Answers for Elders: Skilled Nursing with Beth Deems
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Beth Deems at Mission Health Care discusses the topic of Skilled Nursing. Once your parent has moved to skilled nursing, you may wonder what exactly that entails and why it is preferable to outpatient or in-home rehabilitation. Skilled nursing is focused on getting your loved one back to their prior living situation. By having 6 days of therapy a week (instead of 2 days, like in-home or outpatient), the patient progresses faster and returns to more independent living.
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*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.
This is a special presentation of answers for elders with carriage. Welcome back to the program everyone. I am here with Beth Deems from Mission Healthcare and Bellevue. They are a Careage property that offers what’s called skilled nursing. Beth, welcome to the program. Thank you, Suzanne. Beth, I am glad to have you here because a lot of people they think that all you know that nursing homes is the word and they’re not even called that anymore because they don’t really do what back in the old days, what people used to think they do, and so I’m glad you’re here. You’re the community lays on of the of the property and the facility and you do some amazing things to help seniors and we wanted to talk about that today. That would be great. We would love that. So, in a nutshell, Beth what is a skilled nursing facility and what do they offer? We really focus on rehab and getting the patient back to their prior living situation. So while we do have some long term care residents, our main focus is trying to rehab people, to get them to a lower level of care. And when we say rehab, everyone what that really means is if your parent, for examples, had an accident, they’ve had a stroke, if they’ve had some sort of end life changing health event that they’ve maybe probably been in the hospital, there’s this recovery period. Sometimes it’s called respite care in a certain case, which is more temporary, but sometimes it takes a long time for somebody to recover and they may not have a nurse at home, they may not have the ability to have somebody take care of them. So they will go into a place where they have twenty four hour care, that somebody can be there at you know, that has access to, you know, their medications, to making sure that they get proper bed, rested, that all of those things. So that’s what a rehabilitation center does well. And one of the things I want to point out is a lot of people think they can go get out patient therapy or even have home health, and that’s appropriate for certain people right, but are skilled rehab when you come and stay with us, you’re getting therapy six days a week exactly. So you make more progress getting six day a week therapy than you do going out patient, that might be twice a week, and home health that’s twice a week, right. And so if you’ve had a really debilitating illness or a lecture or you really need that added care, then we can offer that. We have nursing care that can do wound care for chronic conditions such as pneumonia, but fractures and things where you’re weak and after surgery. I have to tell you my aunt is almost eighty three and she’s back in Michigan and she’s in a skilled rehab because she just had cancer surgery and they’re really helping her to get strong. And that’s six day a week. Therapy does not eat a much faster pace. Right. And of course, for you, those of you that are family members, your parent is going to work very hard in their recovery and so likely they might be a little bit cranky, they might be a little bit tired, exhausted, complain a lot because, guess what, they don’t want to be here. They’d rather be home laying on the couch and in their recliner watching their favorite TV show. But in the long run sometimes you have to turn into the drill, Sir Sergeant, say you know, Mom or Dad, this is this is a really important part in your recovery. Because we want you to recover. And what we do is we like to really take that maybe two, three, two six weeks, depending why the situation, get them stronger and then send them home with our our partner carriage, home health right. At therapy continues with the home health right and so seniors take a little bit longer to bounce back from some of these significant injuries and or illnesses, and this way they get six days a week of therapy and then once they’re doing well and stable, we transfer them home with home health that follows up on that and keeps that therapy going so they continue to get stronger so they can be successful in their home right and and really you visit them very often. They’re longer, little longer stay. I know from my mom one of the things that was important to me is that make her feel as comfortable as possible. We brought in, you know, like pictures of her family and put them on the wall and we made sure I gave her a little orchid plant so that she could have some greenery in her room and different things like that. But you also want to bring them regular clothes, don’t you, like sweatpants and and you know, clothes that they can work out in basically exactly because they’re there to work, not to just sit around and watch TV. They’re right there to work and we love to make people as comfortable as possible. If they have a favorite quilt that they want on their bed absent we also offer laundry or the family can do their laundry, whatever is most convenient. But we try to make the resident as comfortable as we can for however long they’re there, and they really do. And and then Nice thing about it too, is is because they have twenty four hour care, they have the ability now to really have the kind of attention that they need to get well and it’s such a vital part of the process. I think so a lot of times people they get confused. What’s the difference between? You know, they they’ll say nursing homes are all the same. They’re not. They’re all different and one of the things that’s great about what carriage does is they have what’s called a continuum of care, which we can go through in another program well, what does that mean? But there’s such a thing is assisted living and there’s such a thing as skilled nursing. They are two different things. So let’s just talk a little bit about what’s the difference between assisted living and skilled nursing? Skilled nursing is more in response. It’s a short term stay for Rehab right to get better, to go back to your previous living situation, whether that’s an assisted living or an apartment or a family home. Assisted living as much more residential. That’s where the senior lives and they can get help with dressing, may they just the normal ADLs activities of daily living, grooming, getting dressed. You might be able to get your upper body dressed, but you might not be able to get your pants, socks and shoes on. Sure, and an assisted living there there to help you do that. But you don’t really need a nurse. No, and you don’t need any of that close monitoring. You just need a little help, right. And in a skilled nursing facility where there to help you recover from an injury or illness. Assisted living is just your daily needs that you need help with. And so really we are talking to Beth Deems from Mission Healthcare and Bellevue Washington. Right over where in Bellevue it actually are you located? We’re actually on northeast 156. So I’m sorry, over by Cross Roads Area? Yes, we’re right over by crossroads, right across from there’s a Walgreens, and I know the right where that is. We’re very easy to get to write off of five hundred and twenty, absolutely well, and not bad for my ninety either. Just tending up that one hundred and forty eight. Yeah, absolutely so. If you’re going to have your your parent in the hospital, obviously we talked about this in previous shows. One of the things that’s really, really important as a adult child, if you’re in charge of your parents out you know discharge, is to look in the future of what’s the next step. The hospital will have what’s called a discharge planner, or sometimes they’re called a social worker. That social worker is going to give you basically the care plan of okay, mom or dad can leave the hospital and I and I and one of the things the hospital is going to want to do is discharge them as soon as possible. When they do that, they’re going to likely refer them to a skilled nursing facility and oftentimes you don’t think, at least I didn’t think in the beginning, that I had a choice, that I could go to a place that I chose to want to go to while your parents in the hospital. I and if it’s it’s a good location for you. I would take a look at mission healthcare and get ahold of Beth because then you can do a tour the facility, see how they operate and it’s also helpful for you to prepare your parent for that next step of saying, Oh, we’re going to go to a beautiful place. They have great you know, they have a great program there for you, etc. So absolutely, they have a choice, don’t they? Yes, they do, and where you can come tour any time, even if it’s after hours. We always have a manager there perfect who can give you a tour. It’s very important that your parent knows where they’re going so that they’re not upset right that it’s explained to them. And also, I want to say that when you come to mission and you’re there, that next step sometimes is not going back to an independent lifestyle correct but continually through their stay we hold care conferences with the therapist, with the nurse, with the social worker, so that you are always kept informed of your loved ones progress. You know, I remember when my mom was in skilled nursing. The end of her life she actually was a permanent residence of skilled nursing. She actually did better in skilled nursing than she did and assisted living, and I was flipping out about it because I thought, oh, she’s going to hate this. She loved it, and I’ll tell you why. Because she got lots of attention. When she was in assisted living, she had her own apartment and she was pretty much isolated in this little tiny place and, you know, she was at the bottom rung of the people in assisted living. She needed more care. It was costing us, you know, 10,000 dollars a month literally because she had so much care that she had to have. When she went to skilled nursing, it was amazing. It was like she felt like she was the most, you know, you know, at healthiest of the group, and my mom, being a caretaker personality, that fed her is that she felt like she was making a difference in helping people and I and I know that she got a lot of attention and it made me feel so good at when she passed away that the so many of the care givers that took care of her came up and told me what a wonderful person she was and the heart that I experience from the care providers and I, as a adult child, got an amazing education on you know, they they took me aside as a person to tell me about things that were important and the care plans that the care conferences are very important in keeping the patient and the family aware of their progress right and what’s going on with them, so that you’re a part of the care. Great. So how do we reach you, Beth? My phone numbers two of six, nine, three zero, two hundred and hundred and seventy three and my email is BethD@missionhealthcarecom. Perfect. Thank you so much for being in the program thank you, Susanne. This has been a special presentation of Answers for Elders with CareAge. For more information for CareAge, go to CareAge.com. That’s CareAge.com.
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Originally published May 13, 2017