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Dilemmas with supporting the elderly
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A look into the dilemmas that come with supporting the elderly
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Bethany Tulloch3214
9th January 2017
Unit 21: Caring for older people
M2: Analyse dilemmas facing health and care workers when supporting the
independence and wellbeing of elderly people
When dealing with the elderly there are many different types of dilemmas that health and
care professionals may face. Those facing these difficult decisions include carers,
professionals and care workers, both supporting people in their own homes and working in
hospitals, and residential and day care settings. The range of circumstances and different
environments in which ethical questions can arise is therefore very wide.
One of the dilemmas that face health and care workers when supporting the independence
and wellbeing of elderly people would be power of attorney. Power of attorney comes under
two categories, ordinary power of attorney and lasting power of attorney. Ordinary power of
attorney is when a person gives full access to make decisions and takeaction concerning
their finances while they still have mental capacity, they can set up an ordinary power of
attorney. This is a legal document giving someone else authority to act on their behalf. It is
only valid while you still have mental capacity to make their own decisions about their
finances, so that they can keep an eye on what the person making decisions for them is
doing. The other type of attorney, would be lasting power of attorney this gives somebody
the elderly person trusts full legal authority to make decisions on their behalf if they are
unable to make decisions on their own or no longer to wish to make decisions on their own.
This can cause dilemmas that face health and social care workers as they may have to
make uncomfortable and hard decisions. They may also have to distinguish between
consent of the elderly person and an abusive situation. If suspected financial abuse is at
play with an elderly person's power of attorney, an investigation into the claim would have to
happen. This would involve reporting to a senior member of staff and the senior member of
staff would have to ask uncomfortable questions towards the elderly person about the
situation at hand. If there was viable evidence to support the claim of abuse it would then be
passed on to social services and the police where the abuser would be questioned and the
elderly person's financial records would be looked through.
In addition, another dilemma that arise from the power of attorney would be decisions to
whether the elderly person should be placed into a care home. This is a dilemma as the
person who holds power of attorney over the elderly person may be forcing them to go into a
care home. When the elderly person is fully capable to live on their own and be fully
independent, so would not need to be placed into the care home and may not want to be
placed there. This would be challenging to the health and care workers as they want to do
what is best for the patient.
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