Have you been searching for happiness? Is happiness within your reach? Do you miss the life that you used to have before you entered the nursing home or the physical rehabilitation center? Just what happened and when?
For the most part, from what I have observed and from what I have heard from so many nursing home residents, there are no happy people inside of these places. Yes, there are bits of minute-happiness, a kind of joy that is temporary that exists while residents are experiencing music programs or some other creative events that some nursing homes schedule. But usually, right after the event is over, a large number of the permanent residents go back to their general unhappiness. They wish that some visitors would come there all the time. They wish that they would have more freedom, or even some freedom. And they wish, most of all not to be permanent residents of these group living places, these nursing homes and these rehab facilities.
So, you say that you have seen happy residents? Perhaps you have seen the ones that must put on a happy face or be penalyzed. Perhaps you have seen the happy faces of those who know that they are going home soon or even immediately. Or even so, perhaps you are seeing the happy faces of those who know that their family members and friends are on the way over to visit them. But most likely you have not seen any happy residents who are happy because they are destined to live there forever, in those shared rooms, in those places where there is only community dining and in other places where you have to eat what is put in front of you.
Yes, no choices in meals. I noticed at one rehab center, they would give out the menus to make it appear as if the residents had choices in meals, but in reality, the residents did not have choices in their meals. Everything that could make someone experience a little joy, was merely an illusion.
Is there any happiness in any nursing homes in America or overseas? Are there any people who are sincerely, genuinely happy to be there? Probably not. But you ask yourself those questions but better yet, ask some residents who have the good fortune to be discharged from those rehab centers and nursing homes.
These are vital questions to ask yourself if you are sitting in a wheelchair for many , many hours a day --but do not need to. This article is addressed to those who are physically able to walk , with aid or without aid, with walkers or crutches or with help, but are forced to be in a wheelchair for most of your life.
What happens when you come from a hospital, after an operation or after a bout with serious illness or life-threatening illness and then you are transferred to a physical rehabilitation center or to a nursing home for short-term care? What happens and what is supposed to happen might be two totally different things.
One person that we know of (and there are probably hundreds or thousands who have the very same story) was admitted to a physical rehabilitation center or nursing home for short-term care. When he arrived, he was sent or admitted to the short-term care floor of the physical rehabilitation center (a nursing home) so that he could learn to walk after his below-the-knee amputation.
Once on that floor, after a very short while, this patient was transferred -without the request of himself or his family- to the "long-term" floor of the same physical rehabilitation center/nursing home. Due to red tape and due to the double-talk at the place from staff and workers, the family and patient waited for weeks to find out why the transfer.
Meanwhile as soon as he was transferred to the slower-moving floor (the long-term care) floor of this place, the staff permitted the patient to linger in bed all day and night -until he developed bedsores and until his muscles couldn't hold up any longer due to the long bed rest -that was unnecessary.
Remember this is just ONE story , of what might happen inside a physical rehabilitation center or nursing home when you arrive there for short-term care -expecting to come back to your own home in a short while.
So, here this patient and this family lost out, in great ways. The patient had major losses as bedsores developed and the facility never even noticed that bedsores were developing because the patient was in bed so long at the beginning.
Now, if that is one story, that is now out here in the public, where are the other stories.
Where is the happiness? Where is the joy in life? What happens to a person's joy and happiness and what happens to a family's joy and happiness when patients who are short-term are turned, unwillingly into long-term or life-time care residents inside of rehabilitation centers and nursing homes?
Where is the happiness?
How does one gain the happiness back?
Edited and updated in June 2008.
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