A recent Associated Press article reveals a spike in the number of mentally ill patients who are moving into nursing homes, often times sharing a room with an elderly, frail resident. Time and again these mentally ill individuals attack their defenseless elderly roommates.
Over the past several years, nursing homes have become dumping grounds for young and middle-age people with mental illness, according to Associated Press interviews and an analysis of data from all 50 states. And that has proved a prescription for violence, as cases across the country illustrate.
Younger, stronger residents with schizophrenia, depression or bipolar disorder are living beside frail senior citizens, and sometimes taking their rage out on them.
Nearly 125,000 young and middle-aged adults with serious mental illness lived in U.S. nursing homes last year. That was a 41 percent increase from 2002, when nursing homes housed nearly 89,000 mentally ill people ages 22 to 64. Most states saw increases, with Utah, Nevada, Missouri, Alabama and Texas showing the steepest climbs.
Younger mentally ill people now make up more than 9 percent of the nation's nearly 1.4 million nursing home residents, up from 6 percent in 2002. Several forces are behind the trend, among them: the closing of state mental institutions and a shortage of hospital psychiatric beds. Also, nursing homes have beds to fill because today's elderly are healthier than the generation before them and are more independent and more likely to stay in their homes.
No government agency keeps count of killings or serious assaults committed by the mentally ill against the elderly in nursing homes. But a number of tragic cases have occurred:
• In 2003, a 23-year-old woman in Connecticut was charged with starting a fire that killed 16 fellow patients at her Hartford nursing home. A court guardian said Leslie Andino suffered from multiple sclerosis, dementia and depression. She was found incompetent to stand trial and committed to a mental institution.
• In 2006, 77-year-old Norbert Konwin died at a South Toledo, Ohio, nursing home 10 days after authorities said his 62-year-old roommate beat him with a bathroom towel bar. Sharon John Hawkins was found incompetent to stand trial.
• In January, a 21-year-old man diagnosed with bipolar disorder with aggression was charged with raping a 69-year-old fellow patient at their nursing home in Elgin, near Chicago. A state review found that Christopher Shelton was admitted to the nursing home despite a history of violence and was left unsupervised even after he told staff he was sexually frustrated.
Under federal law, nursing homes are barred from admitting a mentally ill patient unless the state has determined that the person needs the high level of care a nursing home can provide. States are responsible for doing the screening. Also, federal law guarantees nursing home residents the right to be free from physical abuse.
The problem has its roots in the 1960s, when deplorable conditions, improved drug treatments and civil rights lawsuits led officials to close many state mental hospitals. As a result, some states have come to rely largely on nursing homes to care for mentally ill people of all ages.
Also, mixing the mentally ill with the elderly makes economic sense for states. As long as a nursing home's mentally ill population stays under 50 percent, the federal government will help pay for the residents' care under Medicaid. Otherwise, the home is classified a mental institution, and the government won't pay.
In Missouri, more than 4,400 younger mentally ill people are living in nursing homes, in part because of a state program that helps the elderly stay in their own homes longer. Nursing homes "are looking at 60 to 70 percent occupancy, and the statistics tell us they've got to be in the 90s to operate successfully," said Carol Scott, the state long-term care ombudsman for 20 years. "They're going to take anybody they can."
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