Taking Care of The Elderly

I am going to go on record and say that we had a bad experience with the hospital…and a medium experience with the nursing home. That is my bias in this little article and you do need to understand that before you read any further.

 

I also would like to say that I respect and admire those in the medical profession. Those who have chosen a life of service to assist people who cannot assist themselves. Who deal with (literal) crap every day and do it with a smile on their faces and kindness in their touch. Who give life back to those who would otherwise not have it at all. This is not something I would or could do and the fact that these people get up every day and deal with things that would send me screaming into a small closet to cry my eyes out is mind-blowing to me.

 

It is unfortunate that our society is a litigious one. One of the sad results of this is a holding back on the part of some medical staffers out of fear of losing their livelihood, and it has proven to be a justified fear in this day and age. And let's not get started on the mountains of paperwork generated for each patient. Everything has to be signed and re-signed and signed again. If not by the patient themselves, then by the health care agent for that patient.

 

Here is my advice for when your loved one has a stroke.

1. Have ONE point of contact for the hospital. Yes, you can have a backup contact for when the main contact is not reachable, but there needs to be only one person who is calling the shots.

2. Ask questions.  Meet with the doctors. Meet with the “stroke team” if they have one. Meet with the therapist. Meet with the nurses. Meet with a social worker.

3. Meet with a social worker. Yes, it is on there twice. It is that important. It is the job of the social worker to help you through this.*

4. Make friends with the floor nurses. The nurses are the often unsung heroes. They are the ones dealing with the patient every day and will probably the first to notice any unusual signs.

5. Provide information. Tell the medical personnel what your loved one was like before the stroke. If they don’t believe you, keep telling them.

6. Get everything in writing.

7. Get a list of the personal belongs that came in with the patient. (Not because you don’t trust the staff, but because the patient is not going to be able to remember what they had on them.)

8. Be prepared for changes in your loved one. Even the subtle ones.

9. Advocate for them. You are the voice for them.

10. Do the research. If you have gotten this far, you are serious about learning as much as you can.  GOOD. Get a book. Talk to your friend in the medical field. Look at the test results. Have them explained to you…as many times at you need it.

11. Insist on getting tests done if your loved one seems to get worse.

12. Insist on getting them therapy. – We had to ram through a lot of red tape to get my dad therapy, simply because the medical staff did not believe us as to how unlike himself he was. They were all actually quite surprised when this angry old man turned back (or mostly) into the man he was before…and then help was easier to get.

*Note: A social worker’s job is indeed to help you through this, but it is possible to get a social worker who is actually working only for the hospital and NOT the patient. This is something that you need to be aware of and cautious of. If they push you to do something like move your loved one out of the hospital before they are ready to go, this is a good sign that perhaps they do not have your best interests at heart.

 

When your loved one is transferred to a nursing home, or to in-home care, even when they come all the way home, there will be a kaleidoscope of follow up medical appointments you will need to make sure are scheduled and quite possibly you will need to make sure that they attended.

 

In the case of my father, I was fooled by the way he seemed to be so much better and did not insist on scheduling the appointments myself. After a week went by, and I was visiting him again, I happened to ask when he next saw the neurologist.  His response was “Do you think I really need to?”.

 

Yes, dad, I do.

 

(His follow-ups are all scheduled now.)

 

Even in a less than stellar hospital or nursing home situation, there are those medical practitioners who just shine. Get to know them. Appreciate them.

 

When mistakes happen, acknowledge them and move on.   Because my dad is a very charismatic person, people tend to believe him. He would tell the staff that his wife, or daughter or son or some other member of the family was waiting for him in the lobby of the nursing home and could they get him into a wheelchair and down the hall to greet them?

 

This led to a couple of times of meeting dad in the hallway, having the caregiver turn over the wheelchair to us and just vanish…not because they were being negligent, or didn’t care, but because they thought we were there to see him and take charge of him for a visit.

 

I went to visit him once and was greeted with “Oh good you are here, you dad is almost ready to go. Did you get an ambulance for him or are you taking him in your car?”

I was quite surprised as this was an impulsive visit on my part.  Apparently, my dad had an outside doctors appointment in about an hour, and the staff thought that telling my dad about the appointment, while my mom was visiting him, was quite enough of a heads up.

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That was the point when I had them make a very visible note in his record that all appointments needed to be confirmed with me…and that telling my mother anything was an exercise in futility, as she would forget it before she got out of the parking lot.

Aside from those hiccups, the nursing home was really a quite lovely place…as much as any such place can be…and we were quite satisfied with his care level.

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Then it came time for the release, and (as stated in the long story) a move into his new senior living facility.