I’ve learned a lot from listening to residents over the years, but it’s rare that I request specific advice. This month, I decided to change that. In private conversations, I told residents that I was writing an article on advice from elders about how to live life and I asked them if they had any … Read more
With the high-profile deaths this month of designer Kate Spade and chef Anthony Bourdain, the crisis of suicide has been thrust into the spotlight. Suicide deaths in the United States have increased 25% between 1999 and 2016, with an estimated 45,000 occurring per year. I’ve written about suicide prevention in older adults and protocols for … Read more
Perhaps you’ve heard about the administrator who spent a week as a resident in his long-term care facility. After being roused from sleep daily to receive medications that could have been dispensed later in the day, he banned his physicians from unnecessarily prescribing meds during night hours. That’s an excellent way of attending to sleep … Read more
There are moments in life that engender important questions. When an individual is born, we ask, “Is it a boy or a girl?” When the person dies, we ask, “What happened?” In long-term care, we’re not around for the first question, but we often are for the second. Though infrequently observed by those not involved … Read more
Assistance in creating a “good death” is a fundamental task of any organization working with elders and may be addressed by a number of team members singly or in combination. Since these discussions are often easier said than done, I thought it might be helpful to share some of my experiences since I, as a … Read more
One of the things that most brightens my workday is when I see long-term care residents hanging out together. In particular, I’ve noticed two ladies who attend activities in tandem wearing dresses with hats and costume jewelry, a threesome of confused residents who sit near the nursing station laughing at jokes only they understand, and … Read more
I waited outside the room until the rehab therapists finished talking to Jim, who’d been admitted to the nursing home the night before. I read over the basic info on his face sheet before my consult. Jim was an 87-year old widower with a long list of diagnoses, some very serious. After a moment, the … Read more
I lost one of my two mothers-in-law last Monday, five weeks after she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. We had expected Audrey to reach 100 years of age, like her mother, but she died shortly after her 91st birthday, having spent her 90th year traveling and doing water aerobics three times a week. Audrey had … Read more