When two residents of her nursing home fell in love, sexual rights advocate Robin Dessel had to decide how the staff would handle their rendezvous.
Robin has over 25 years of experience at the Hebrew Home at Riverdale, and oversees vision care, memory care and sexual rights and expression. Robin co-authored the nation's first sexual rights policy for residential health care, recognizing the sexual rights of all residents including those with dementia, entitled "Residents' Rights to Intimacy and Sexual Expression" (1995; updated 2013). Robin is a frequent guest educator and presenter at national and state conferences including: Leading Age; Leading Age New York; Leading Age Florida; American Society on Aging; National Aging and Law; NYC Elder Abuse; NYS Department of Health Surveillance Training Academy. She has been featured in such prestigious media outlets as Bloomberg News, BBC, ABCNews.com, Newsweek.com, WNBC, NPR and Chicago Tribune.