We were very happy to welcome slightly over 20 family and friends into the Home for their indoor visit. Hopefully, those of you who participated in this found the experience to be positive and accommodating. We put a lot of thought and time into ensuring that your visit was smooth and positive. As a reminder, residents are not required / expected to wear masks during your indoor visit (or any type of visit on the premises).
We did hear from a small number of families who were upset that we are transitioning away from the booked window visits effective July 27 2020. There is a lot of behind the scenes organization, planning and communicating related to all of these pre-booked window, zoom, indoor and outdoor visits. We want to be as accommodating as possible but we also have to recognize when we are stretching our own resources too thin. In light of what we heard from you, we are adding 2 booking times for the window (in the tea room) 7 days a week. The 20 minute visit times that can be booked are 4:10 and 4:30. We hope you will see this as a compromise and understand that we are doing our best to support all of the visits.
We created a thank you video that was posted onto the County of Lennox & Addington’s Facebook page on July 24. Here it is if you haven’t seen it yet.
If this is your first time reading our newsletter, I would encourage you to go to this link where you will find the previous newsletters should you wish to view them.
Hope you enjoy this week’s newsletter,
Angela Malcolm
Director
COVID-19 Testing for Visitors
All visitors coming inside the Home must be swabbed within 2 weeks of each visit. You will need to call a COVID-19 assessment center to book your COVID-19 swab test and have it completed. It will take approximately 48-72 hours to obtain your results. The number for the Napanee Assessment Centre held at the Lenadco Complex (across the road from JMPC) is 613-354-8254. Other COVID assessment centers are available near you. The link to access your results for this testing is here. The Home will have you verbally confirm you have been tested and have had a negative result in the past 2 weeks.
What's New at JMPC
Menu -- Hereis the menu for this week with the following changes made:
Tuesday: BBQ Hot Dog on a Bun instead of Havarti Cheese Sandwich and an ice cream cone instead of Nanaimo bar
Wednesday: Monthly Birthday Dinner -> BBQ Pork Ribs instead of Grilled Bologna. Selected by Thelma B
Program Schedule – Here is this week’s program schedule.
Song Requests – We now have a song request sheet that residents can complete so that when the band The Full English comes to play for us on the weekend they will be able to include some resident requests in their show!
Indoor Visits: We created a video of what you can expect if you choose to come for an indoor visit. Watch it here.
Zoom, Window, Indoor & Garden Visits
Book yourZoom, Window, Indoor and Garden Visit online using Picktime!
We ask that visits be scheduled a day ahead and that weekend requests are completed by Friday at 2pm. For zoom visits, you will receive a confirmation email first. Then, 1 day prior to your zoom visit you will receive the zoom link emailed to you from the Home.
We have received close to 100 calls regarding booking of visits over the past 1 ½ weeks! We really need you to try to book your own visits. If you really need to email Candice, please understand that this will result in a delay in getting booked as Candice is out and about supporting resident programs and will only be periodically checking her voice mail/email throughout the day. If you are unable to access this online tool please call 613-354-3306 and someone will help you or email Candice at cmcmullen@lennox-addington.on.ca
Please note that you can continue to enjoy your zoom visit along with a window, garden or indoor visit. You certainly can have more than one form of connection with your loved one.
Need to Cancel your Booked Visit?
The booking site doesn’t have that feature to cancel yourself online unfortunately. So to cancel an appointment you can:
Contact Candice (ext 7223) or Earline (main line) by phone or email
Message from the Chair of Family Council
Q.What exactly are essential care workers?
A. Essential care workers have been defined as those who have provided direct care to a resident. At JMPC, we have taken the position that an essential care worker came in to the Home more than once per day and completed morning or bedtime care, or dressed / undressed the resident every day. Essential care workers are provided 1 hour per day to come into the Home (at a time of their choosing), must wear a mask the entire time, must have a negative COVID test every 2 weeks and must agree to not leave the residents room for the entire hour.
Q. What precautions are being taken to ensure no infections come in?
A. We had reduced our Clorox machine to three times per week but as of this past week have increased this shift to 4 x / week and are considering increasing this to 5 x/week depending on indoor visit uptake. All persons entering the Home are screened including taking their temperature, they sign off on our Pledge that affirms they understand their responsibilities and also verbally confirm their negative COVID test. All persons in the Home (except residents) must wear a surgical mask at all times.
Q. Can we put a face to who Gwen Babcock is?
A. Here’s Gwen….
Gwen Babcock took over the position as Chair of Family Council in Dec. With her Dad as a resident of the home she is committed to working with staff and families to ensure a high quality of life for all residents. From her own experience she believes strongly that families need a conduit to deal with the issues,questions, fears and stress we all experience at this most difficult time in our lives. Family Council is that forum. Please feel free to contact her if you have any questions or concerns or just need to talk.
Please feel free to reach out to Gwen if you have a question that you would like to have answered in this newsletter
This graphic illustrates the difference between a healthy brain and one with changes associated with dementia. Visualizing the physical changes in the brain can help individuals understand why a person living with dementia behaves as they do.
The A’s of Dementia:
AMNESIA
APHASIA
AGNOSIA
APRAXIA
ALTERED PERCEPTION
APATHY
ANOSOGNOSIA
ATTENTION DEFICITS
Individuals living with dementia will experience different losses, to varying degrees. The A’s of dementia represent the many losses associated with the disease. Each A represents a different loss, both cognitive and emotional.
This week, we will review APRAXIA and the losses that accompany it. Apraxia is the loss of purposeful movement or the inability of the body to respond to messages sent from the brain. People experiencing apraxia as a result of dementia can no longer process commands, are unable to mimic an action and will lose the understanding of what a specific tool or object is for. You might see a person with dementia holding a fork in their hand and not moving the fork to their mouth. This may appear odd but is because the message being sent from the brain to complete this action is getting lost on its way to the hand. To assist them with moving the fork to their mouth, you can place your hand over their hand and guide their hand to their mouth, initiating the feeding motion.
Many care givers comment that their loved one will layer their clothing when getting dressed and find this particularly frustrating. This is an example of not being able to process the command of “getting dressed”. Breaking the task down into simple, one step directions, allows the individual to process and follow the steps and complete the task. For example, tell the individual to, “lift up this arm, put it in your sleeve”, instead of “put on your shirt”. This takes time and an ample amount of patience from the care giver but sets the individual experiencing apraxia up for success.
Other strategies to use to help persons with apraxia include:
Label drawers with instructions like “socks – pick out one pair”
Demonstrate to the person what you want them to do.
Set out only the correct item for the job such as a spoon for soup, omitting the knife and fork.
Remove items like denture adhesive that may be accidently used when confused for toothpaste.
Speak slowly and ask yes or no questions.
Be patient and give the person lots of time to communicate and complete a task.
Understanding the symptoms of apraxia can help family, friends and care givers be better prepared to manage this loss. Having effective strategies to manage apraxia will ultimately minimize frustrations felt by both the person living with this loss and those around them.
For more information on loss of purposeful movement and tips for how to cope, go to: https://www.alzheimer.ca
Time for a Man Cave!
This summer we have been lucky to have Charles working in the Activation department at JMPC. He is a Queen’s University student in his 3rd year studying Kinesiology.
Charles’ legacy project that he is working on is creating a man cave. We are hoping that some of you with Dad’s, brothers, uncles living at JMPC would be interested in donating special items for this space. If you are interested, please contact Candice at ext 7223.