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My brother's ALF had meetings once a week. It was an interesting concept. Residents had cottages that had average 14 rooms around a main lobby that was community room on one end with TV, games and etc. and dining room on other end with games, meals, snacks. There were always problems so much so my bro teased it was like living in a 60s commune again. This one wants the shades drawn because of glare. That one wants them up to do puzzles, play games. And on you go.
They had community meetings led by the cottage monitor once a week. All complaints got aired. All questions asked and answered. It worked well, tho admittedly often without a solid answer.
Now on to your basic question. You are absolutely CORRECT and even under the LAW. The disabled, even mentally disabled, have more rights. And stronger lobbies!
Take for instance a mentally disabled person. It takes something massive to get them declared incompetent and in need of guardianship. A judge once said about an unsafe hoarder who was quite out of control "It's not against the law to be insane". Those with mental disabilities are not, unless a danger to self or others, given even a checkup. And if a 5150 hold is done they will be held only long enough to put them on a medication; which often they will not continue when released.
As to developmental disabilities, I do think they sometimes have better support, but that may be state dependent, or family dependent. Not certain.
Overall I would say that the elderly when they fail have fewer rights. Just my opinion.
In Memory Care Assisted Living, residents do not attend care meetings for obvious reasons.
Or are you referencing an experience with only 1 AL? If so, then I don't think you can make such a generalization, especially if you don't know the elders personally. Sometimes they seem "lucid" and maybe are, but have other problems that prevent them from participating in their care decisions. It took us a long time to figure out my MIL's short-term memory problem (and we saw her a lot since she lived close to us). The social worker told us it was called called Apparent Competency. We could include her in the meetings, but she wouldn't remember critical things and would keep asking the same questions, and getting upset, thus making the meetings less productive (or unproductive). This is where my 95-yr old Mom is at right now. All the neighbors think she's "sharp as a tack" but she isn't. If she gets between me and a service tech, she just makes things harder.
I also witnessed my elderly dad essentially losing his voice, figuratively speaking. He remained of sound mind his whole long life, but definitely became increasingly dismissed, talked over, and ignored. He was often treated as the goofy old man who was good for entertainment. Though he had valid points and interesting things to say, few wanted to listen. It was hard to watch.
There are other cultures in the world who value the elderly, the US is not one of them for sure. And often, it’s our loss
My youngest DD has both Autism and and ADHD-C. Her Autism is fairly mild. She is fully competent and likely will be able to be independent with some interventions. But she does want me to participate in most things WITH her that deal with anything that she might not fully understand as a young adult, anything that might require her to remember things specifically. Obviously - she is never excluded from anything that has to do with her own choices because she has autonomy. I'm just along for the ride. If she had SIGNIFICANT delays though, that situation might be different, in that while she might be present, she might not be offering a lot of input to the conversation and decision making - and in that case- we would need to have the legal right to make decisions for her.
My FIL was considered competent. I cannot recall a single care plan meeting - both in rehab and in the SNF - that he was NOT invited to. HE chose not to attend. In the cases where we had to have the meeting in a conference room - someone would always go to his room to get him - he would REFUSE to attend. And in the case where the meeting was held in his room - he would tune it out entirely. There was one meeting during which he told us we were too loud and tried to turn the tv up. We reminded him each and every time that the purpose of the meeting was to discuss HIS care - he ALWAYS said he knew and that he didn't care. At one point we considered just not even telling him that the meetings were occurring - but it was actually better to have it on record that he knew and refused to attend.
Why do families of the elderly exclude them from planning meetings, while the families of people with developmental delays don't? I don't know that it is universal. There is no way that I would ever leave my DD out of a discussion about her future, but she actively participates and wants to be involved. My FIL not only didn't care, he didn't want to be involved and refused to participate.
I think it depends entirely on the person, their stage of delay or lucidity, and ultimately whether they want to be involved or not.
I can tell you that my mother often said that she felt like she was not seen as an older person.
I will give you an example of what I mean. Mom asked me to accompany her in the doctor’s office because she couldn’t hear very well.
Mom was afraid that she would miss something important that the doctor said if I wasn’t in the doctor’s office with her.
Well, the doctor would see me, and address questions to me about my mom as if she wasn’t even in the room.
So, I politely told the doctor to please ask my mother his questions instead of asking me. I also said that if he needed me to clarify something that I would.
Mom appreciated that I spoke up for her because from then on, he did directly her questions.
Mom could lip read very well and there usually wasn’t an issue with her understanding his questions.
Even at my age, 68, I have found that sometimes a salesperson in a store will often wait on a younger customer first. I realize how my mother felt when she said that old people are often overlooked.