Sounds like a lot like a plot for a movie based on a true story based on an older movie based on a true story.
Maybe someone’s been watching “A
wakenings” and getting ideas.
Whilst care in Ontario care homes increasingly looks like more and more like a “model of care ” wholly reliant on drugging seniors into stupor and submission, in Alberta drug reduction is more the order of the day – and with the results that elderly residents are “waking up”.
We call them “anti-psychotics” not based in any science science but in market research – their proper name is “neuroleptic” which means “nerve seizing”. They are part of a larger family of drugs called “major tranquilizers”, the first used in psychiatry were actually manufactured as horse tranquilisers. The newer ones are different but have similar effect on a large mammal like a human.
No wonder folks in care homes who take less of them are waking up.
Maybe it’s time we all woke up, eh?
A couple of years after a national initiative began to reduce the use of anti-psychotic medication, some people are saying the move has had an even more positive effect in Alberta than first expected.
The national initiative to reduce antipsychotic medication use in long-term care facilities began in 2014. At that time, about 30% of long-term care residents in Canada were on the drugs, with an average of 27% in Alberta.
Two years later, the national average has dropped to about 27%. And Alberta has the lowest rate in Canada with an 18% average. (Calgary averages 16%, Edmonton 15%.)
Antipsychotics (most commonly Quetiapine and Risperidone) are often prescribed when patients with dementia become agitated or aggressive, to keep them from hurting themselves or others. In an exclusive interview with Global News, Dr. Duncan Robertson, Medical Director of the Seniors Health Strategic Clinical Network, suggested the prescriptions are appropriate for short-term safety. But many patients stay on the drugs for decades, with potentially harmful side effects.
“[Side effects include] increased risk of stroke, or falling, and of actually creating more confusion in the individuals,” said Robertson, “And sedation. So [patients] can’t engage in normal activities.”
Removing the drugs for 900 residents has meant a culture change for all 170 long-term care facilities run by Alberta Health Services. Staff, including physicians, nurses, nursing aides and pharmacists, attended workshops to learn how to deal with dementia behaviours, without resorting to drugs.
At Extendicare Holyrood in Edmonton, staff pay more attention to basic needs: Does the patient need to go to the washroom? Are they hungry? Tired? In pain?
“Lots of teams said, ‘We didn’t realize how much pain [patients] might have been in, and so they were acting out, or having these responsive behaviours’,” said Mollie Cole, Manager of the Seniors Health SCN. “So when we took down the antipsychotics and gave them more Tylenol… their behaviours are way calmer.”
Other calming techniques included music therapy, exercise, afternoon naps and evening baths.
91-year-old Louis Derkach couldn’t walk, talk or even feed himself two years ago. About a month after he was taken off Quetiapine, the Holyrood resident started doing all three things again.
“That’s a long, long way from when he came in here, and it’s awesome to see,” said his daughter, Carol de Jong, as Derkach chats about what he wants for lunch.
“We can talk with him. We can visit. He has lots to tell us.”
Derkach was prescribed the antipsychotic after becoming aggressive in a hospital a number of years ago, when a nurse tried to change his shirt. Now Holyrood staff let him stay in pyjamas if he chooses, and don’t move him until he wants to move.
The unofficial motto, according to Cole: “If you don’t insist, they won’t resist.” And in her twenty years as a registered nurse, this project has been the most rewarding.
“It is the most exciting thing I’ve worked on,” said Cole with a smile. “[Patients] started waking up.”
“‘They’re waking up!’ is what we hear all over the province.”
© Shaw Media, 2016
Wooo wooo wooa whooo!
Can you feel the force?
Can you feel the force? Can you feel the force? Can you feel the force? Whoo oo oo ooo Can you feel the force? Whoo oo oo ooo Can you feel the force? There's a mood spreading round the world today Can you feel the force? It's with you in your work or at your play Can you feel the force? They're cleaning up the streets throughout the world Can you feel the force? Ghetto folk have had the final furl Can you feel the force? You can feel the pressure lifting off your head People who make war are making love instead This could be the dawning of another time Hatred is a stranger we can see the sign Whoo oo oo ooo Can you feel the force? Can you feel the force? Whoo oo oo ooo Can you feel the force? Can you feel the force? All you people with your heads on the ground Can you feel the force? I can feel the hope spreading all around Can you feel the force? I can feel a new beginning in the air Can you feel the force? Peace and love forming everywhere Can you feel the force? You can see a change in people's attitudes Looking to the future in much brighter moods There's a message clearly written in the sky Time to change and soon we'll all be flying high Whoo oo oo ooo Can you feel the force? Can you feel the force? Whoo oo oo ooo Can you feel the force? Can you feel the force?
Written by: CHRISTOPHER AMOO, EDWARD AMOO
Jump aroundJump Around
I’ll serve your ass like John McEnroe
If your girl steps up, I’m smacking the ho
Word to your moms I came to drop bombs
I got more rhymes than the Bible’s got psalms
And just like the Prodigal Son I’ve returned
Anyone stepping to me you’ll get burned
‘Cause I got lyrics but you ain’t got none
If you come to battle bring a shotgun
But if you do you’re a fool, ’cause I duel to the death
Trying to step to me you’ll take your last breath
I got the skill, come get your fill
‘Cause when I shoot to give, I shoot to kill
[Chorus]
I’m the cream of the crop, I rise to the top
I never eat a pig ’cause a pig is a cop
Or better yet a terminator
Like Arnold Schwarzenegger
Trying to play me out like as if my name was Sega
But I ain’t going out like no punk bitch
Get used to one style and you know I might switch
It up up and around, then buck buck get down
Put out your head then you wake up in the Dawn of the Dead
I’m coming to get ya, I’m coming to get ya
Spitting out lyrics homie I’ll wet ya
[Chorus]
Jump [32x]
Yo, this is dedicated
To Joe, da flava, Dakota
Grab yo bozac, punk
Hip-Hop past all your tall social hurdles
Like the nationwide projects, prison-industry complex
Working class poor, better keep your alarm set
Streets too loud to ever hear freedom ring
Booka-booka-booka-booka-booka-booka
Ha hah, you know the deal, it’s just me Dog
Beats by su-primo for all of my people
Negroes and Latinos and even the Gringos
Yo, check it, one for Charlie Hustle, two for Steady Rock
Three for the fourth comin’ live, future shock
It’s five dimensions, six senses
Seven firmaments of heaven to hell, eight million stories to tell
Nine planets faithfully keep in orbit
With the probable tenth, the universe expands length
The body of my text possess extra strength
Power-liftin’ powerless up, out of this towerin’ inferno
My ink so hot, it burn through the journal
I’m blacker than midnight on broadway and myrtle
Hip-Hop past all your tall social hurdles
Like the nationwide projects, prison-industry complex
Working class poor, better keep your alarm set
Streets too loud to ever hear freedom ring
Say evacuate your sleep, it’s dangerous to dream
For cha-ching cats get tha cha-pow, who dead now
Killin’ fields need blood to graze the cash cow
Some numbers game, but shit don’t add up somehow
Like I got, sixteen to thirty-two bars to rock it
But only fifteen percent of profits, ever see my pockets like
Sixty-nine billion in the last twenty years
Spent on national defense but folks still live in fear like
Nearly half of America’s largest cities is one-quarter black
That’s why they gave Ricky Ross all the crack
Sixteen ounces to a pound, twenty more to a Ki
A five minute sentence hearing and you’re no longer free
Forty percent of Americans own a cell phone
So they can hear everything that you say when you ain’t home
I guess, Michael Jackson was right, ‘You are not alone’
Rock your hardhat black ‘coz you in the terrordome
Full of hard niggaz, large niggaz, dice tumblers
Young teens and prison greens facin’ life numbers
Crack mothers, crack babies and aids patients
Young bloods can’t spell but they could rock you in playstation
This new math is whippin’ motherfuckers ass
You wanna know how to rhyme you better learn how to add
It’s mathematics
“The mighty Mos Def”
“It’s simple mathematics”
“Check it out!”
“I revolve around science”
“What are we talking about here?”
“The mighty Mos Def”
“It’s simple mathematics”
“Check it out!”
“I revolve around science”
“What are we talking about here?”
“Do your math”
“Do your math”
“One, t-t-two, three, four”
“What are we talking about here?”
Yo, it’s one universal law but two sides to every story
Three strikes and you be in for life, mandatory
Four M.C’s murdered in the last four years
I ain’t tryin’ to be the fifth one, the millennium is here
Yo it’s six million ways to die, from the seven deadly thrills
Eight year olds gettin’ found with nine mill’s
It’s ten p.m., where your seeds at? What’s the deal?
He on the hill puffin’ krill to keep their bellies filled
Light in the ass with heavy steel, sights on the pretty shit in life
Young soldiers tryin’ to earn they next stripe
When the average minimum wage is five fifteen
You best believe you gotta find a new grind to get cream
The white unemployment rate is nearly more than triple for black
So frontliners got their gun in your back
Bubblin’ crack, jewel theft and robbery to combat poverty
And end up in the global jail economy
Stiffer stipulations attached to each sentence
Budget cutbacks but increased police presence
And even if you get out of prison still livin’
Join the other five million under state supervision
This is business, no faces just lines and statistics
From your phone, your zip code, to S S I digits
The system break man, child and women into figures
Two columns for who is and who ain’t niggaz
Numbers is hardly real and they never have feelings
But you push too hard, even numbers got limits
Why did one straw break the camel’s back? Here’s the secret
The’re million other straws underneath it, it’s all mathematics
“The mighty Mos Def”
“It’s simple mathematics”
“Check it out!”
“I revolve around science”
“What are we talking about here?”
“The mighty Mos Def”
“It’s simple mathematics”
“Check it out!”
“I revolve around science”
“What are we talking about here?”
Mathematics
Toronto Hearing Voices Cafe featured in Toronto Star today.
A big thank you to two very cool people reporter Verity Stevenson and photographer Marcus Oleniuk. And a big thank you to artist Dora Garcia for the inspiration, and of course to Sue and David, owners at Coffee and All That Jazz for creating the kind of space in which we can all be a little more human.
One day every cafe’s the world over will be a safe place to talk about hearing voices – or whatever it is that you experience – not in the imposed language others would have us use but in words that come from our own experience of what it means to live a life as a human being…
MARCUS OLENIUK/TORONTO STAR / TORONTO STAR
Kevin Healey at a monthly event at Coffee and All That Jazz in Roncesvalles where people who hear voices and those who work with/for them to talk about it openly, without fear of stigma and in a non-institutional environment.
More about Hearing Voices Cafe
agnotarte
dave umbongo
drkenplacebo
highfellow
recovery network: Toronto 
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