Moving to Home - Let's start with two words

Several news items caught my attention today:

1. The Canadian government announced a $700 million dollar investment in developing a nation-wide "Aging at Home" strategy: "aging at home is much less costly than long-term care and helps preserve a senior's dignity," says Health Minister George Smitherman.


2. A news story out of San Antonio that describes a new senior living community that "breaks the mold of the institutional and moves to the residential," says Carlos Moreno, an architect at Marmon Mok LLP, who is designing the community. In addition to being designed like a traditional small apartment, the doors are wide enough to accommodate walkers and wheelchairs, the outlets are higher and all the units are fully wired for computers. The community also offers courses and programs for the community at large, bridging the gap between a senior residence and the rest of the community. Administrator Steve Fuller comments, "They [residents] want to stay connected with the broader community."


3. Then there's Aging Maven who titled her blog "The Great Diaspora: Moving Seniors" and shared how, at one location in her city condo developer were courting seniors while at another neighbors were protesting a new assisted living project..."You’d think we were talking about sex offenders."

What's going on here is a discussion about "home" and what that means - a discussion that will only intensify as more and more of us become seniors.

I won't want to live in a big house by myself, counting the minutes until my mailman comes by (he'll be the only other human I'll see all day).

I'll want to find a vibrant community of people I can share meals with, take a walk with, discuss the news with. Maybe I'll forget to pick up my mail for days at a time since I'll be so busy!

And how on earth can we meaningfully - and economically - provide the same services to people in their homes - spread out all over a city - as we can to those living in close proximity?

Here are two words for today: choice and community. What I will want may be quite different from what you will want. What both of us will need, however, to support us into our elder years, is a community.

Words DO Matter - Let's create a new caring language

Russ Hughes from SC made the following insightful comment:

In reading your post regarding efforts to unionize Atria, I was stricken by the impact of language on our culture of care and its implications for how we view what we do. My reference is to the use of the word "front-line" in referring to staff who provide direct care to elders. While innocuous in and of itself, it conjures up images of World War II (as depicted in movies) of forces squared off against one another with a clearly defined "front-line" that places us (the good guys) and them (the bad guys) on opposite sides of that line. When we in the nursing care programs use such a term, it implies that the good guys are the staff and the bad guys are the elders.

Of course there are numerous terms we use that to those outside the industry similarly connote an adversarial relationship between care givers and elders. Too often we hear such of those as "in the trenches," "non-compliant," or "uncooperative" (or numerous others) that suggest we are on opposite sides from those we serve.

As a major source of education, aQuire is in an excellent position to provide leadership in awareness and this culture change effort.
Thank you, Russ Hughes, Ph.D., N.H.A. SC Department of Mental Health

Russ goes on to say,

I would welcome opening the discussion to others including through your blog. Perspectives would be most interesting I would think. I have always wondered at the use of the word "facility." Outside of our "industry" facility tends to conjure up the image of a warehouse and "skilled nursing facility" suggests something very highly technical (skilled). How about "wards" and "units?" Those certainly do not connote something "homelike" but harkens back to the days of nursing homes as sterile mini-hospitals.

I'm with you, Russ. Let's take this opportunity to work together to craft a language of caring that moves us into the new millennium. I mentioned earlier my conviction that we have the ability to train staff to view care communities (NOT facilities) as true communities: homes of the people who live there, with services provided to them as they WANT and need them, not just as we see fit.

In our company we are indeed privileged to be training the next generation of senior care providers. I'm very excited about the ability to affect the language we use and to teach a new language that more accurately reflects the caregiving model we want - for our parents and ultimately for ourselves - into the future.

Please join the conversation. Whether you're a senior, a family member, a senior care professional or just a future consumer - let us know what you think. We have an opportunity to shape at least a part of the future of care together!

Sandwiched Baby Boomer Sticking Together

At least there are a lot of us! Thanks, friends at the blog Nourishing Relationships, for sharing your comments about my blog:

I want to applaud you on your terrific posts about the Sandwich Generation. Your storytelling, blending professional wisdom and personal humor, is charming - a refreshing and informative read for those struggling with the challenges of a family in flux.

I've been googling a few new contacts and read so much negative press about just about every company out there that it feels good to read nice, positive comments!


Here are just a few other comments from recent news items or posts that struck me as interesting:

I was not ready for my energy to be sapped by giving dating advice to both my daughter and my mother at the same time. (By Susan Brooks-Thoman, on the Victoria Habelrih blog).

That comment made me smile - and made me just a little nervous about my own newly widowed mom (and my three unmarried daughters...will this be me someday?)

Tim from Michigan emailed me:

I have searched low and high and have yet to find info specifically for the male caregiver. I guess I'm in a very small minority or maybe it's just that most men won't or can't share their experiences.

While Tim IS in the minority, he's not alone. The Caregiver Resource Center in Kalamazoo, MI, provides a much needed service to all caregivers, young and old, male and female, according to a recent article in the Kalamazoo Gazette. Director Colleen Simpson comments,

...more and more men are taking on the role of caregiver, and teens and preteens caring for the needs of an elderly relative while their parents work are also on the rise.

The center provides education resources as well as support for caregivers.

While there's no doubt more and more of us are assuming caregiving roles, at the same time it is comforting to know that we are not alone. In fact more resources exist now than at any previous time in history to support family caregivers.

So from that perspective, it's a great time to be a sandwiched boomer!