Dementia and sexual activity

Wow, here's a very difficult situation. I have great sympathy for the head nurse and administrator. The expression "You're damned if you do, and you're damned if you don't" comes to mind.

To make a small (very small) joke, they really got screwed.

What followed illustrates one of the most complex and unexamined issues facing elderly care facilities as the Baby Boom generation enters old age: How to determine if residents with dementia have the mental capacity to consent to sex.

The Windmill Manor incident and its lengthy aftermath also show that
nursing homes, regulators and families are not prepared to deal with
that question.

“It ruined my life,” the director of nursing at the time, Karen Etter, said in an interview.

She was fired.

“It’s the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to live through,” said Steve Drobot, the former Windmill Manor administrator.

He was fired, too.

Hit the link for the whole feature, which is posted on Bloomberg/Business Week.