Thread: Life in Prison With Dementia

(This is something that has never before come to my attention.. Its a growing problem and the cost is out of sight.)

February 25, 2012

Life, With Dementia

By PAM BELLUCK


SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — Secel Montgomery Sr. stabbed a woman in the stomach, chest and throat so fiercely that he lost count of the wounds he inflicted. In the nearly 25 years he has been serving a life sentence, he has gotten into fights, threatened a prison official and been caught with marijuana.

Despite that, he has recently been entrusted with an extraordinary responsibility. He and other convicted killers at the California Men’s Colony help care for prisoners with Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia, assisting ailing inmates with the most intimate tasks: showering, shaving, applying deodorant, even changing adult diapers.

Their growing roster of patients includes Joaquin Cruz, a convicted killer who is now so addled that he thinks he sees his brother in the water of a toilet, and Walter Gregory, whose short-term memory is ebbing even as he vividly recalls his crime: stabbing and mutilating his girlfriend with a switchblade.

“I cut her eyes out, too,” Mr. Gregory declared recently.

Dementia in prison is an underreported but fast-growing phenomenon, one that many prisons are desperately unprepared to handle. It is an unforeseen consequence of get-tough-on-crime policies — long sentences that have created a large population of aging prisoners. About 10 percent of the 1.6 million inmates in America’s prisons are serving life sentences; another 11 percent are serving over 20 years.

And more older people are being sent to prison. In 2010, 9,560 people 55 and older were sentenced, more than twice as many as in 1995. In that same period, inmates 55 and older almost quadrupled, to nearly 125,000, a Human Rights Watch report found.

While no one has counted cognitively impaired inmates, experts say that prisoners appear more prone to dementia than the general population because they often have more risk factors: limited education, hypertension, diabetes, smoking, depression, substance abuse, even head injuries from fights and other violence.

Many states consider over-50 prisoners elderly, saying they age up to 15 years faster.

With many prisons already overcrowded and understaffed, inmates with dementia present an especially difficult challenge. They are expensive — medical costs for older inmates range from three to nine times as much as those for younger inmates. They must be protected from predatory prisoners. And because dementia makes them paranoid or confused, feelings exacerbated by the confines of prison, some attack staff members or other inmates, or unwittingly provoke fights by wandering into someone else’s cell.

“The dementia population is going to grow tremendously,” says Ronald H. Aday, a sociologist and the author of “Aging Prisoners: Crisis in American Corrections.” “How are we going to take care of them?”

continued.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/he...gewanted=print

That is horribly sad..... ignoring the crimes committed for a moment.

I suppose i view dementia as a mental prison. I view the loss of mental faculties as being a fear more frightening prospect than the less of physical capacities.

uh. hmmm.

Originally Posted by Wolverine

That is horribly sad..... ignoring the crimes committed for a moment.

I suppose i view dementia as a mental prison. I view the loss of mental faculties as being a fear more frightening prospect than the less of physical capacities.

It is. As someone who has dealt with the disease for 8 years now, it is worse. Much worse.

I'm old and I've known people with dementia. Some were frightened and some were quite happy to be waited on. It really varied a lot from person to person. I suspect that if people with dementia were released from their sentence we would have a sudden and shocking epidemic of dementia in prison. Not unlike what happens when the government pays cash for an illness.

Granny says its the end times - the whole world's goin' crazy...

Study: Dementia in Middle Income Countries Rivals that of First World
May 25, 2012 - One of the largest studies ever conducted of dementia in moderate-income countries has found the incidence similar to that in more affluent Western countries.

For years, health experts have believed that dementia -- the degenerative loss of memory and other brain functions -- was less common in middle-income countries than in wealthier, developed countries. But when researchers from Kings College, London conducted a 10-year survey of six developing countries -- Cuba, China, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela -- they found the incidence of dementia was roughly the same as in developed countries.

Martin Prince, who directs the Global Center for Mental Health at King's College, says data from the study suggest that, in fact, most cases of dementia are occurring in the developing world. "We think that two-thirds of all people with dementia in the world live in the middle-income countries at the moment. But the treatment gap is actually huge, so at least 90 percent get no diagnosis," Prince stated. "No treatment and no care whatsoever." There are approximately 36 million people with dementia worldwide. Prince says the figure doubles every 20 years. As his study suggests, most of the people who will be diagnosed with dementia in the next 40 years will be in developing countries.

In the United States, dementia is defined by precise guidelines outlined in a text called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM. But many experts believe those guidelines miss many mild and moderate cases of dementia. So Prince and his colleague used a more sensitive dementia measure to interview nearly 12,800 individuals aged 65 and older in middle income countries, comparing their findings to the DSM guidelines. Prince says individuals suspected of having dementia and their family members were interviewed extensively. Investigators found that the incidence of dementia is between 1.5 to five times higher than would have been the case using DSM guidelines.

The study by Prince and colleagues also found, as in Western countries, the level of educational attainment and mental stimulation among older individuals seems to delay or ward off the effects of mental decline. "So essentially people with richly developed, really well-functioning brains can afford to lose a bit of nerve cells and nerve tissue, and have damage to that network and show really not many, or no discernable signs, of cognitive problems," said Prince. Prince says identifying older people with mild to moderate dementia in middle income countries prepares families for their inevitable decline, hopefully leading to improved care. An article by Martin Prince and colleagues on dementia in middle income countries is published in the journal The Lancet.

Source

The bigger question is what happens to all the old prisoners once they get released. Having spent so much of their life in prison, they likely never had the opportunity to save for their retirement. So by the time they finally get released they are too old to work. What happens to them? Having some idea about what things are like in the USA, I strongly suspect there are not adequate resources available to assist them.

Originally Posted by Irishman

It is. As someone who has dealt with the disease for 8 years now, it is worse. Much worse.

God bless you.....

Originally Posted by Margot

Many states consider over-50 prisoners elderly, saying they age up to 15 years faster.

Interesting how the prison population seems to age at a faster rate than the outside, developing old age diseases sooner in their lives. Could it be the low quality nourishment they receive in prison (a typical American prison spends less than $2.50 per day on food per prisoner).

Appalling Prison and Jail Food Leaves Prisoners Hungry for Justice
https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/(S(o...ookieSupport=1 (link)



I do not think I could bring myself to eat this wretched food.

abuse?

So when they become to addled to be self sufficient, euthanize them. Problem solved.