Elder Abuse - Protecting Your Parents at Home Or in a Nursing Home

I consider myself lucky to live where I do. It is in a "55+" community. I have come to realize that is a new euphemism for "not quite ready for assisted living." Most of the occupants of the hundred and twenty apartments in my building either have home healthcare or are getting ready for it. Probably 20 percent of them are on oxygen. So if you're a smoker cross our building off your list.

The most rapidly growing population segment in the United States is our seniors. The proliferation of assisted care, nursing homes and what other names you want to call it is skyrocketing. Here in Colorado Springs it seems like a new one is going up every week with a waiting list to get in.

There are other options. Home healthcare is absolutely huge. The demand for home healthcare and the demand for staff at assisted living facilities has placed a huge shortage on labor and I mean qualified labor. You don't want to leave the care of your parents to some teenager or even some unskilled adult.

The shortage of qualified labor as part of the reason why there are so many problems with elder abuse in home healthcare, nursing homes and assisted living facilities. It has been estimated that as many as 40 percent of all of these facilities report some kind of elder abuse. That abuse can come in many ways: from verbal abuse; Psychological abuse; and God help us physical abuse.

The dilemma of course is what can you do to protect your parents at home or in a nursing home facility? It starts at the beginning by picking a good quality place. Quality usually translates to cost. As in anything else, the better the quality the more expensive it is. Most people cannot afford the $8-$10,000 a month a halfway decent assisted care facility commands. So right off the bat people have to sacrifice something.

One of the best ways to protect your folks is with a hidden spy camera. These are simply board cameras mounted inside a common household item. The newest ones have DVR's in them are motion activated and are run by a remote control device. While these are very effective they have traditionally been expensive enough to put them out of reach of many people.

Enter the spy camera rental program. Like a lot a uses for hidden spy cameras they are usually on a temporary basis and so buying a $500.00 camera doesn't make much sense. With this new program you can rent one for as long as you like with a one-week minimum.

The cameras come with everything you need instructions, remote control and even technical help if you should need it.