When Guns Get In The Way of Senior Care

When Guns Get In The Way Of Senior CareOver at Better Senior Care Blog, Beverly Bernstein Joie, MS, CMC has posted a terrific article about the issues and concerns that arise when the elderly and others have guns in their homes.  If those persons no longer have the ability to make safe choices about when and how to use those guns, safety risks can be high.

We live in a country that has a long history of allowing private gun ownership and many of our older citizens have firearms in their homes. While those firearms may not have posed a serious risk to them in the past, as aging occurs sometimes our older loved ones no longer have the cognitive or physical ability to function as safe gun owners.

In her article, Beverly says,

“According to the 2004 National Firearms Survey, more than a quarter of people over the age of sixty-five own guns. Guns are a symbol of independence and individualism for many Americans. Yet, they expose those who are cognitively impaired to danger to themselves and others. With that, families have yet another dilemma of substantial consequence to address besides taking the keys to the car away.

We face this issue often when we perform initial assessments for personal attendant services in the homes of our clients.  For the safety of our clients and our personal attendants, we work with the clients’ families to ensure that there are no firearms in the clients’ homes before we allow our personal attendants to work there.  While do not believe that guns are inherently evil, we do believe that having firearms in our clients’ homes creates unacceptable risk for our clients, their families and our employees.

Be sure to read the full article at Tips for Better Senior Care when Guns Get in the Way of the Frail Elderly

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Originally posted 2010-08-14 10:29:13.

Tim Colling
Tim Colling

Tim Colling is the founder and President of A Servant's Heart In-Home Care, which provided in-home caregiving services in San Diego County, and also of A Servant's Heart Geriatric Care Management, which provided
professional geriatric care management services and long term care placement services in San Diego County. Tim has more than 30 years of experience in management in a variety of industries. He held a Certified Care Manager credential from the National Academy of Certified Care Managers. Tim is also a Certified Public Accountant (retired), and received his Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting from California State University at San Diego. In addition to writing blog posts here for the Servant’s Heart blog, Tim also is a regular contributor to HealthLine.com and to FamilyAffaires.com as well as blogs of other eldercare services provider companies. Finally, Tim is also the president of A Servant's Heart Web Design and Marketing, which provides home care marketing as well as website design and online marketing for those who serve the elderly and their families.

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