welfare check on a 80-something year old guy that was called in by his son. Son had tried calling im wanting to borrow a truck or something, but didn't get a response. When asked, he said he hadn't talked to him in a few months, and wanted us to check it out. We arrive, and see that a light is on upstairs. A neighbor comes outside and tells us that the light had been on for at least a week. Our first thought, is that this is not going to be pleasant, and we force entry. We find the guy face down, but alive, covered in his own excrement. Not pleasant, but I glove up and help the poor guy up. He tells us that he's been on the floor for 3 days. I talk to him for a while and look around his living room and see all his pictures from the war, his decorations, pictures of his family and deceased wife.... kinda hit home for me, son ends up arriving just as the guy is about to be taken to the hospital. I tell the other guys I'm leaving before I "punch his son in the face."

I fully understand where you are coming from on this one. I've got all kinds of family members with big opinions on how my grandpa should be taken care of but they never bother to call or come around.

On the other hand, some elderly people will hide their problems from their kids. My dad did not want to be taken care of and would never ask for help. But there's no excuse for kids not getting involved in their elderly parents lives. It's a fine line of being a loving child and being over protective.

 

[shibumiseeker]

Get this, last year, I did a welfare check on a 80-something year old guy that was called in by his son. Son had tried calling im wanting to borrow a truck or something, but didn't get a response. When asked, he said he hadn't talked to him in a few months, and wanted us to check it out. We arrive, and see that a light is on upstairs. A neighbor comes outside and tells us that the light had been on for at least a week. Our first thought, is that this is not going to be pleasant, and we force entry. We find the guy face down, but alive, covered in his own excrement. Not pleasant, but I glove up and help the poor guy up. He tells us that he's been on the floor for 3 days. I talk to him for a while and look around his living room and see all his pictures from the war, his decorations, pictures of his family and deceased wife.... kinda hit home for me, son ends up arriving just as the guy is about to be taken to the hospital. I tell the other guys I'm leaving before I "punch his son in the face."

Yeah. I saw that way more times than I want to think about. Always really hard for me. Seeing people whose decubitus ulcers from where they'd been laying on the floor for several days and the tissue has rotted away to the bone and they are covered in their own filth because either family didn't care, or they had no family anymore.

My mom and I talk about elder care issues a lot as she's getting older, and I spent as much time as I could with my grandmother before she passed.

 

[rmabrey]

A "locked down Alzheimer's unit" means the external door won't open without a keypad entry. It's not a secured psych facility with individual patient secured rooms. It's to stop grandpa fom wandering away, not to protect others from aggressive patients.

Clearly sedation is the way to go here, but have you guys ever fought a demented or psychotic patient? Stronger than regular folks I can assure you. EMS cannot give IM sedatives without getting clearance from a physician if it's not for airway control.

There was no good solution here. I thought a taser minimized injury to people which made it humane?

Im very familiar with the locked units at nursing homes. I go to them daily. I was referring to the Staff giving the sedative, but in reality that is a pipe dream cause they probably don't have Versed and couldn't get orders for it for several hours anyway.

And yes ive fought with combative psych patients, and drunks, and people on bath salts, diabetics and so on. EMS CAN give sedatives without clearance from Med Control, just not in INDY. It is slowly working its way into our protocol.

When all else fails, combativeness can sometimes be mistaken as seizure activity

 

[strahd71]

Clearly sedation is the way to go here, but have you guys ever fought a demented or psychotic patient? Stronger than regular folks I can assure you.

yes yes i have. i have often been the guy that doctors, nurses, therapist call when things are bad or they have bad news to give i was always elected. so yes i've been there done that and my opinion still stands

i can assure you i would have had him down safely before he new it

jake

 

[edporch]

I fully understand where you are coming from on this one. I've got all kinds of family members with big opinions on how my grandpa should be taken care of but they never bother to call or come around.
-snip-

Yes, there are all to often those kind.

But there's also the other kind.

I have a reason for feeling so strongly about how they treated this man.

I walked away from a lucrative career doing contract work in the medical electronics field to help look after my dad for the last 6 years of his life AT HIS HOME.

He had dementia the ENTIRE time and couldn't be left alone, though he still knew the immediate family and people he saw most every day.

We wanted him to finish out his life in HIS home, and we knew a nursing home would've made him miserable because of the kind of man he was.

I PERSONALLY dealt with him many times when he was totally uncooperative with what he needed to do.

I had to gently as possible PRY him out of doorways he was determined he wasn't going to go through, and i had to make him do things he was determined he WASN'T going to do.

It DIDN'T take a taser, it just took a FIRM and resolute hand, plus a little bit of compassion for an old man and his dignity.

i will NEVER accept that it was necessary to treat the Alzheimers patient in the story they way they treated him.

 

[Ted]

If anyone is at fault, its the nursing facility staff. They are trained in such disease processes, while LE is not.

 

[level.eleven]

9 year old autistic kids...64 year old late stage Alzheimer patients. I don't like this regression in the treatment of the mentally or physically ill. Diabetics are beginning to be tased in larger numbers as well as police are mistaking them for being drunk.

... her husband was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s 13 years ago and doesn’t understand the simplest directions or commands like “sit down or pick up a book.”...

When Howard turned towards Brindle, Martin then Tased him, which caused Howard to drop to the floor. Howard was then Tased by Martin two more times while on the ground after ordering him multiple times to roll onto his stomach.

3 tasings, 2 while he was on the ground.

Peru police Tase Alzheimer patient » Local News » Kokomo Tribune; Kokomo, Indiana

The medical facility carries some of the blame, but it still took someone to pull the trigger. We have become a tase first society. Like someone mentioned upthread, you don't have to get your hands dirty, literally.

 

[Rookie]

In my experience, many family members of someone with mental issues don't want to be bothered everytime there is an issue. I would guess that it doesn't start out that way, but after years of dealing with the same issues the person with the mental issues gets put in a facility and the famly members simply had enough. If they get a call that the person is in the hospital, it usually changes their tune for a little while.

You'd be surprised at how many welfare checks we do during the course of a shift. It's usually a son or daughter who called their parent two or three times and didn't get an answer. Instead of driving ten blocks to check on them, they call us to do it.

I understand your point, like I said, I deal with it daily. My point is the nursing home would have been able to say, "we tried this and the wife wasn't interested".

 

[hornadylnl]

My mother had been in and out of the nursing home several times over the last few years of her life. The last time she was on a ventilator, she suffered some pretty major brain damage. She basically thought it was 1970 all over again. She thought my brother and I were her brothers, not her sons. She couldn't remember from one day to the next that her husband had passed away.

She had been in the same nursing home several times and never once complained about the care or how she was being treated. The last time she was in, she constantly repeated that she wanted to go home and they were trying to kill her. She clearly wasn't in her right mind. I got called in a couple times to try to help calm her down and to speak with the staff about it. I have zero reason to believe they were mistreating her. Especially when the staff was the one that called me and made me aware of it. I've been in that position and I can tell you how miserable it is to receive those calls. There's nothing you can do to fix it no matter how much you want to. So, I can empathize with family members trying to put it out of their minds to some extent.

I regularly visited my mom and every time I left that place, it leaves you feeling terrible. It's tempting to want to just wash your hands of it because it's much less stressful on yourself. I had one of my mom's friends visit her once or twice in that last 10 months of her life and then talk to me like I was a terrible son for subjecting my mom to horrible treatment and leaving her in this nursing home. That same friend had never spent enough time around her to understand what frame of mind my mother was in. But that didn't stop her from passing judgement on me.

 

[Gabriel]

I understand your point, like I said, I deal with it daily. My point is the nursing home would have been able to say, "we tried this and the wife wasn't interested".

I wasn't arguing with you at all. I agree that calling family should have been well before calling the police (which really shouldn't have happened to begin with).

 

[Ted]

.....The medical facility carries some of the blame, but it still took someone to pull the trigger.......

Who called the police to do the job of a supposedly trained, competent, nursing staff?

Police are trained to use a force continuum as a means to quickly secure the public safety, not to attempt to act as trained social workers or medical personnel. I can't remember the last time I noted a merit LE position that required as much as an associates degree, much less requiring credentials for such a population.

 

[Double T]

The administrator probably made the call, as ANY resident to resident contact has to be reported to the state for investigation. After so many, the person has to leave.

Knowing miller's, they were understaffed and called LEO to assist, instead of calling in a couple male's, holding the dude down safely, and snowing the **** out of him.

I've been there, I've been punched, kicked, spat on. It's not fun, but you also have to remember these people think they are 20 and don't understand one bit of what's going on.

There are means to an end, and a tazer should not have been included, especially considering the danger of shocking an elderly patient. Sounds to me like someone got careless and lazy on the healthcare side of things.

 

[Hookeye]

Copy/snip

i will NEVER accept that it was necessary to treat the Alzheimers patient in the story they way they treated him.

So your experience based on one subject, is indicative of how all other patients act?

 

[edporch]

Quote:
Originally Posted by edporch
Copy/snip

i will NEVER accept that it was necessary to treat the Alzheimers patient in the story they way they treated him.

So your experience based on one subject, is indicative of how all other patients act?

No, only in part.

I also know that an old man only has so much strength, and a couple of police could've handled him without tazing him.
Provided they weren't of the Barney Fife variety.

But pulling the ol' taser trigger is just too easy...

If you want to believe otherwise, it's your choice.
We'll just have to agree to disagree.