100-year-old Flame Drake lay helplessly in bed while her daughter died of a cardiac arrest in the same room. Neither the death or the distressed and dehydrated mother were discovered for two days. Old-age homes in the city [Mumbai] don’t want to take her in. “We have no one to take care of her after 10 pm. We have locked the door for her own safety. She is anyway bedridden and can’t move,” Charles Duckworth, the manager of Christ Church, told Mumbai Mirror. Full story: Helpless church locks up 100-yr-old who watched her daughter slowly die.

Dreams of a Life is a film about Joyce Vincent, a 38 year old woman who sat dead and undiscovered in front of her TV for almost three years. It was written and directed by Carol Morley and will be shown at the 2011 BFI London Film Festival. The film has been shortlisted for the Grierson award for best documentary at the LFF and will go on release on 16 December 2011. www.dreamsofalife.com In the following Guardian article, Carol Morley describes what inspired her to make the film and how difficult it was to find out about the life of this beautiful young woman: Joyce Carol Vincent: How could this young woman lie dead and undiscovered for almost three years?

The website of an EU-funded programme called BRAID has noted a spate of recent stories from Portugal about people who died alone and remained undiscovered for a long time. This is somewhat surprising in a culture where people are expected to have strong social networks (real, not virtual ones) and would expect to be missed – unlike in northern Europe where neighbours tend to ‘keep themselves to themselves’. Challenges for Ageing.

November 2009

A resident of a Des Moines (USA) assisted living center may have been dead for six days before employees found her body. Police reports indicate that she died sometime after Oct. 26, when she was last seen by the center’s registered nurse. The staff checked on her after another resident reported that some of her clothes had been sitting in the laundry room for at least five days.

Dave Werning of the Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals said the agency is investigating. “In theory, if you are in assisted living then you might think or believe that someone is at least monitoring your activities. So this is probably one element of what we will be looking at.” State inspectors had fined the facility $500 earlier this year for failing to assess residents’ needs properly and failing to conduct background checks on workers.

Des Moines Register item.

September 2009

An elderly man lay undiscovered for up to two weeks after his death, which has led to a review of services at the complex where he lived.

Pembrokeshire Housing said Leonard Tullet told staff at De Clare Court in Haverfordwest he was going on holiday.

Mr Tullet, who was 78 had no regular visitors and was not receiving care, died sometime between mid-August and 1 September.

Story from BBC News, Wales.

July 2009

The badly decomposed remains of an 89-year-old woman were discovered in her flat five years after she died, Edinburgh police have revealed.

Isabella Purves’ body was only found after a downstairs neighbour noticed water dripping through the ceiling of her tenement flat and reported it to the local council.

Douglas McLellan, of Age Concern and Help the Aged in Scotland, said it was a ‘tragic case’…”If she was not receiving care treatment from anyone and not receiving social care, then the likelihood of being found quickly is minimal…The question is not just about public services finding people and neighbours checking up, it’s about how elderly people themselves are living their lives. If they’re leading private lives, then how are people going to find them?”

The answer to that question is partly what this site is about.

Read the full story from the Daily Mail. Woman, 85, lay dead in her flat for FIVE YEARS before anyone noticed

January 2009

One of his neighbours claimed that other residents had been asking about the welfare of the man for several weeks. She said: “We presumed he had gone off somewhere for Christmas. It is terrible to think he was lying there dead when you consider it is sheltered accommodation.” Read Dead pensioner lay undiscovered for five weeks from theTelegraph

April 2009

The body of an elderly woman could have lain undiscovered for more than a year in her Fakenham home before it was found by police…One neighbour, who did not wish to be named, said she had only spoken to the woman twice in 12 years. “I am just so shocked,” she said. “Logically I can see how I did not know but there is still a sense that somehow I should have noticed something.

“What did I miss? What signs were there? If it was someone you see every day you would miss them and go to check, but there was nothing to suggest she ever lived there. There were no noises, no car, no shopping trips…she made it so clear she did not want conversation, and you just have to respect people’s wishes, don’t you?”

Read full Body lain undiscovered for a year here.

January 2009

Police discovered Eveline Kelmenson after her niece became concerned when she was unable to contact her for several days over the Christmas period…Neighbours said the dead woman had lived in the three-storey house for as long as any of them could remember. One resident, who did not wish to be named, said she spoke to Ms Kelmenson several weeks ago. She said: “She told me that there was somebody after her money but I didn’t ask any more about it. I just assumed she was old and confused.”

Full story from TimesOnline.