Health and Wellness in Senior Living, 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 elders radio and we are here again with Kelly Smith, who is the vice president of sales and marketing for care partners living. And Kelly we talked a little bit about what are those warning signs, you know, health and wellness side of you know, transferring into assist a living and assisted living is kind of a broad statement, isn’t it? It really is, because it can mean something different for everybody. Humm. And it is true. It does mean something different because it’s so customized, and I think that’s one of the things that I would love to talk to you a little bit about today is how does that work when when a senior comes to you, well, senior comes in. Every single residence going to have an individualized care plan. Okay, so maybe for one resident their care plan is all they’re getting his medication management. HMM. Somebody else, they need some help transferring. Okay, someone else. Boy, getting those Ted hose on in the morning is a real problem. Someone else is there because their activity levels of just really, really tapered off. Right the activities and everything around that human being is all going to be based on the nurse assessment. Okay, and so assisting live, assisted living is going to be different based on everybody’s individual care needs. So before you even move someone into a community, yes, ma’am, your nurse will visit them. Is that right? She’s going to do a full assessment and it’s not touchy Feeley. She’s not gonna take off your shirt and look at it and talk to you, talk to the family. Yeah, she’s gonna probably look at what a little bit of the glad records, things like that, and just kind of assess where where typical day look like? What do you need help with? What do you don’t need help with? Yeah, some people need help in the shower, some just need to stand by assist. And you know what I’m hearing from you, which is really important. She’s talking directly to the senior exactly. So it’s like, you know, one of the things that is really important that everybody needs to hear. Nobody moves into a assistant living against their will, just it doesn’t work that way. You’re not held captive, you’re hot. Oh Gosh, no, it’s not jail. You didn’t do something wrong. So this fear of don’t, quote unquote, put me in a home is ridiculous. Well, another worked that way and Washington state actually change the laws here not too long ago, basically stating you can’t do that. Now, just like with dementia residents, you can’t just put mom and a home saying she has dementia. She actually has to have paperwork from a doctor stating that she has dementia. Right, okay. So, I mean you know there’s there’s laws in place that governess, we had a situation. Make this really, really brief, but we got a situation one time with this woman in her late s came in. The daughters like I want her in here because she smokes and she doesn’t eat. Right. I said, okay, there’s resident rights. If she does move in here, I can’t take her cigarettes away and I can’t make her not eat steak. Yeah, right. So by the end of it the mother’s kissing me and now the daughter’s mad and but the truth is there are resident rights. You can’t you can’t move somebody into a community because they don’t mind you. Right. The daughters never going to get what she wants because it was not the daughter’s life it’s not in the truth. As I understand, she’s concerned about her mom, but she’s in her late s and she smokes. You go girl, all I’m saying is, yeah, her mom’s happy, leave her alone. Well, I think that’s the thing where we talk about the difference between what I what I go between the term caregiver and advocate. There you go, because a caregiver sometimes is a controlling thing. It’s like I’m going to do it my way, I’m going to do all these things, but being an advocate means that you’re advocating for that person’s choices. You go and those choices may not be your own. And I know, like with my own mother, I had to learn that piece that. You know, they wanted to give you know, give her thick and liquids because she had a problem so bowing. And in the hospital they wanted to put her on a low sodium diet in the hospital because she’d had a heart attack three years ago. Oh boy, and my mother was in her s right and I just I put my foot down. I said, you know what, this is not okay. You need to let her drink water. If she choked tomorrow, it’s fine. It’s what she wants, right. Number two, give her some salt. It’s my Gosh, my mother’s like eighty three years old. At the time it was crazy. So I think sometimes that when we become advocates, it’s because we become that that person’s voice. That’s it. And here’s the whole thing with assisted living that people don’t understand. Yes, there’s a care plan and by law you have to follow the care plan, right, but the resident themselves help us write the care plan there and what you have to do is really understand what that resident not just what their needs are, but what are their wants, what is it that makes them happy? Right, you know, because the truth is it’s not the end of their life too when they move into assisted living, it’s the beginning of a new chapter. Absolutely want is to have them be happy. And you know, the thing that I’ve noticed about assisted living is that off most often health gets better. It does, Moods get better, you better, quality of life gets better. There’s no more stress about how am I going to get the lawn mode? You know, how am I going to get the roof on the you know leak in the roof fixed, because I’m here at home. I don’t have to worry about any of those things because I get to live in an environment that will support me. Not only that, but you got three really good home cooked meals a day. It’s anytime dining. You can have a hot breakfast at eight o’clock or a hot breakfast at ten. You gotta town car, you got a bus. You got an activities person who’s a lot of fun, I love. You can pick and choose what you want to get involved with. There’s other people there who are going through what you’re going through. You get rightly talk to that. You can write stand yes, they get what you’re dealing with. Friends, right, Um, there’s stuff going on. Yeah, there’s life. Absolutely, it’s not a place to go and Diet’s place to go and live. Yeah, you know, but a lot of times we see that. We’ve seen people come in that just look like the Dickens when they came in and a year later you walk by him and you’re like, well, that’s you know, and I do think. I do think, Kelly, that we as adult children, tend to think that my parents are going to hate this. There’s just this tendency because it’s what we think, but we don’t live in their shoes, that we don’t live in the fear that they have every day because I’m afraid that I’m going to fall between the front door and the car. Yeah, I don’t know if they’re at the sidewalk. Is I see? You know, I have nothing to hang on to as I walk that path. You know, those little things that go through your parents mind that you may not necessarily realize it’s going on, and those are the things that I think is so critical about being in an environment that supports them and understanding that it in many cases will take all of that fear away, because mom and dad have a place where they can hang on to a railing no matter where they are in that you know, in the building, things like that. Well and, like I told till family some when they tell me that they don’t want to pressure mom and dad but they think it’s time, I tell him bring them in. Just bring them in, we’ll walk them around, let him look. I’m not going to bring up one thing right and then I’ll let you guys, I’m not going to even sit with you. Go have lunch, Adam, look around, talk to people and then leave. Don’t don’t talk to me, don’t even look at a room because again he’s me into just the idea of looking around, because the thing is they can be overwhelmed. Remember, my dad just turned seventy five. He’s shown. Yes, he’s baby, and a handsome baby, my dad. But what I’m saying is, when you take a really good look, yet what his his grandparents were here. Okay, what were they in? Skilled nursing homes. Yeah, right. So what’s the stigma? Oh, icky, smelly, dirty, and it was, but it’s still there’s but even skilled nursing facilities today aren’t like an’t like that. No, they have activities, they got good food, they smell good. You know, they’re great places. There’s a number of really great ones around. Yes, they’re a I could name them, but we don’t have time. I’m just saying there’s some great ones out there, but you can guide people if they ever have to go to all weaver. Have a question, call me, I’ll tell you who the great ones are. And there’s some really, really good ones all the way from Arlington all the way down, you know, to Pierce County. There’s wonderful places and they’ve shifted even absolutely. I’m just saying supportive living, assisted living, they’re not the same anymore. Like I said, you walk in there and the feeling is different. It’s all about quality of life, it’s all about respect and it’s all about dignity. But again, assisted living is going to look different for every single resident that’s in there because everyone has their own care plan that they helped write. So now you guys have how many assisted living communities here? And where did they let you? They’re from Everett down to lacy correct and Lacey. God, Lacy’s the cottages. It’s one of our memory cares. Let’s see, we’ve got BOTHEL MOUNTLOCK TERRIS HMM, Everett and a new one cocoma. Puellup is new and then Covington will be our next one. Well, you know, that’s the thing that’s really and they’re mostly called vineyard park except for the one, and ever. It right. Ever’s ever plaza and it’s gorgeous. They’ve done such a good job of that. Bit’s an older building. You can’t think. You read model. We’ve done a lot of remodeling up there and stellar team. That teams been together forever and they’re awesome. I love that really neat, really neat community, good people. So you got every plaza and Everett. You’ve got vineyr Park, Bothel Vin, your park, mount like terras pull up, will be up and running, probably by April first. That I’m so excited about because that’s bonded pairs, again, just like Mount Lake Tiris. See that’s important. Charlton placed in Tacoma. And then, of course we’ve got vine your park of Covington, got about child and then we own maplewood gardens and spokane, which is a right there, right there on Gun Zaga property. Yes, awesome building, that’s awesome. Lots of fun stuff. But again, assisted living can be something different from everybody you know. But get involved in and make your own plan. You know well, and I think to you know, participating in some of the social events, like understanding that this is a process to transfer into assisted living. It’s a process. It doesn’t happen and less there’s an emergency, which oftentimes it is, but you could start saying, you know, I need to really downsize and I need to think about this and this is my goal a year from now and I’m I’m going to do you know, I’m going to downsize my house, I’m going to do get rid of some things, you know, I’m going to start donating things. I’m going to get myself to a position where now I can sell my house, I can take the time and then I can move into sis a living. It’s a part. It can be a process. It sure can’t. And you know what part of that process is if, for example, you are sick right or something comes up and you know that down the road a year so you are going to have to maybe make that change. Start Looking now to get some ideas of what you like, yes, so that when the emergency is, if there is something that happens, you’re not forced to move into a place that you didn’t even get to see. Well, and here’s the good news. By you doing this now, you have a choice, your choice. Yeah, and that’s the thing. So next segment, Kelly is going to come back and we’re going to talk about medication management, amy, which is a huge issue with seniors today, and I want to really go into you know, what happens, how does it all come together and really what can we do as a family to support that, as well as what happens in a civil living? Well, Kelly will do right back everyone right after this. The preceding podcast, which provided by care partners living and answers for elders radio. To contact care partners living, go to care partners livingcom