By: Kathy Kappler
I was working with a woman in her mid-80s who lived alone in a mobile home community. She was smart, spry, and in good health. However, one year, she had a pretty serious fall, ended up going to a rehabilitation center for a while and then back to her mobile home. Most people would leave it at that – a fluke. Next year however, she fell again which resulted in her being hospitalized and then she continued to recuperate in an extended rehabilitation stay.
Interestingly, she still wasn’t convinced that she needed senior care in an elderly housing community, but felt more alone to return home. One of the perks of skilled nursing facilities (that provide rehabilitative care) is they are in good company on a daily basis.
However, her unwillingness to look at senior care options for long term led her social worker to one of our Concierge Care Advisors. They asked us to provide some senior care options to her, and it worked… sort of.
She understood and agreed with the sound reasoning behind moving into a studio assisted living facility (with caregivers to help with medications and the activities of daily living, three meals a day, housekeeping, laundry, a remote “call” button, and – perhaps best of all – a community of friends), and we even helped her apply for her Veteran’s Aid and Attendance (as she was eligible) and we put her in touch with people that would put her mobile home up for sale. All her friends and family even supported this decision.
Soon however, she reverted back to her sure-fire plan of living on her own in a mobile home community – she was comfortable and the idea of change was daunting. When the social worker and family returned to us, they asked what they should do to ensure the proper care for their elder.
That’s when we came up with the idea of hosting an intervention.
Intervention for Elderly Housing
We pulled together people who cared about her, so only family and intimate friends – confidants whose opinion she would respect and not feel “ganged up” on. Myself, along with the rehabilitation social worker, two close friends from church, her daughter, and her pastor all came to the intervention.
We expressed concern for her well being, the benefits and the facts. We also helped to dispel the false information that she had clung to avoid moving into a elderly housing community and simply stay at home alone. This was an intelligent woman that had simply been misinformed about senior living residences and after much deliberation, she agreed to tour facilities within her budget.