3,287 Comments for Danvers State Hospital

Condos? Instead of the stunning Kirkbride architecture?

=8-o

[groan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ]

Yes, I hope someone is able to rescue some artifacts...just read in the paper today that condos will be built over the area.

Do they ever sell any items right before they tear down these great buildings?

I would love to hear the echo of footsteps in that hallway (my own that is - not someone lurking about)

Wow Motts, It would be great to have a letter head from that old place! Do you think you'll get back there before they tear it down?

Great shot! The Doors are fantastic! I love the dark colored wood .
Dayum! I wish I could see this place before it gets torn down!

I remember that movie.



Great picture, Mr. Motts. I want a print of this one.

I remember that scene in the movie

wow, what a great photo

Remindes me of the Ring Tree, great pic

WHAT? After all that totally marvelous abuse I hear you nursing staff types engage in every day and night and then stay up evenings devising new ways to make more barbaric and cruel? :-( Rats! That shatters the great picture I had built up of all staff being cruel and evil! Are you trying to get us to think in shades of gray instead of black-and-white or something!?!?!?! Shame, shame to you, Anna, my dear, you and your highly paid, high status co-workers!!!!

[Tee-hee-hee!]

P.S. Hey, ~Me. Does your comment mean that you were stained before and want to be stained again?

oh and i just thought that i would add, we dont restrain patients in these chairs. Because laying in bed all the time causes deep vein thrombosis and atrophied muscles, these chairs are used to give movement during the day to bed ridden patients. Nothing barbaric or cruel, just plain everyday nursing.

geri chairs are quite coveted where i work, we usually spend our time stealing them back and forth from other floors, and i have never heard of a "posey" chair either.

Dang, Motts, you beat me to it! However, I already wrote today's "rant du jour" (I'm on vacation this week, unfortunately for y'all), so it's too late to stop me now. ;-)

People may have called this a posey chair because they may have sometimes seen posey restraints used while a person was sitting in one of these, but I am not familiar with Posey making a specific chair. This is just a simple old Geri-chair, known and loved the world over and used all over the place when we can get our hands on them because they are good chairs for people in the geriatric and disabled population (expensive, though).

Here are some pix:
http://www.edbydesign.com/boo...68EWLE.html
http://www.1800wheelchair.com...oduct_id=1150
http://www.southwestmedical.com/mfgse..._ID=Invacare
http://www.mediquiprecycle.ca/webpage%20006.jpg

Here's one in the reclined position:
http://www.kwe.com.hk/prod03e103.htm

As a postscript here, I see that many people appear to be entranced by the idea of people being restrained. To give some perspective, here's what many places are currently dealing with regarding the aged population in facilities.

Many older folks have severe osteoporosis, and all it takes is walking across the room to break a toe or shatter a hip. This is not an exaggeration, I am sorry to say, having seen it repeatedly in recent months. People who do not have or are losing their "faculties" do not understand when they can no longer walk safely. While it is true that you want to keep people ambulatory as long as possible because it helps maintain independence and promote bone growth, some people do not understand when they are no longer able to negotiate conditions in their environment that would not be hazardous to most people. With decreased eyesight, decreased response times, and decreased protective reflexes, what would be a simple bump to most people can become a fracture to someone with osteoporosis. What's worse is that if the person has dementia or cannot communicate well, they often are unable to let you know that anything like this has occurred, especially if it is somewhere such as their non-preferred hand, and you may not know until you finally see redness, swelling, bruising, etc.

Then the investigative agencies start to come to your facility (or home) and want to know why Mrs. Jones has had four fractures in six months at night - perhaps one of your night staff is abusing her? However, the night staff adores Mrs. Jones and has done all they can do to keep her safe. But like many elderly people, she has lost the sense of what is night and what is day and will wander around when she wakes up. Because she is elderly she also has an entirely different sleeping pattern, which consists of sleeping off and on throughout the 24-hour period, rather than sleeping through the night. If the staff isn't right there when she wakes up, she has all manner of things to trip over or bump into because not only is she groggy from waking up, but she has decreased eyesight, she doesn't know or remember to wear her glasses (or some kind person put them up to keep them safe), her room is dark (to help her roommate sleep), and some well-meaning soul carpeted the floor of her room because it looked cold and sterile (which deadens the sound in her room and prevents the staff from knowing she is up).

Should she be restrained to keep her from breaking more bones? Not in all cases, but there ARE instances where this does need to happen to promote healing and prevent further fractures. As for the other inappropriate uses, well, when you pay nursing home staff a minimum wage salary and expect them to look after people who this society looks down on for the sin of becoming aged and losing their faculties (our most prized possessions in the Western culture), you don't get a lot of takers for the position. So here is yet another place where we have a large number of people with overwhelming needs looked after by a much smaller number of people who receive minimum wage, who have an annual turnover rate of 72% ("turnover rates exceed 60% in 65 percent of states, exceeded 80% in 37 percent of states, and were above 100% in 20 percent of states" - 2002 AHCA Survey), who are treated like grunts because they work in a nursing home, and who have the third highest injury rate of any profession. These are the staff who are expected to make sure Mrs. Jones doesn't break yet another bone, yet the staffing ratios are horrendous and every week another staff quits and another brand new green staff has to be trained to take their place.

Once again, I am not denying that there is abuse and neglect in nursing homes or in any other facility. It's there and I have seen it. There are people who would engage in abuse even if all conditions were perfect. But with a setup like this, who is confused when this happens? As I said before, the fact that the majority of staff in places like this are decent, caring people is what should be heralded and reinforced. But until we value the staff and the people who live there, this will keep happening and people will continue to ooh and aah over restraints when they see them and they will continue to condemn the people who use them when they have no other way to take care of the people they are supposed to keep safe.

Here is an interesting fact sheet on working as a certified nursing assistant in a nursing home:
http://www.aarp.org/resea...ort-688-FS86.html

Fascinating:
http://www.flara.org/Compl...omes%20.pdf

They often used Gerrie charis as posey chairs and used 3 point restraints..