Everyone is growing stir crazy and the news seems to be so varied. I’m wondering how other families are navigating care.
My clients that have been aging in place either shut out all caregivers and have been managing on their own, or supported by hand-picked caregivers. The others that live in communities can’t leave without agreeing to a 14-day quarantine when they return — even my one client that had and survived covid-19.
I wish all generations grow old as magnanimously as the Silent (or Greatest) Generation. They are not complaining, but do look forward to regaining the ability to get out of the home. Many have shared this isn’t their first pandemic.
In both cases, it has been really tricky to close the gaps on those things that the family and the rest of the care team worked to smooth over. It’s given us a lot of new challenges to rise up to meet.
If covid-19 is now a regular part of our lives, how do we best manage to keep our loved ones at home, engaged, and supported? Some things that seem to work include:
- Having select caregivers live in the home who are following social distancing guidelines (wearing masks out, avoiding crowded locations, washing hands frequently);
- Minimizing outside services and vendors from entering the home and when they do taking the right precautions;
- Layering in outside engagement with visits that occur outside;
- Investing in new technologies to test to offer some additional engagement (Zoom calls, Alexa).
For my clients in communities, several of them are getting options and engagement which is a positive. Their biggest complaint is the limits on family visits (outside a window or through a plastic partition) and their ability to leave even through they know restaurants were not open and the grocery store was an adventure until itself.
Now that many states are reopening, and we know they are the most vulnerable population, how do we manage forward? These are a few things we are working through, what is your family doing? Asked.