Recent Blog Posts
Is your facility prepared for returning families?
If all goes well, over the next few weeks there will be an increasing number of family members visiting their loved ones in the nursing home, many for the first time in a year. Along with the joy and relief of these reunions, we can expect to observe a great deal of...
The emotional impact of pandemic secrecy
As a geropsychologist and a New Yorker, I’ve been relieved to see the after-the-fact uncovering of the true number of COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes in New York last year. The New York data revelation is not really a revelation to anyone who worked in long-term care...
We’re vaccinated. Now what?
Across the country, long-term care facilities are vaccinating their staff and residents, with approximately 3.1 million dosesdelivered as of last week and rates of COVID-19 infection in nursing home residents declining for the past four weeks. This excellent news...
Addressing vaccine hesitancy
Early this month, the COVID-19 vaccine arrived at the facility where I work. In the days before its arrival, the “campus” was buzzing with conversation about who was getting the shot, who wasn’t and why. Throughout U.S. nursing homes, an average of 29% of long-term...
The Equalizer: A holiday story from the ‘Before’ time
Louise, a petite, 79-year-old woman, was the roommate of another resident I was seeing for psychotherapy at the nursing home. Louise sat by the B bed watching TV and working her needlepoint, anchoring the tapestry frame against her chest with one arm while she slowly...
Managing a bah humbug holiday season
By now many of us have viewed the viral video of residents gleefully shooting soft foam balls at laughing staff members dressed as reindeer dodging through a pine-tree “forest.” It’s the kind of merriment suitable for the 2020 holidays — one that uses humor and...