Tagging plan for vulnerable OAPs

[Stephen]

http://society.guardian.co.uk/longtermcare/story/0,,2060773,00.html


Tagging plan for vulnerable OAPs

Peter Walker
Thursday April 19, 2007
Guardian Unlimited


Electronic tagging devices coule be fitted on the elederly under new plans. Photograph: PA


Charities today gave a guarded welcome to a proposal by the science minister, Malcolm Wicks, that vulnerable older people could be tracked via satellite-monitored tags. Mr Wicks first floated the idea to the Commons science and technology committee yesterday, when he said monitoring tags could help families or carers to track the whereabouts of "an 80 or 90-year-old who may have Alzheimer's". Charities including Help the Aged and the Alzheimer's Society warned that such tagging would have to be carried out with great sensitivity and full consent, and should not become a substitute for proper care. Today, Mr Wicks said he had been hoping to "start a discussion" about an idea that could allow elderly people more independence. He told Guardian Unlimited he had met satellite tracking experts and asked them whether the sort of technology used for tracking cars could be adapted. "This is not government policy, it's my idea for discussion - all I'm saying is that we've got this big social question which is growing in importance," he said. "On the other hand, we've got the development of really exciting satellite technologies. "Let's see if we can put the two of them together - not to be Big Brother-ish or tag people like criminals, but to bring some security, safety, dignity and independence to a frail group of people." Around 700,000 people in Britain currently have a form of dementia, a figure predicted to rise to 1 million within 20 years and 1.7 million by 2051. Help the Aged said it had no objection to the tagging plans, adding that technology already improved the lives of many vulnerable older people. It said examples of this included pendants that can be worn around the neck with a button to be pressed in the event of an emergency, alerting a carer or social worker. Paul Bates, from the organisation, said Mr Wicks' suggestion took that idea "one step further, but probably needs to be given serious consideration, rather then being immediately dismissed out of hand". "Something like this potentially could allow large numbers of older people to retain the ability to stay in their own homes for longer, which is why we are not immediately dismissing this," he added. As well as ensuring the technology was only used with the full consent of either the person being monitored or - if their dementia was too severe - a family member or carer, it would also need to be called something other than "tagging". "We absolutely would not want to characterise this as tagging," he said. "It's not - it's potentially opening up dignity and independence for older people who would otherwise be placed in care settings when ... something like this could allow families and carers to ensure that their vulnerable relatives are kept in their own home." The idea "could potentially have some benefits if managed very sensibly", including replacing the need to prevent people with dementia from wandering by using physical restraints or drugs, Hannah Clack, of the Alzheimer's Society, said. However, she stressed the technology would have to be used within a proper framework to make sure tagging did not become "a substitute for good care", for example minimising staff costs in care homes. "But we do think [the idea] has a good potential to be explored as a way of empowering people with dementia to have greater freedom of movement and independence," she said.

[John White]

[thought criminal]

'Tagging plan for vulnerable OAP's'

The precursor to residential rest home massacres, methinks.

[karlos]

SOYLENT GREEN
it is very sad that they are starting to do everything that science fiction has predicted.
Microchips
Tagging
CCTV
DNA database
soon they will expand killing off poor old people
as Iain Duncan Smith said on tv in hospitals they already starve elderly people to finish them off.
Laws are being changed to allow euthenasia.

It is all WRONG

[wepmob2000]

A favoured tactic seems to be to pump OAP's full of a lethal cocktail of drugs, this is supposedly to make them feel better, but ends up killing them.

I have direct evidence of Statin's being prescribed to 79 year olds, even though they are specifically not supposed to be prescribed to anyone over 70, due to the side effects.

I suppose its one way to lessen the 'burden' on the NHS.

[karlos]

if they didnt poison the water with flouride, bromide, chlorine and oestrogen
and the if our food was edible
then people probably wouldt be clogging up the NHS

in meditteranean countries people of 80 and 95 are still working the fields

hear they are killing them off

However, Rumsfeld and those dementia parents dont seem to get put down.

[Chaos Warrior]