Visit a Nursing Home Week in Ohio

It's official. Our governor wants us to visit a nursing home this week.

"The department [of aging] created "Visit a Nursing Home Week" to encourage people to look at nursing home residents not as patients with conditions that need care, but as individuals with thoughts and feelings, some of them isolated from the ones they love, who might appreciate some fellowship, particularly during the holidays. With the help of the Office of the State Long-term Care Ombudsman, the department also encourages facilities to design special events during the week to welcome visitors.

"Many nursing home residents have family and friends who visit them regularly," said Strickland. "Others seldom have visitors and some have no one to visit them. Visitors help residents stay connected to the world around them and give them a sense of friendship and belonging. And that's why this week is so important.""

In the 80s when I returned to Illinois to visit my parents, I'd usually drive to Oregon and visit my grandparents at the nursing home. Anyone would have taken in grandma (despite what you read, most frail elderly are cared for by relatives), but grandpa had dementia, and after 70 years of marriage, she thought it best to go with him.

I don't know any churches who don't have volunteers who regularly visit nursing home residents. All levels of government in developing their social programs take their ideas from the churches, whether it's the penitentiaries or the Peace Corps or universities and colleges. In fact, the volunteers are essential for keeping staff and management on their toes because they might notice things (sores, urinary tract infections, missing glasses, wrong dentures, etc.) that staff miss, although it is usually a family member who spots this first. One time when I was volunteering with Kay, a member of our church who'd had an aneurysm at 18, I heard something that sounded like a bird chirping in the next room. Thinking there might be a trapped animal, I went to investigate. It was an elderly woman left alone strangling in the restraints of her wheelchair. I desperately tried to free her, but couldn't lift her, so I ran to get help. The staff didn't seem any too concerned and just ambled down the hall.

But if you do visit, you need a special heart. Ignore the odors; ignore their desire that you be someone else, perhaps long deceased; ignore your own frailties. Also ignore their forgetfulness that makes them believe and say, "no one comes to visit." You probably passed their daughter or spouse or niece in the hall, and they've already forgotten. Twenty-five years ago, I never heard anyone crying out for "daddy," it was always "mommy." Maybe that will be different 20-30 years from now.

When I was in elementary school, one big event of the season was walking over to "the Brethren old folks home" (now Pinecrest, with apartments, duplexes, nursing care and dementia care) to sing Christmas carols. My friend Lynne includes that in her Christmas story at the class reunion blog.