What you don’t know about assisted living in America
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 21 December 2023
⏱️ 25 minutes
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Summary
Patients with memory problems walk away from assisted-living facilities just about every day in America; many die. The Post examines a pattern of neglect in America’s booming assisted-living industry.
Read more:
Since 2018, more than 2,000 people have wandered away from assisted-living and memory-care facilities unattended or unsupervised. These are facilities that charge families thousands of dollars a month to care for families’ loved ones.
It’s a phenomenon known in the industry as an “elopement.” A team of Post reporters looked into why and how this happens, the dire consequences and who is responsible when something goes wrong.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, can you hear me okay? Yeah, can you hear me? Yeah, can you hear me? I can, yes. |
| 0:11.3 | Earlier this year, Enterprise reporter Todd Frankel connected with Kaylin Van Roy. |
| 0:16.0 | Kaylin, she's 30. |
| 0:18.3 | She lives in Wisconsin now, but she was raised just outside Des Moines, Iowa. And she was the main caretaker for her grandmother, |
| 0:25.4 | Lynn Stewart. |
| 0:26.4 | Or as Kalin called her, Grandma Lynn. |
| 0:29.4 | Yeah, I wasn't Grandmother or Granny or nana. I was grandma. |
| 0:35.0 | For a while, Grandma Lynn had been independent. |
| 0:39.4 | Even after her husband died, she lived at home. |
| 0:41.8 | She kept up with her gardening. But then... |
| 0:44.5 | Things sort of changed as she got sick with Alzheimer's. In 2015, Kaleen moved back home after college. |
| 0:55.0 | She spent a lot of time with her grandmother, and she started to notice some changes in Lynn's memory. |
| 1:03.0 | She just noticed that her grandmother is struggling with her medications and her meals. |
| 1:06.6 | Her pill packs would be disorganized or she's forgetting to eat. |
| 1:10.1 | Hygiene was a big concern, I guess, now that I'm thinking about it. |
| 1:14.5 | So if I wasn't there, she wasn't going to be showering or taking a bath. |
| 1:22.4 | Even Lynn herself started to notice these changes. |
| 1:25.0 | Honestly, she would journal too, and I would kind of see her processing these things. |
| 1:30.0 | Like, she would notate that her memory is just not the same and you know |
| 1:35.8 | who is she now like who is the new lens like she was processing these hard |
| 1:40.9 | things because when you're still aware that your memory isn't what it used to be it's a it's really tough |
| 1:48.4 | living that reality Kaylin was going over to Lynn's house multiple times a week, making her grandmother's meals, |
... |
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