sounds like you're a pretty reasonable person.
most nursing homes/personal care homes are understaffed. if i had all the money in the world and was running one, i would have at most 3 patients to every nurse. the few nursing homes i've been to had a ratio of around 6 or 7 patients to every nurse, maybe more. it doesn't sound like a lot, but when most every patient needs most everything done for him/her, it can quickly become draining, both physically and emotionally.
while it isn't necessarily the best care someone can get, using medications to sedate someone so they are not a threat to themselves, others, and will be compliant with whatever needs to be done is the way things are right now.
elderly persons are affected differently, sometimes more strongly, by many medications. for instance, benadryl may help our nose stop running... but in an elderly person, it may cause urinary retention, blurred vision, and confusion... if the person's already confused because of their alzheimer's dementia, a simple medication like that can exacerbate the confusion!
while healthcare professionals know what to do, and how to handle someone with alzheimer's, in practice many times it is a different thing, simply because there are so many patients, and so much to do.
i know that's really not a solution, but it's just an attempt at trying to explain why.
just the opinion of one medical student...
i wish your family the best.
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An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of inprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law. - Martin Luther King, Jr.
The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses. - Malcolm X
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