Protection of Elderly People’s Rights in Long-term Care Settings

Long-term care can be extremely costly and unpredictable. It is essential for people in
long-term care residences to be protected and served with the best healthcare to preserve life.
Although it is impossible to achieve greater consensus about preferences for long-term care, it is
possible to identify a central tendency in LTC preferences with effective practices and policies.
Current laws often fail to meet majority of elderly people’s preferences for their care. Failure of
the law to protect the elderly in LTC coupled with poor treatment and attitude towards the
elderly has been a prevalent problem in society. Ageism is most apparent in the treatment
programs for the younger people compared to that of the elderly in normal hospice settings.
Majority of LTC residents support policies that give them control over different aspects of
controlling their social settings such as hiring and firing personnel. Not all LTC residents are
unable to make their own decisions. Series of advocacy efforts over the past two decades have
helped improved the type of care availed for the elderly in LTC despite the extensive
environment of paternalism. Various jurisdictions have enforced legislation to protect the right of
nursing home residents. Although these laws exist to protect the elderly in LTC, many challenges
such as social exclusion, age discrimination and economic marginalization are still persistent in
contemporary society.
One of the types of rights protected by the law is dignity, which takes many forms in the
LTC setting. Dignity is the right to be respected and values and to be treated ethically. Many
aging people in LTC are not accorded dignity especially due to the existence of stereotypes about
the elderly such as being in poor health, dependent and helpless. States that have specific laws
protecting the social and human rights of the elderly people have the obligation to enable the
elderly to remain full members of the society even in their old age. Some laws require older
people’s houses and environment to be adapted to their state of health so as to remain in familiar

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surroundings for as long as they can. However, not all elderly people are capable of self-care and
have to seek the help of nursing homes. Existing laws do not do enough to ensure the provision
of dignity-conserving care in these nursing homes. According to a recent study in indicators of
quality care in nursing homes, the ability to preserve a patients’ dignity through thoughtful
grooming and overall presentation was revealed to be an important marker of holistic care
(Wangmo, Nordström & Kressig, 2017). The need to foster a culture of dignity and the impact
this approach has on the elderly in LTC is an ongoing concern in many LTC reforms. Although
the capability to retain an elderly person’s dignity in hospice settings seems straightforward, it is
one of the many challenges that the law has not been able to bridge.
Caregivers usually assume the responsibility of keeping seniors safe in terms of
identifying, communicating and managing risks regardless of the individual’s opinion. However,
the need to maintain a patient’s autonomy often leads to oversight on dangerous situations in
nursing home facilities that could be fatal. Although caregivers are required to help elderly
people in LTC, specifically in care settings, make informed choices, there is still a divide in
identifying who is responsible for enacting choices. The ability to effectively manage risks in
these setting requires recognizing both the nontechnical and technical aspects of managing risks.
Many nursing home take into account the technical aspects such as implementing evidence-based
practice and ensuring professional care but overlook the non-technical aspects, which usually
carries more weight. The non-technical element of risk management involves perceived high-risk
situations that are ethically complex and emotionally loaded (Ibrahim, Holmes, Young &
Bugeja, 2019). In this case, it is important to enforce both societal and organizational processes
that support confidence and reflect a commitment to enacting the elderly persons’ choices in a
way that prevents serious injury or even death.

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The law requires varying types of lifespan management services for patients in LTC to
effectively increase the capacity of these settings to provide optimal health care. One of the
biggest challenges in this perspective is the impact of chronic diseases that makes it difficult for
intervention efforts to be successful. Lifespan management enables implementation of
preventative measures of a wide variety of diseases and reduction of mortality rates. In elderly
LTC, the law requires facilities to promote a healthy lifestyle through strategies such as calories
reduction in meals, regular exercising, healthy relationship with food, and maintaining a healthy
weight. Essentially, lifespan management should not be intensely focused on treatment, but on
other factors outside the scope of medicine that improve the health of a patient. To achieve
successful lifespan management, different levels of personnel should understand their roles and
responsibilities in the team effort. For instance, the director of nursing should ensure that all
nurses are trained on the proper routine that every patient in the nursing home is supposed to
adhere to. Being able to help patients through proper management of healthy choices requires
patience and empathy. The administrator is also involved, especially in the management of costs
in a way that promotes proper lifespan management.
One of the laws that protects lifespan management services in nursing homes is the 1987
Nursing Home Reform Act (NHRA) that establishes the standards of cared in nursing homes and
assisted living facilities. This ensures quality care and protects elderly residents from abuse,
neglect and mistreatment. Some of the rights established by the Act include the right to freedom
from mistreatment, right to privacy, communicate freely, and be treated with dignity. Elderly
personas are also respected enough to be enabled to participate in the review of one’s care and
treatments plan in addition to being fully informed. Although this legislation exists, there are
settings where care givers assume the full responsibility and forget that these patients and elderly

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persons have a right to autonomy as long as they are still well enough to make decisions. More
laws exist to involve the individual’s family members in the treatment plan.
Based on the above discussion, existing legislation to protect the rights of the elderly
should be enforced in many facilities of assisted living and nursing homes. Many care givers are
oblivious to some of the obligations, which leaves a gray area of who is responsible for what in
different care settings.

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References
Ibrahim, J. E., Holmes, A., Young, C., & Bugeja, L. (2019). Managing risk for aging patients in
long-term care: a narrative review of practices to support communication, documentation,
and safe patient care practices. Risk management and healthcare policy, 12, 31.
Wangmo, T., Nordström, K., & Kressig, R. W. (2017). Preventing elder abuse and neglect in
geriatric institutions: Solutions from nursing care providers. Geriatric Nursing, 38(5),
385-392.