February COVID-19 update 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. Welcome everyone to answer for elders radio and we are so glad to see so many great things happening, especially because we’ve been through a huge snowstorm this last weekend and certainly a lot of us are sitting home and wanting to know what we’re going to do. Is We’re getting out, finally out from under this and our warmer weather is coming back. And just because we’ve got a lot of hope and promise, we have a wonderful guest with us today, and that as I wonderful Kelly Smith from care partners living. Kelly, welcome back to answers for elders. Thank you so much for having me. It’s an honor to be here. Well, we’re glad you’re here too, because I you know, I watched. This is being prerecorded for our listeners, but on Tuesday night there was a town hall with President Biden. Now and learn some really bold things that he shared on the town hall in that is that by the end of July there will be enough vaccines to vaccinate every single American that wants a vaccine. And second of all by looks like things will be fully back to normal by Christmas and you know, although that’s a long ways off, it’s we’re seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and I think that’s that’s hopeful and and it you know, it makes me feel a lot of promise when we start looking forward to spring and summer and and maybe starting to Morph back into, you know, normality, and certainly in your world and senior living, that’s got to be huge for you. What’s happening these days with care partners? Well, besides the you know, the constant growth, we’ve been so blessed because we’ve been very proactive during this pandemic and right now we have got covid free buildings and almost all of our staff is already gone through the second vaccine. So that’s your promising for the residence and of course our residents are vaccinated as well. We made sure that that was happening, so any resident wanted to be back to do that lived in our buildings was top priority. Well, and you know, for the state regulations, residents that are in senior living are the top priority and they pretty much got it first, did they not? They did, they did, but I think a lot of the public doesn’t know that. They don’t realize that these folks that are in assisted living, in memory care communities were top. They were the top hospital, old and clinics, everything else that was loosted as what they would call essential right. We were able, we were we were able to be part of that and that’s a pretty big deal to us. Making sure our residents are covered and and the ones who wanted the vaccine, we made it very readily available and it just worked out really well well. And you know what that really means is I look back and I see there’s a lot of seniors that have been trying to, you know, muscle through this pandemic by living, still living at home. May Not be able to really or should not be able to be in their homes, but they’re still doing any way. And you know, I talk to families all day long that have these fears about not seeing their loved one and they’re not seeing a loved one now when they’re isolated at home. The other thing that they’re not able to do is obviously go into the home and make sure that it’s properly clean at things are sanitized and things are, you know, you know, operating appropriately in the house if there’s if there’s, you know, repairs, it need to happen or anything like that. It’s hard to let repair people in because people out in the real world, they’re out in the outside world, they don’t have you know, there isn’t there’s regulation of getting people vaccinated, and so I’ve always said to families, as there’s a concerned, the biggest concern you should have for your fans, you know, for your loved one, is this situation of them being alone, in a situation where it’s uncertain, at least in a senior living community. Like care partners, you’re getting the you know, the mindfulness of keeping things clean, sterilization, medication management, making sure that those are riving on time, all the different aspects and a full nutritious meal, you know, three times a day, which is so important, and quality of light. So it’s so important thing, I think the families. What we’re hearing from families to though, is that, yes, all of that stuff is so important, but another thing that’s happened, happening with our seniors being at home during this pandemic, is the loneliness, the last action, and that’s what’s that’s what’s causing the depression, it’s causing dementia signs to becoming even even more prevalence. You’re spending a lot of behaviors now because people who were had a normal everyday life. Now you’ve got a senior who’s already got limitations and now we’ve completely isolated them from the outside. And so in communities like this there’s their activity and there’s, like you said, great food, but there’s also friends and people and life, and so that right skills many and we can get rid of some of these these declines faster by having people get that socialization, that this pandemic is robbed them of right, and it’s quality of life. And it’s like, when we think about, you know, how is it good quality of life for a loved one to sit and watch a TV set all day long, you know, and that’s all they get and it’s like they’re not likely, they’re not seating themselves properly, they’re not shopping properly and and for those of you, are of our listeners that are out there, if you’re working in in a corporate job or in a different job, you’re exposed to the outside world every time you come into a seniors home that is not vaccinated yet or you know is is not on the highest priority. You’re in a situation where you’re exposing them potentially, and this is something that you know in an environment like care partners, you’re really limiting that, and that’s the good news, and making sure that all of those, you know, teas across and either dotted, as they say. So it’s really important and you guys tell us a little bit. I know that we’re going to go into the next segment. I want to talk a little bit of about specific communities that you have, but it’s long. As we have a few minutes left, I would love to talk about a little bit of that. Protocols that you guys have. Is a corporation. You know what you what you you know how you keep the environment safe for our seniors. Well, one thing we do is every day checks, so staff and residents, we still are running the every day checks, checking temperatures, making sure everybody safe. Common areas are cleaned after every use to make sure that we’re not spreading doods. But ours for now it is the dining room, so that’s nice. Again that personal relations, but it’s also again, once you’re vaccinated. We’ve had negative, negative results. We’ve been able to move in the phase too, with the governor’s blessing of course. But again it’s keeping it’s paying attention to symptoms, paying attention to temperatures, making sure we’re checking them really and again being proactive. We also, like said, watching our staff very carefully, making sure that a coming in even so much as a sniffle anything out of the ordinary, they’re son home. And that means we’ve got to do a little double duty. We’re going to do whatever it takes, but we’re not going to expose our residents. Now we do know that visiting right now it can be a little temperamental because there’s still some restrictions on that, depending on the county that you’re in. So but we have set up stakes zones so families can still visit with their families in a safe environment. But again, we got to protect our residence. So it’s about against screens, being attention who’s in your building and making sure that even visitors are screened. But that proactive, I think, by by keeping things clean, taking the care of our residents that were assigned to do I think that’s really helped us be able to have so many negative responses to the disease, because you have to have it every so often to buildings as well. Then they all come back negative. It’s like hey, we must be doing something right. And how have you found the you know, the receptiveness and the willingness to, number one, have the vaccine by your residence, but second of all, how have overall side effects been for them? The overall side effects have not been bad. We’ve heard a lot of horror stories about especially a second vaccine, and we have been so incredibly blessed. We haven’t lost kind of lost anybody. We haven’t had anybody go to the hospital. It hasn’t been anything terrible. We had a couple people sem arms a little store the next day, but overall the second vaccine hasn’t hurt. You think that the older we get, the harder these things to be on our body, and the truth is it’s actually gone the opposite direction. We have had very few complaints, but amazing. Yeah, and the but the response to the vaccine in our buildings has been huge. These were over the moon that their mom can get actuated here, because they were like a Jian here where we can go, because she’s not a priority in the general world right now. Well, here, yeah, we were able to do that. In fact, we even were able to shine up some of our seniors that look considering us that we’re having a hard time finding a vaccine. We were able to get them in the door and get them vaccinated. So we never even help people didn’t live here, which was kind of a nice thing. Made US feel good. Well, it’s so cool from my perspective to see, you know, the communities that I’m so connected to, like yours, to see things, you know, brighten up in and you know, I’ve heard some great stories from different people about how, you know, you guys all do such amazing things for our seniors in keeping them, you know, active and and socialized and things like that and, of course, you know, being mindful of the fact that’s huge because remember, to our listeners, depression can escalate symptoms of depressive of Alzheimer’s and dementia. So, you know, one of the things that’s really important to is to keep that mind moving and mind active, and this is around a staff that can certainly help you and help your family. So, Kelly, I know you’re going to be with us for most of the hour today. So I would love to have you give all our listeners your contact info. How do we reach you if you want to get a hold of us? There’s there’s a couple of ways to do it. The best place I would recommend is to check us out at www care partners livingcom and then you can actually do virtual tours and took look at pictures and read testimonials and see for yourself if it’s a community you’d like to learn more about. And again, we’re allowed tours. US know, we don’t. We don’t have to come in for a tour. We have you come in for an experience. I love that and you know it. Thinks are going to be progressing very quickly, very soon, and I stick so nice to be able to talk about some good news for a change, and we’re going to continue that. The good news going on, and I next segment. 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.