I'm thinking it could be Worcester Left, but Navi would have to tell us for certain.

Maybe it's an existential question. ;-)

Cool! A noobie!!! ;-)

or maybe the . . . . . . . . . . .

or the . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

David,

Where I work I am the person who assembles the injury stats for peer-to-peer aggression, client-to-staff injuries, and staff-to-client injuries. Clients hurt staff the same way people hurt each other everywhere. Are you asking for a general idea of the types of injuries that staff incur?

Wait till you are trying to sew up the occasional large gashes that surprisingly strong whirlwind two-year-olds seem to attract and dealing with an understandably semi-hysterical parent with blood all over the place and your perspective might change. Hanging on to someone who is strong for their size and doesn't want your assistance and who is amazingly slippery due to being covered with blood does not make for graceful medical interventions. Similarly if your child doesn't understand that moving around may cause a bone that is setting properly to re-break and/or come out of alignment or pop a gastrostomy or G-tube out of place, these devices will quickly become an extremely helpful rehabilitation tool.

Anyone who wants to tie up or restrain someone does not need to wait for a set of properly adjusted well-fitting posey restraints. But if you have need (or frankly even if you don't) I would feel better about someone being restrained correctly and in the proper body alignment than I would with someone making something up from scratch.

Work a shift in an emergency room hospital with screaming, frantic, injured toddlers or with large adults who are totally unable to control themselves either due to psychosis, pain, or substance abuse. Think about things in context and how they can be properly used before assuming that these are items used for control and pain. ANYTHING can be made into an instrument of torture if that is what is in your mind and that is your intent. All that THIS is is an instrument or tool. The person who uses this is the one who has the ability to use or mis-use it.

Aw, Weebs, let her! ;-)

Em . . . . . .

[Still trying real hard to be good, Motts, after two+ years . . . . . . .]

SWEET!

I LOVE this shot!

Very chaotic, great color/texture mix.

The textures and sepia coloring are fantastic.

Fabulous lighting!

[muffled chortles of silently shaking giggles]

It's just you. :-)

I would suggest that rather than "taking a good portion of time out of your day" to read all these dreary comments it might be easier to hit the "Hide Comments" button. Some of us are looking beyond the art and into the reality that the art reflects, although by your comments I see that you don't seem to "approve" of it. The fact that this "artwork" is the product of a universe that was real is probably uncomfortable for a lot of people, and is one of the reasons the "Hide Comments" option was installed.

None of us have the ability to "give others permission to interpret things as they like" - but it's always better to give people some objective reality if you happen to know something about it than it is to let people run off half-cocked with bizarre ideas from things they have never personally experienced but have just decided "must be." That isn't "art" - that is "drama pretending to be art that doesn't want to bother with reality because it might be uncomfortable."

I personally believe that everyone who can SHOULD live in the community if there are enough resources to make that happen. However, the cost of being institutionalized versus living in the community is close to equal at this point. That is because the majority of people who first moved from the institutions to the community were people with more supports and more skills. People who currently live in institutional facilities have fewer skills overall and a significantly higher rate of behavioral, medical, and physical challenges.

When we finally move everyone out, and I am confident we eventually will, the costs - which are running neck and neck now - will shift to being more expensive to live in the community. However, I personally think it is worth it for everyone to have better access to the community, even though physical integration doesn't equal social integration, as we have seen in the research.

I do disagree, however, about abuse being detected more quickly in the community. There is little support for this as far as facts and figures, and in fact, at this point the institutions have a higher reporting rate and for smaller injuries and incidents. That is due to the fact that there are more people at a facility who are able to see our folks whereas in most community placements you have fewer people who work longer shifts and the turnover rate means that you will have a whole new set of staff every year, on the average. The turnover rate in the community is between 100% and 150%. In the facility where I work it is around 15%. That can be a good thing or it can be a bad thing, but it does mean that there are more people who are familiar with our folks and because we have roving crews of staff who monitor living areas and check out nursing logs and injury reports (like me) I can spit you back info on who has had how many injuries, when, what they were, how serious they were, and whether the rate or pattern dictates a review or an investigation. Resources are way too scattered in the community for that to occur.

At the same time, I think it's worth the cost to go community. Now if someone could just convince our funding agencies that this is the way to go . . .

Hannah,

That isn't what happened. :-)

Aaaah! That explains it! :-)

Eeeek!!!!!!!

"Gone condo." ;-)

Hi, Advocate,

Peace, my friend. :-)

From Selete:
"Perhaps that's why it had a bad effect on the rats. Was there a control group given 'healthy' plasma and cerebro-spinal fluid? Considering that humans often can't take blood from other HUMANS (depending on blood type,) I imagine blood from another animal could be very harmful!"


Yes, they compared the effects of blood from a control group of "healthy" humans as well. Quotation from article summary:

"Comparisons of the effect of plasma from 80 psychotic patients and 82 nonpsychotic subjects, including both general hospital patients and normal subjects, showed a marked and highly significant difference between the two groups."

Hi, Joy 1,

Go in peace. :-)