The Family Side of 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 to our last segment this hour with Kelly Smith from care partners. And Kelly, we’ve talked a lot about the senior living process and you know, I know probably the majority of our listeners that this may relate to our family members. Yeah, and they may have a loved one that they care about, whether it’s a spouse, whether it’s a brother, a sister, a father and aunt, an uncle, a mother, whoever that person might be. And you know, one of the things that I really, you know, think about so often is that family caregiver that is, you know, statistically working, you know, a minimum of twenty hours a week to take care of that loved one and all of a sudden it’s like it’s this overwhelming burden. Yeah, and you know, looking at how do you, number one, deal with the guilt of having to make that change? And Kelly, really looking at, you know, the whole picture of the family side. Yeah, I’d be really interested in hearing your thoughts on this. I think that one of the things that sometimes communities miss out on is the fact that you’re not just serving that senior their families going through a tough time as well, if they love them enough to help him get the care they need. There there. I remember years ago dealing with this with a loved one and after the placement I went home and sat on the floor bawled my head off because I felt like we just failed, but we didn’t. Sometimes doing the right thing is getting them in an environment that makes them happy. But then again, what about you? About you? That’s a good question, and so what I recommend to families? There’s a lot of different things. For example, we have support groups in the memory care so that you can come and understand that it’s not you’re not alone. There’s other families that are going through this too, and sometimes their advice is good. We usually have a professional. They’re from different outlooks. Maybe we have home care come in and talk a little bit about some things they’ve learned about dementia. We have the Alzheimer’s Association that we’re very tight with, Hazel and the in the Gal’s all. They’re really awesome about coming in and helping us with those support groups. But support groups are great, but what people don’t realize you’ve also got an executive director. You’ve got us, mm, and I can’t tell you anytimes I’ve had a family member committed just fall apart on my shoulder because they just needed to get it out. And we’re there. We’re there to answer questions, we’re there for support, were there to help them guide them through the process. But once mom moves in doesn’t mean that that’s it. HMM. She’s here now, by no, you can still come in, sit down and talk to us at there’s books you need. We can help you find them. We’ve got a whole whole resource room of things that help families, and that’s what we want. We want you to know we’re always there for you too well, and you know, I know you’re there for those that even don’t have resident, that aren’t residents yet. I have a dear friend of mine right now whose parents are living in Kansas and she’s trying to get them relocated into your vineyard park community and Mot Lake terrice. You probably know that the situation and she’s been going through literal UN nightmare with her parents and you know, trying to deal with this kind of situation is very tenuous and best. But again, when you sit out and talk to somebody like one of us. Okay, for example, I can’t tell me times I’ve helped families. We actually hired a company to go get mom. I love that. They flew out there with a nurse and got mom, packed her up and brought her out here. The kids didn’t have to deal with it because it was overwhelming for them. They had enough to do here. We’ve set up movers, I. WE’VE SET UP ASSESSMENTS, we’ve worked with home care. We’ve done things like just a couple of days respite. I’m bringing mom out here from another state. I don’t know what to do until you decide how her come stay with us for a weekend or a couple of days. Take a breath. Yep, then go do some research, find the great place for if it’s not us, that’s okay, but least she’s safe. Right. So there’s there’s options. There’s so many things out there. There’s people who don’t even know how to work the VA system. We can help with that as well. Do you know what kind of benefits your family may may be entitled to? Right, right, let’s we know those resources. Let’s get you set up well, and I love the fact that with my friend, she’s been given this wonderful education by care partners that she’s now notes knows what to do, she knows who to call. Yeah, she knows how to deal with the situation, so that you know, as the time progresses, what going to happen, what’s going to that’s it. Why can’t you just educate people? We actually have a little purple like little booklet, Little Bill, sure the people can have for free, and all it has is a checklist in it. I can’t tell you anytimes I’ve had families go well, I moved to such and such, not you, but I had the right questions to ask and that’s okay, I’m okay. Then we still did our job, didn’t we? But they knew what questions to ask, and that’s the other thing is we want to make sure families also understand when it comes to that Medicaid piece, ask the right question so you’re not coming back later matter and a wet hen because you didn’t understand what the process was going to look like. But we walk people through all the way through it. I actually had a woman come in my office many, many years ago and her mom was up in memory care and she was having a tough time. Our sister livings with the memory cure or outlined a little bit differently, because a lot of those folks will move move up, sir, they won’t come from the outside usually. And she just looked at me and she said, is she going to get better? And I what do you do? You tell the truth is gently as you can. I say no, honey, she’s not. But what what can we do? What can we do as a team, including you? And that’s the thing that we do for families to because I think a lot of times they think they’re going to move mom and then somebody else is going to be in charge of her. No, we bring the families in. They’re part of that CARE plan, they’re part of the activities. If they want to be, they can be right up in the middle of helping us with what needs to happen for their loved one, so they don’t feel like they’ve given up. Well, and I love that. No matter where you are, if your family member, there’s such a thing as what’s called a care conference that you can ask for any time, any time community Yep, saying you know, I I have some concerns. I want to talk to you about X, Y Z, whatever that is. And you guys will get the staff together. You better and you said I’ll talk about what time you need. You know what we can do, and that’s the thing, I think that’s so important. So you’re not losing your loved one and you’re not, quote unquote, putting them away on you’re not doing abandoning now under any set circumstances. If anything, you’re bringing in a higher quality of care for them to support their life and you get to be the daughter or the son or the wife, whoever, and your quality of life goes up, and I think that’s important. Well, people forget sometimes that just because we love somebody doesn’t mean we’re qualified to take care of U when you know, and that’s okay, but the guilt, I think, is the biggest thing we deal with with families, and you can’t tell somebody you’re doing the right thing. Get over it. It doesn’t work like that. It’s a process. It’s a process. People also grieve, especially when they’re loved one has dementia. You see a lot of what we call grieving a living person, and that’s because MOM’s here, but she’s not here, and so you see the family so distraught because they want to spend time with this person. The other thing we’ve done with our care plans is we’ve worked in what we know works and we bring that daughter in during those activity time so that when she leaves she did have quality time with mom. So we are talking again to Kelly Smith. Kelly Smith is the vice president. We can just got promoted marketing for care partners living and you know, we’ve been talking a lot today this hour about, you know, the process of retirement living and and I think you know we’ve just got about four minutes left and I really want to touch on something that you really hit home with you your I’m gonna is I believe families want to hear the truth and a lot of times we don’t get the truth. You know, whether it’s we’re in denial about the truth or we don’t want to hear it. But I have a specific memory, Kelly, of when my mom went to skill nursing and I had all the furniture and storage and I was paying on the storage unit thinking, Oh, she’ll go back to sister living. I was into so much denial and and yet I had a friend of dear friend of mine. I will never forget this conversation and I just said, you know, the storage build thing is killing me, and she goes Suzanne, she’s not going to get better couch. But I think what you hear that here. I needed to hear that. Yeah, it’s like, you know, you need to take care of yourself, you need to start realizing that, you know it’s time to let go, it’s time to be you know, to let go of the furniture, to you know, have a garage sale and to move on to the next chapter and allow your mom to to be there. And I will never forget that moment where I was told the truth, and I think that’s oftentimes what happens with families. I know that I’ve heard that. Well, you know, I hear different stories from people. I you know, I don’t really know. Well, you know or you know, or that you’re in denial, because you may see something about your your loved one, but then you have a sibling show up and say, oh, mom’s just fine. What we see that a lot, especially the sibling that’s from out of town that doesn’t it’s real. The time they I’m flying and they’re like, oh, she’s okay. You know, you’re making a big deal out of this. It’s like no. I live with her every day and and the reason she’s here is because we had science experiments going on in the in the refrigerator and her medicine is a year old and all the mail was in the Fraser. So we had a problem and you always going to have one sibling that’s not going to agree. Usually is how it works. Right. However, we go back to telling the truth and what you’ll hear and care partners properties. When you’re talking to people and you ask them an honest thing about a diagnosis, will be honest and tell you I’m not a doctor. I cannot diagnose anybody, but I know dementia. Hmmm, I don’t dementia like the back of my hand and I understand assisted living. I know what what MS is going to look like down the road. I know what Parkinson’s is going to look like down the road. Doesn’t mean that’s going to be actually how it’s going to go for your mom, but we can give you some outlines to kind of get prepared for what it could look like by the time somebody ever leaves a memory care or assisted living in winds up in a skilled environment, unless it’s for a broken bone. Or a sickness. You know, they got pneumonia. Nine Times out of ten, I got to be honest with you. They go there a lot of times. The goal is to get him back to a base line and get him back home. If you can’t get him back to a base line, they’re probably not coming back, and that’s a tough one for people to wrap their head around. But again it’s that another acute setting for what’s going on with him at this time and I think that that’s the that’s the way you can honor families is to is to give them that experience, your level of experience, to help them understand. You know what, what, what am I looking at? You have to what have give them. Okay, like if I’ll give you a really fast example, when my dad found out my grandmother wasn’t going to make it after her heart surgery, he went in and told her, mom, you’re not you’re not going to last, you don’t have much time. But that gave her an opportunity to have conversations with people that put her at peace, gave her an opportunity to say her prayers and what she needed to say out loud and not one of her grandchildren. She did not die without us knowing how much she loved us, and my dad gave the whole family that gift by being honest with her and that and I will never ever lie to a resident or a family member, and either will my team. We just don’t believe it. Well, Kelly, I want to say this has been an amazing hour. It’s got by thanks you fat, I know right, but hanging out with you always goes too quick. Well, I love you. I love you a little partners and we are just totally so blessed to have you. Thank you. And how people know if they ever have questions? Check out the website. There’s a place to get a hold of any of your admissions team and we’re just here to answer questions. Even if it’s not for our communities, we’re here to help your care partners livingcom. That’s us. The preceding podcast was provided by care partners living and answers for elders radio. To contact care partners living, go to care partners livingcom