Maintain Me was referred a client by word of mouth for a lovely senior named Betty. Betty was living at home independently with minimal assistance with yard work from a nephew who lived about 40 mins away. Betty and her family, who was at the time very minimally involved, was then notified by her physician that she had a dementia diagnosis that was now putting her at risk to live at home without support.
It is very common for seniors to be living in one state and their families or decision makers to live in another. Betty had been her own decision maker up until this point and now was deemed incompetent therefore the family could not get a power of attorney signed. In cases like this the only option the family has is to get guardianship over their loved one in order to make big decisions on their behalf.
Luckily Betty had an amazing son who was willing to do whatever it took to make sure he could get her to a safe place but also honor her independence.
Once her son was able to get guardianship, Maintain Me was ready to assess and find her a place she could take pride in. We discovered very quickly that Betty was more advanced in her disease then we all knew therefore the transition was going to be very slow and difficult.
Even with involvement of her Primary Care Physician, nurse, family and partnering with Morning Star Assisted living, Betty was "not going to leave her home". This is such a hard position to be in especially because Betty was to a point that we could not educate her enough to help her understand the reason for leaving and that her safety was in jeopardy. THIS IS SOOOOO SCARY for a senior!!! They start to feel out of control, they feel betrayed, and most of all mad at themselves because they can no longer remember things with no explanation.
After a month and a half and with the help of Jess at St Joseph Hospital, Maintain Me, staff from Morning Star, Kaiser Primary Care Physician, Kaiser nurse, Adult Protective Services AND family, we were able to get Betty to her new home safe and sound. This transition does not end there, the staff at Morning Star is consistently working on helping Betty with her transition and help her make friends and take pride in her new home.
As you can see, it takes team work in the community to really help in these difficult situations and we feel so blessed to have had the help from all of these professionals! A big thank you to all of you listed below, without you this transition would not have been possible and Betty could have ended up hurt or in a living situation that did not honor her goals for her life!
The partners we speak of and highly recommend are:
- Jess at St Joseph Hospital
- Dr Agnew from Kaiser
- Laurie from Kaiser
- Gayle and nurse from Morning Star
- Family of Betty
- Lynn at Adult Protective Services