Category Archives: Faith Community

Grief During the Holiday Season: Making It Through

This year has been a challenging one to say the least. Grief over lost time with loved ones in long-term care is understandable. Also, not being able to say goodbye to a loved one due to quarantine restrictions certainly causes pain and anguish. The holiday season can amplify these feelings.

Making It Through

It may seem that the holidays are a time to survive, not enjoy. The sounds that accompany the holidays, including songs and bells ringing, can help or hinder. Sometimes it may feel helpful to have all of the distractions that the holidays bring. In other ways, it makes the loss of a loved one more obvious.

In getting through the holidays while grieving, there are some important things to consider. How many social appointments do you have to keep? Give yourself permission to stay home if that helps. Keep in mind that there may be friends and family members who do not understand your grief. There may be those who cannot handle your grief. Attending events with a friend who can support you can help.

What to Expect

You might experience unexpected moments of grief. Remember that grief does not resolve itself in a linear way. Even if there has been several months since your loss, grief can emerge unexpectedly. Be kind to yourself if or when this happens.

If possible, talk to your family members about ways to acknowledge the loved one during the holidays. Be patient with them as they encounter grief. They might not be willing to acknowledge the loss. Remember that we all grieve and recover in our own ways.

Even though it has been several years since my mother died, I still miss her and grieve her loss. I have my own ways to acknowledge her. During the holidays, I typically buy a package of her favorite holiday candy. Just having it in the house helps me remember her. Despite how strange that may sound, it brings me comfort. Once you give yourself permission to grieve and honor loved ones in your own way, you can help the healing process.

Kathy Dreyer, Ph.D., is an Advisor at AGE-u-cate® Training Institute, which develops and delivers innovative research-based aging and dementia training programs such as Dementia Live® and Compassionate Touch®, for professional and family caregivers; kathy.dreyer@ageucate.com

Tough Choices from Tender Hearts: Caregiving During a Pandemic

About a month ago, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued new guidelines that advocate family visitors to return to nursing homes. At this time only three states are not allowing visits. The guidelines provide specifics on how to visit a family member while remaining safe. Unfortunately, it still means making tough choices between a resident’s mental and physical health.

Reducing Social Isolation

These guidelines highlight the need for residents in long-term care to see family members and loved ones. With these guidelines in place, it helps to bring loved ones back together. What about caring for family members who remain at home? What are the recommendations for keeping everyone at home safe?

Guidelines for Home Visits

In May 2020, AARP published an article on steps to take in safely visiting older family members in their home. Those steps included keeping visits short and wearing protective masks and eyewear when possible. The article also suggested staying away if you feel sick, keeping younger family members away for the time being, and visiting while outside.

Making Tough Choices

Despite the good intentions of these guidelines, serious questions are raised. How are caregivers managing? They are making decisions based on what is best for their family members while balancing issues of safety, health, and protection. These kinds of decisions are not new in caregiving.

The combination of trying to provide care while maintaining social distance and health is even more difficult. And caregivers are also conflicted about bringing love ones into a nursing home and out of the home environment, even though it may be the best possible option.

Lessons Learned?

The COVID-19 pandemic highlights the overwhelming need to address caregiving and those who provide it. We need to take the lessons learned from this ongoing experience and make better options for caregivers, both paid and unpaid. Caregivers continue to continue to give their best. It’s more than past the time to focus on their needs and provide better choices.

Kathy Dreyer, Ph.D., is an Advisor at AGE-u-cate® Training Institute, which develops and delivers innovative research-based aging and dementia training programs such as Dementia Live® and Compassionate Touch®, for professional and family caregivers; kathy.dreyer@ageucate.com

The Impossible: Doing the Hard Things with Resilience

Alan Packer said, “We can do hard things—it’s the impossible that takes a little longer.” Well, we have been doing hard things for quite a while now. In fact, it seems that we are in the ‘impossible’ phase now. Truly, I believe we have been working on accomplishing the “impossible” for quite some time now, aided by resilience.

Who are WE?

‘We’ are made up of health care workers, direct and indirect care workers in long term care. ‘We’ also includes essential workers in service industries, people who have lost their jobs or are currently furloughed, and those who are balancing work and family responsibilities.

The ‘we’ also includes all of us when we wear masks, wash our hands repeatedly, and remain socially distant. ‘We’ are making sacrifices.

To be honest, some of us are definitely being called to make more sacrifices than others. People working in nursing homes, assisted living, hospitals and hospice, to name a few. Not only are they giving it their all at work, they also sacrifice time with family and interactions with loved ones.

How do they do it?

Keeping up and keeping on is one of those hard things. One of the ways to keep on keeping on is through resilience.

What is resilience?

Resilience is the capability to spring back into action, to recover quickly after adversity. In physics, Merriam Webster defines resilience as ‘the ability of an elastic material (such as rubber or animal tissue) to absorb energy (such as from a blow) and release that energy as it springs back to its original shape.” If that doesn’t describe essential workers, especially those in the health care and long term care industries, I don’t know what does.

How to Build Resilience

You can’t give energy after something happens if you have no energy to spare. Self care goes a long way in helping to build resilience.

Having some control in your environment also contributes to maintaining resilience. Genetics and engaging in healthy habits play a role in building resilience. The National Alliance on Mental Illness has additional suggestions and ideas on resilience.

In the meantime, thank you to those still fully engaged in caring for the mental and physical health of others. Please keep on doing the hard things. “We” appreciate you.

Kathy Dreyer, Ph.D., is an Advisor at AGE-u-cate® Training Institute, which develops and delivers innovative research-based aging and dementia training programs such as Dementia Live® and Compassionate Touch®, for professional and family caregivers; kathy.dreyer@ageucate.com

The Trauma of Relocation for People with Dementia

 

 

A sudden relocation from home for a person with dementia can be traumatic.

My husband and I have made the decision to right-size our lives and sell our house of 23 years. For many years now, I have anticipated this moment wondering how I would feel.   Surprisingly, it wasn’t a hard decision to make.  However, I recognize that moving day could be a different story.

The decision to relocate is one we made being of sound mind and body.  As overwhelmed as I sometimes feel about our move, it must pale in comparison to what people with dementia feel when they are moved to a different environment.

Easing the Trauma of Relocation

My husband and I will adapt to our new surroundings.  I will find a place for all of our things and make our new house into our home.  The people I love most will be with me,  including my fur-babies.  I’ll drive to visit my friends and attend the same church.  All will be right in our world.

This mile-marker in my life makes me think long and hard about what moving day must be like for someone with dementia.  I can’t even imagine.  The sudden loss of leaving the familiar and the people you love must be horrifying.

Stop and think for a moment how you would feel if someone walked into your home and said that you had to leave for a new place that you had not chosen for yourself.

Imagine your behavior.  Would you be crying, screaming, punching, kicking?

The AGE-u-cate Training Institute program Compassionate Touch begins with looking at life through the lens of someone with dementia.   We discuss the grief and loss that often accompanies a person with dementia when they move into a long term care facility.

Realizing that people with dementia communicate with us through their behaviors is a pivotal moment in Compassionate Touch and Dementia Live Training.

So how can we ease a transition into a long term care facility for someone with dementia?  Here are a few tips:

    • If possible, set up their new space with familiar items prior to move-in day.
    • Remain positive and keep your personal emotions in check.
    • Minimize chaos on move-in day by limiting the number of family members present to no more than two.
    • Allow the staff to immediately begin bonding with your loved one.
    • Refrain from prolonged day-long visits until your loved one is settled in and comfortable.
    • When your loved one says, “Take me home” don’t say, “this is your new home.”  Rather, “I understand how hard this is, and I love you.”

Julie has worked in Aging Services for over 30 years and has been a Licensed Nursing Home Administrator since 1990. She is a Certified Master Trainer with the AGE-u-cate Training Institute. Through her company Enlighten Eldercare,  Julie provides training and educational programs on elder caregiving for family and professional caregivers.  In addition, she is an instructor and the Interim Director of Gerontology at Northern Illinois University and lives in the Chicago Northwest Suburb of Mount Prospect, IL.