Assisted Living at Vineyard Park, with Kelley Smith

*The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

The following podcast is provided by care partners living and answers for elders radio. And Welcome back everyone to answers for older’s radio on this weekend before Christmas and certainly we are all in many preparations as we prepare to stay home and stay safe over the holiday season and and certainly you know, with no Christmas parties and no all different types of things, it’s going to be a new, different type of holiday and we are very honored this on this hour to have our wonderful Kelly smiths from care partners living and Kelly, welcome back to the show. We’ve been talking a lot about, you know, just the holiday season and how things are going and you know, different ways in which we communicate and moving into assisted living. Right now there’s so many situations where families have been conserved but they don’t necessarily Kelly, I know the average person doesn’t understand what assisted living really is. And those are your vineyard park communities. Is that correct for the most part? Yes, Ma’am, Uh Huh. So tell me, if somebody is going to move into a vineyard park community, what kinds of services and you know, care is is expected. They’re offered there. Well, Amen and tees are going to be pretty much same as just about everybody. You’ve got your housekeeping. Once a week. Linnen’s three meals a day, anytime dining, so you you have breakfast when you get up, not when we say it’s breakfast time. The foods fantastic. I’m going to tell you we we’ve invested in really good ships. The foods fantastic, fresh food, fresh food daily, and they’re going to take you to your doctors. There’s activities throughout the day, things to look forward to. Right life, but a nurse in the building, your giver seven days a week. You’re not feeling right, you don’t have to wait till I wonder if I should what I wonder if this is serious. Should I call somebody? You’re going to push a button or you’re going to pull a pendant. You’re going to do whatever you’re going to do. Somebody’s going to check on you now. You don’t have to wait. What my doctor think about this? Will Somebody’s going to tell you now. It’s kind of Nice, but there’s also friends, there’s people. You become a family, just like in your own house. You know you’re not after you’ve quarantined and you’ve done your your covid test and all that. You don’t you don’t walk in the House and say hey, hey, where have you been today? Don’t you come near me? You know, we’re not all you know, you know what I mean. We become a family and that’s nice because then the residents have a family, they’re not isolated and it’s good. But you’ve got people checking every day, checking your temperature in your vital signs and and and again, we’re being proactive, not reactive. The goal is an assisted living is to hopefully catch things before they get out of hand. And I think to there we cannot underestimate the fact of living in a safe environment. A lot of times seniors maybe home but they may be having throw rugs on the floor or they have, you know, Knick knacks all over the place or their furniture walking where they’re, you know, having to have, you know, help, or they may have difficulty in mobility or different or forget to take their medication or things like that. When a senior lives at home by themselves, those kind of safeguards can oftentimes be hazards and and so those things are basically removed when you go to assisted living because they have all of those you know, safety. There’s safety, there’s bars in the bathroom where they you know, they can have somebody help them shower and different things like that with the daily activities that they do. And here’s the Nice thing too, if they’re true age in place, they got to be true age in place in a couple of ways. So it’s not just medically. Are they going to take care of you if you do have a stroke? Are they going to take things your eyesight gets it’s worse? Like, for example, we’ve just put the vision a vision room. What does that mean? That means that if you come in here and you’ve got macular degeneration, we’ve put some things in place to take care of you, because we know that’s not going to get better. Okay, so how do you take care of people as they age in place? Also, what what about the financial piece? There’s other things that you need to make sure you put into place so that, again, can I do a two person transfer? What if there’s what IFF’s and so you got to put those things into place. You know can’t. Can they help you in the shower? What about Ted Ho’s? What if you need those down the road. You can’t put them on yourself. Can you get help with those kinds of things? Is there? Is there somebody that can do I drops, your drops, those little weird things you don’t think about, and make sure that you can. Because again, there’s a difference between true age in place and what they called assisted living light. So make sure you ask the right questions until people, because a lot of people don’t know the difference between over fifty five independent assistant thing. Right. What do all those things mean? Over independent means you’re going to pay for that nurse, whether you need or not, because your next step is going to be having the assistant living services. Over fifty five means there’s no nurse, but there’s no children, right. Right. So as long as people know the differences, they’ll usually make good choices. But in the just assistant community you also have beautiful buildings that don’t look and smell like hospital, right, so you got to kick that into consideration. As rooms you got nice surroundings, but you’ve also got that care staff that can do just about anything you need. But make sure you’re again, you’re not going with assisted living life, right, and in many cases assisted living will have an art, outdoor cart, courtyard, I areas, you know, city areas. They have a little vitam AD. Still you have that ability to do that and those are, I think, some things that are absolutely, you know, important as well, you have to have fresh air. You have to have some places that, again, people can have some autonomy. Nobody wants to have folks on your on your back all the time, reading electors, you know, treating you like there’s something wrong with you. Right, you can be older and have frailties. That doesn’t mean you’re suddenly five and can’t be let out of site. M Good Point and and good point and walking trails and and and having areas to get outside and get some fresh air, but also knowing that if you did have a little slip and you push that pendant, somebody knows where you’re at and that you’re still somewhere. People can get to you quickly. Well, and what I love is that assisted living communities, if your loved one has a bobby, let’s say, for example, you were talking about outdoors. My mom loved, you know, flowers. She loved her flower pots outside on her deck. A lot of communities will have a little deck, depending on the type of building. It is. But the other thing is is, I know that there’s sometimes in the activities areas they’ll do like spring planting with people, or they’ll do, you know, take a bus tour out to a, you know, the tulip field in April or things like that. So there’s all different types of activities that you can when you have that family and when you when things are open back up again, they have the opportunity, like you said, to look forward to things, to get out in, you know, the community, and those things are important as well. Well. You have to have let’s be honest. Why are children so giddy and silly? It’s because every day is something to look forward to. And and even as we grow up, you know, you have things, you look forward to, things you’re going to do. Well, just because we’ve gotten older, why does that go away? And it shouldn’t. Write just you know, so mom’s gotten older, maybe she has cancer or she’s fallen and she’s got, you know, a hip issue, or she’s got you Shan’t let alone anymore. Okay, no longer more. No more things to look forward to. Now we just need to keep you a clean drive said, medications on time and and hope that you’re happy. Well, that’s kind of staying. I got a but why can’t she have things to look forward to? And that’s what we charged to door community really, and we’re not the only ones. are some good ones out there, but it’s about having things for them to look forward to. Why can’t we have life? But can’t we make ice cream? And why can’t we we have parties and they don’t have to be against the law. Right now here we’ve had very careful but what can’t we have gatherings and go do crazy things? You know, we’ve taken our residence so that I fly. You know, they couldn’t all do it, but they had a great time. The ones that could do it had a blast. The ones that watched them do it had fun. Did you know there’s a Koala farm? I didn’t know we could go pet KOALAS. I didn’t know that. I didn’t know that here. Why did you know that there’s a reindeer farm? I didn’t know that. There’s so many cool things. And if the cry isn’t it, there is. But see, if you don’t know these things, how can you take the Residu go enjoy one day? We have. We’re going to coffee. We’re just going to pile in the van. Anybody who wants to go? And where do you guys want to go? Today? One of them said I miss my old neighborhood. I want to know what’s happening there. It’s been a long time and some of the other residents go. That would be fun. So one day we just piled in the van, we all coffee and we went and drove around some of the old neighborhoods. That think that they raise their kids. Yet why can’t you? But I’m just saying you got it into consideration who these people are. It’s not about you, it’s about them. It’s about their quality of life, and that’s the kind of stuff we’re looking at. Yes, we have work to do, but we also have life happening in these buildings and yes, it’s US and housekeeping all the wonderful amenities, but it’s also about knowing who they are as people in honoring that right, all up right and right we’re working on is we’re putting in a music room, and I don’t mean where they can come in and listen to music, I’m talking about them coming in and playing music. I love that. I love okay, because because we got old rock stars living down here, let’s let’s let’s, let’s make it happen right. Well, you know, we are getting that, the older boomers here. We’re all getting it to that point, aren’t we? It’s but I understand what it’s about knowing, knowing who your people are and honoring who they are. So it’s not it’s not just about the day to day activities of daily living and and and all of that. It’s also getting an opportunity to honor who they are. And obviously we have about one minute left in this segment. But but one of the unique things about care partners is is once you you can actually you never have to worry about having to move if you run out of money, and I think that’s one of the things that you guys are so unique and amazing about, is the business model that you create. Could you explain a little bit about how that works really quickly? Yeah, I’ll just make this really fast. Anybody who has questions about anything can always check out their website. You’re always free to call me my numbers on the website. Are Happy to answer questions anytime. But we do something we have the largest voting Medicaid license in the state. Basically what that means. If you have to sell home to move into assisted living, as an example, you come live in my buildings. You’re not going anywhere. If you spend down to Medicaid and that’s all you got, you’re not leaving. That’s hand. You’re going to stay with us and it’s we don’t limit the amount, excuse me, a limit the amount of rooms real license and I’m pretty proud of I love that. And so we’re going to talk a little bit in our last segment today about the cottages and for those of our listeners that have seniors that have to mention in Alzheimers, I love the cottages and the concept of what they do. And so everyone. Kelly will be right back right after this. The preceding podcast was provided by care partners living and answers for elders radio. To contact care partners living, go to care partners livingcom