Title: Residential Homes, Depressive Homes

by Batoul Zayour

Outline:

        I.            After all, residential homes, people’s worst nightmare, have a bunch of negative impacts that fall on the psychological and health fields.

     II.            A.  On the psychological domain, being sent to residential homes destroys the old people’s spirit, for it causes depression and losing hope.

  1) stating statistics about the depression of old people in residential homes by Mental Health and Older People Researches

  2) highlighting a story of an old woman who lost hope in life

B. Moreover, residential homes have been considered to be a health destroyer since it causes fatigue and weak bodies, and may lead to death.

  1) proving by the report of residential homes that people in their care are getting weaker and lazier

  2) explaining the death of Sam, an old man in care homes

   III.            To sum up, sending old people to residential homes gives nothing but disadvantages to them psychologically and physically.

Text:

Residential Homes, Depressive Homes

  “An ounce of blood is worth more than a pound of friendship.” This quote sheds light on the value of family, highlighting that families are way more important than friends. This should be applied to people who send their parents to residential homes. They just send their old parents to a place full of other old people and workers who take care of them so that they wouldn’t watch after them, thinking that they would have fun their meeting new friends. But in fact, one can’t ignore the dark sides of residential homes. After all, residential homes, people’s worst nightmare, has a bunch of negative impacts that fall on the psychological and health fields.

  In the psychological domain, being sent to residential homes destroys the old people’s spirit for it causes depression and losing hope. To start with, being in another new place away from the family, old people undergo deep which consequently leads to depression especially by knowing that their children are the ones who sent them there. For example, Mental Health and Older People researches have shown that in the UK, between 4 and 25% of old people in residential homes have depression and between 29 and 82% of them have depressive symptoms. Moreover, having children, the closest people to man, sending their parents to a place far away from them in order not to get tired taking care of them could be the worst thing anyone can imagine. For this, old people in residential homes lose hope from life, seeing it in a dark perspective, as well as losing hope and trust in people. For instance, Carla, an 80-year old woman was in a residential home. Nurses reported that she always sat alone, never accepted to sit with the other old people from her age saying: “I lost trust in the closest people to me in the world, my children, how do you expect me to trust people, not from the family?”

  Moreover, residential homes have been considered to be a health destroyer since it causes fatigue and weak bodies, and may lead to death. To begin with, being sent to residential homes causes depression and endless bad mood. The bad mood of a person affects the energy of the body as well as its immune system. Then, the old people will always feel tired and their bodies get weaker. For example, residential homes in Australia wrote that old people in their centers get less powerful and lazier. In addition, old people may die faster than normal since being depressed destroys the immune system keeping the body so weak unable to fight foreign bodies properly. For instance, Sam is an old man who was put in a residential home and died after some years. The residential home told his children that he was always lonely and depressed and looked weaker day by day, in addition to the unsatisfying checkups which got worse one by one.

  To sum up, sending old people to residential homes gives nothing but disadvantages to them psychologically and physically. In order to solve this problem, people should take responsibility and take care of their old parents. And if sending them is urgent, their children should come and visit from time to time since results have shown that old people in residential homes who got children to visit them, 90% of them were walking more every day, 50% had better balance, and 80% saw improvements in their strength.