Where The Needs Of Others Come First · Available 24x7 For Emergencies
Over 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.