Foundational Principles of Wellness, Part 3

*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 an approved senior care provider on the answers for elders radio network. And welcome back everyone to answer for Houser’s radio network. And I am here again with Elena Quaevis, who is a vice president at the western region of Morning Star seenior living, and Alida and I are right now sitting in this beautiful community in Silver Lake, Washington, by Everett and certainly in the backyard of pain field of Boeing. Yeah, and a lot of residents used to be there, and so they’re probably like running into old friends and God, all the time, know, all the time, because this is kind of the kind of the stalwart place of, you know, the bowing crowd and one of the definitely longest term communities that have been here morning star. Again, just to recoup recap with our listeners. Purchase this property on a year ago, little, just a year ago. Yeah, and I’m so there. It’s been undergoing this incredible remodeling and I’m telling you, where we are right now is amazing and it’s no wonder because the second foundational principle is what environmental? Well, there you go, environmental. Yeah, talk about a good seguey. So when we look at the environmental and what that well as means to an indivisual is, you kind of mentioned it earlier. You know the beauty of it. You know feeling comfortable in your environment. It’s that, you know, that Journalsta Qua of a feeling. So you walk in and you just know, it just hits you. This feels good, it looks good. It’s an environmental like shift in your spirit. And so what does that look like? Right? So, you mentioned earlier, we’re sitting in one of our two betterom apartment homes. It’s currently modeled up to look like someone’s home. So you have a beautiful couch, you know, have artwork, you have comfortable throws, and so we always tell our resident don’t sell anything, bring your own things, because large this year it is. Yeah, it really is. I mean you’ve got pretty much a full size couch. To My right we have two wingback chairs that are plenty ample. We’ve got a whole wall and we’ve got a diny area here and ice kitchen that’s got a full size refrigerator. You could easily live here. Walking closets and both of vibes right, which is incredible, to full bathrooms, not just yep, tiny ones, right, with a wonderful accessible, you know, things like grab bars and all race things which are so important, right. So and so we look at the environment as an extension of your home. So, while most folks are are afraid of leaving the comforts of the home, right, we tell them, bring your comforts with you. Yeah, so what you’re doing is you’re just down you’re downsizing. And so what that downsize with that look, what that looks like is you bring your essentials, the things that are really truly important to you, that you truly need, favorite chair, your favorite part of your art, your TV, your artwork, the things. You know, when I look at my home and what’s important to me, I’m not going to take everything, because I’m not using everything in my home, but I’m going to take the things that are important to my environment, that make my environment feel like home. And we always sell folks that. What one of the things that Morning Star does extremely well is create beautiful environments that our residence could enjoy that mirror what home what home is. So, for instance, my own home, right, I only use maybe three of my four bedrooms that I have. And so so when I bring home with me. I’m always afraid of I’m not. I’m downscaling my space. What most people forget is while you have nine hundred two thousand square feet of room, does that where at night? A thousand square feet to room work, where we’re sitting at right now. You that’s just a piece of your home. You now have a movie theater, gorgeous movie theater with reclining chairs, popcar machine. You have a full dining room with a executive chaft with full service. That you don’t have that at home. You have to if you don’t have which the best meal I’ve ever had was when I did have to make so. So these are the things that are private guiding room, private dining room. Right, you can do that. So those are the environmental opportunities are resins get to enjoy on a daily basis that expand from what they currently have at home. Gardens. We mentioned Emma’s garden. So Emma is actually our CEOS mother and a yeager. So we created Emma’s garden as as a as a tribute to to Mr Yeager’s mother who raised, I want to say, I want to say twelve children on a farm with her husband, just an incredible story that thinks that we have Emma’s garden and we have master gardeners that keep up with that garden, from trullips to Rose Gardens, you name that. We have every single kind of flower growing downstairs. It’s it’s beautiful, but it’s an investment in the environment that our residence get to have pride in. And you might also like, I’ve told you the story about seeing something grow right. It’s like right, it makes you look forward to the future, right, and that’s the exciting thing, right, like I just I have roses which falls. There’s no but when I print them, I just got done puny all of them, which was huge town. Yeah, I have over fifty. Wow, yeah, so, but I’m out there pretty like crazy. But every day I go out I see all this basil breaks, you know, this little little you know, caves that are going to starting out and and it just warms my heart because I think this is the beauty. That’s I have to come. It’s that environmental wellness that we’re talking about. It’s it’s all of these things around you, but firm with life’s about, right. It’s the comfort factor that I know that I’m home, that I loved that I have that. You know, these the things that I love around me. Absolutely the enviarnmost. The environment is so important to our emotional satisfaction as well. Just to give you an example, I was here on Saturday at Souper Lake, at Lera, and while I’m staying here, I was with gene, one of our residents, and he helps band some of the gardens here at the community and we’re just sitting outside listening to the bird watching the honey birds on the feeders, some of the scrolls that run by and he’s telling me about all the gardens that he used to do in his life and growing tomatoes, harvesting the tomatoes, donating the tomatoes back to shelters and making sauces. It’s just such an incredible way to give back to our community as well and we’re so close. We’d again another example. This Sunday we took a trip down to sever lake and so a group of our resins were down by the lake are taking in the fishing that was going on and walking around and just having a great time again, just because we’re community. We’re commuted within a community right so exploring, exploring what’s out there and what’s the drive to see the Tulip? Oh my God, they just did that two weeks ago and it’s you know, I wish I had gone with them because I look gorgeous the pictures that I came back, but where I grew up up, yeah, it really it’s gorgeous, but amazing. Yeah, and then even for me, we’re just talking about the hike I just took Seattle, do discovery part just to be to allow our residents the opportunity, if they are no longer able to drive, to be able to take those adventures so that the environment doesn’t change. Right, the things that they they’re used to having, doesn’t change. Well, and I also see where, you know, in communities that I’m sure you guys do it here, to finding ways to validate that senior my lives here, to allow them their own statement, right, you know, whether it’s I remember a story from another senior living community that their kids told that. This is one of the reasons why it’s really important to tell people when dad moved right, my dad’s favorite food, by all do have a monty crystal, saying yeah, yeah, you know, and you’re going like yeah, we make right sure. So they do now about. I think they did once a month they had his name was Paul, Paul’s Monte Crystal Day. I love that. And so once a month that that was the main special and they named it for him and they had this big deal of Monte Crystal Sandwiches, which was so cool. Yeah, I thought what a great thing. But again, that’s supporting that environment of things that’s are familiar. Absolutely, and so I’m so glad that you brought that up because, as that’s him, environmental wellness that is so important for our residents to continue to have. You know, while there is a loss that someone’s moving in, took meny, there’s a loss of again, we talked about the losses that they have to go through with emotional wellness. Being able to maintain a lot of that environmental satisfaction is so critical. Yeah, and so we try to do that every single day from the comforts of their own apartment home. That’s exactly what it is, supporting the foundational right of the emotional wellness because I know of a sudden you’re saying, you know, you talk about the trauma that they may write through, but to basically say, you know, what can we do for Phillis today. Correct, you know, I know this is a hard day, right. You know, how can we, you know, do something? Maybe what we do is we bring her a bouquet of flowers or we bring her a little field trip or something like that to give her a sense of acknowledgement in her environment, or absolutely that. So you hit it right on the nose. So it’s one of the things that we do. It can we talked about how when we sit with the family member and our seniors, when we first get introduced, introduced to each other, we also a number of different questions and it’s really to try to understand and get to know each other. The more we know, the more we can help and be of service and design a plan specific to our seniors and our residence and family members. You know, we have a lot of folks coming from California, for instance, and so when someone is having a bad day, it’s bringing something that’s relative to their home, that that inspires at home. So we had someone who just love Huntington Beach, so we brought back calendars of Huntington beach so that they can enjoy well what they love, the home that they left in California. Right. So we have another one from Boston. So Clam Chowder, you know, making sure that they have that, can climb Chowdert, and so that’s the environment again we try to create. But it’s important and critical for us to get to know our residence, our family members, as as deep rooted as possible so that we and it’s called to get to know me, us to love me, and so to know me is to love me, as it’s exactly that. So we can love our on our residence and our family is a lot better. That is so important. I remember my mom. She had a huge all collection. Yeah, and the senior living community that she moved in to write along. But they she built. They built like instead, shall they show? They did a show all the way around him living room where she could display ryals. Well, then they took it one step further because they knew this was so important, and so they asked if they could select a bunch of them, I think that any of them, and they put them in a cases for a month to feature. So that was so cool that she had a way to into be integrated down community. Again, that’s environmental illness and that’s what we do. Things around that you do. So Ida is so awesome and we are going to come up on our final segment for today. And what’s the next principle we’re talking about? We’re come to talk about safety. Safety Net. Yeah, and you know, what does that mean? The safety? How do we keep everyone say? This a huge topic. Absolutely, and I we’re going to be right there. Absolutely we will. We at answers for elders. Thank you for listening. Did you know that you can discover hundreds of podcasts in our library on senior care? So visit our website and discover our decision guides. That will help you also navigate decision making. Find us at answers for elders. DOCUM