North End senior communities with Jill Martinez

*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 to everyone to answers for elder’s radio. And it is a beautiful weekends that we have here and and spring is on its way and here and full bloom and I don’t know about any of you listeners out there, but it’s amazing. I was driving in windsill earlier today and there’s all these beautiful cherry trees and bloom and people are out on the street and they’re having a good time and you know, after all of us being in lockdown as we have been through this time of the pandemic, it’s been pretty incredible to be able to get out and I know for me I’m so grateful that I’m fully vaccinated and outside my two week window and so I feel a little bit safer to be out and about and of course, still wearing my masks though. And this week we have an amazing guest with us who’s been with us a while ago for and so some of our listeners may remember Jill Martinez from care partners living and Jill is the director of community relations and Jill is kind of sitting in the Kelly Smith seat for the week, which is really and and certainly, Jill welcome to answers for elders. God you’re here. Thank you for having me. Well, we’re glad you’re here too, because, you know, we’ve been talking a lot about the south end and Pierce County and and Edgewood and Covington and Renton and, you know, all two hour up and all the different things that are going down with care partners down in the southing but certainly you guys have such a presence in the north end and you know, I am really excited because obviously we’re seeing people get out in the area and get outside. I’m sure things are happening in your guys as and in your communities. How is how is spring affecting your residence? Well, I’ve just noticed so much within just the last, you know, two to three weeks, are residents are just just so, so much, you know, happy and enjoy that. They’re voiceeing and I can just see on their faces and are different different buildings. I think in part because the sunshine is starting to come out, some of the covid restrictions, you know, are lifted. So residents have been vaccinated so families now can start coming into the building do some things with residents. A lot more activities going on and at the sunshine coming out. Pop are just starting to venture outside a little bit more. So I’ve just noticed a lot more activity going on in the building. Yeah, and I sir, it rides your opportunity to do more in the way of activities because you can do more outside and you can do more in an area, you know, a little bit more safe types of environments. And what how has that changed for you guys? Well, I think just the residents being able to get outside. Now it’s just it’s just providing uplifting mentation for them. There’s so much here. They can get outside, they can do some exercises. So the activity portion of our vineyards and our memory care communities. They’re getting residents out for walks, doing some outside share exercises and just providing that sunshine, I think, helping them. Yeah, and it’s so badly needed. Oh my goodness. You know, I remember last year about this time. It’s like, I don’t know how you guys did it. I I sit there and I think of all the things that you had to do to keep your residents safe and you know, I tell you, all of you workers, the health care workers, to people that took care of our seniors, and all of you are heroes in my book because they’re you know, I’m so grateful. We are all so grateful and it’s been hard. It’s been really hard. But you know, it’s interesting because on my facebook, I have, of course, my personal facebook that I have a lot of family caregivers, you know, that just know of me on the radio and they reach out to me or whatever and they’re showing photos of you know, I got to see my mom for the first time and you know, a year and a half or year and it’s been so amazing and of course, you know, trying to do what you can to keep their spirits up. That’s been really an amazing thing and certainly probably one of the greatest challenges of your, you know, history of taking care of seniors. I can imagine. Yes, I mean I would say it’s specially in our memory care communities because those residents, I think, just especially, we’ve noticed in those buildings, not having that that family contact, that that touching, that connection has really affected them. So I think particularly for memory care, it’s just been super uplifting for those residents and for families to be able to come in and participate with some activity with them. So we’ve actually in the attempt to get get more outdoors and allow families to kind of participate in things with residents, we started some outdoor gardening. Red Residents love to get their fingers dirty and look still the dirt, get those hands dirty and they have not been able to do that for a while. So just simple things like that really brings back memories. It’s something that regardless of where they’re at with their cognitive abilities, anywhere from an independent resident to someone in memory care, they can all relate with planting flowers because that’s her done so. So when we trying to do more outside things like that, but also just some fun things for the ladies inside the buildings, painting finger nails with springtime colors, you know, things that are bright and cheery, sir, find you well. You know, springtime is about renewal and it’s about new growth and it’s about new opportunities and certainly on the Spring Equinox, they say is the strongest energy of all time. You know, I have the year. You know that if that happens, you know in in in our solar system and certainly with that it promotes new growth and initiating new things. And of course we all want to do spring cleaning and we want to do gardening and I you know, I’m already seeing myself, you know, trying to get out to the garden to do things and you know, I look at you know, if you, if our listeners, have people at home and you know, loved ones at home, don’t neglect those little things like planning a flower pot or bringing a bouquet of flower, fresh flowers or, you know, taken dad out for maybe even if it’s, you know, an afternoon, to sit on the dock and smell the ocean or, you know, do a little bit of fishing off the side or anything like that. That those things, I think, are important to kind of just step out of being in this cocoon of winter and certainly for our our seniors, and a lot of our seniors are aging in place. They can’t necessarily take, you know, go out on their own to do things like that and it sometimes takes some initiative. I know that there’s a lot of restaurants, especially up here INS to Homish County and and in King County where we’re in phase three, you can sit outside, and I was just this last weekend. I went to my favorite winery and they have a great, big, huge, huge, open courtyard with heat lamps and even though it was cold, we all were in coats sitting there, but we were able to go mind tasting and it was really fun to be able to have that type of an activity where you can get out and breathe in the fresh air and, even if it’s cold, it felt so good. I mean, I think that that’s one of the things that we can all look at. How can we start, as things start to open and especially with weather like what we’re having now, you know spring is here, and how can we bring spring into our loved ones life? So so, Jill, when you’re doing activities, obviously you have some seasonal activities. There’s certain things you used to do like, obviously go up to the too luts and things like that. Those aren’t possible as yet. Have you been able to find some activities that may have, you know, happened because of the pandemic, that you’re able to incorporate now that you didn’t work? You know, didn’t think about doing before. If you guys been able to be a little bit more creative. Well, in terms of like you know, example of not being able to get up to the tulips. So we’re going to bring the tulips to the residents, of course. So so again getting back to that planting piece. But I let’s see, the residents themselves have become more creative and inner active with one another because they don’t have that outside connection. So they have sort of developed their own activity program as well in addition to what we have. As far as structured activities, I would say, you know, yeah, with the cottages, the memory care cottages, they have had to be more creative because residents haven’t they’ve been they’ve still been able to go out in the courtyard, but family can’t come in. So there has to be a lot more staff resident oneonone her action, reminiscing, just helping them remember those things, family members, things that are important to them, just to kind of help keep their mind fresh and going and having that energy because they have not had that contact. So I guess I would say there’s a lot more oneonone resident to staff, reminiscing, CONC contacts because family members can’t come in. Yeah, well, and out a doubt you guys do an amazing job and certainly you know spring also brings up a lot of scenarios of getting out more, but there’s also, think, some things that we need to watch out for if you have a loved one that so at home and some things that you can look out for with the upcoming season. And so, Jill, in the meantime, before we go to our next FAM I would love to have you tell us how can we reach you so I can be reached to get my name is Jill Martine’s care partners senior living. I can be reached at Jill at care partners livingcom and my cell phone is to zero six eight five, zero four, five, one one, and Jill can answer any questions. If you guys have any questions about care partners or senior living. Are just a general question about a senior love one. She’s a wonderful information resource for you. Anybody at care partners will be more than willing to help you and certainly it’s not a prerequisite that you move in. It a certainly we want to make sure that all of our seniors are well thinking care of, and so in our next segment we’re going to talk a little bit about, you know, how can we keep seniors fake? There’s a lot of things that happen over the winter. We have to do some spring tours around mom or Dad’s house and so obviously we’re going to be right back right at Junston. The preceding podcast was provided by care partners living and answers for elders radio. To contact care partners living, go to care partners livingcom