Common Family Concerns about COVID-19 and Memory Care

Speaker 0 00:00:03 Welcome to Silverado's memory care podcast. My name is Jeff from senior vice president of communications. And joining me today is our senior vice president of clinical services. Kim Bertram, who will help us address the top concerns from families, caring for a loved one, with a memory parent disease. During this pandemic as a gerontological nurse practitioner, Kim has over 30 years of experience serving and treating those with neurodegenerative disorders. Having worked at UC San Diego's Alzheimer's disease research center and the memory center at Seton brain and spine neurology in Austin, Texas Kim oversees Silverados, university affiliations, and also leads all clinical research studies in which the company participates, you know, Kim and I both feel our responsibility as the industry leader in long-term residential memory care is to provide answers to the most common questions and concerns. Families and professionals have caring for a loved one, caring for a patient, a client, or a resident with a memory impairing disease. Speaker 0 00:01:04 Today, we will address the top concerns from families, whether to move their loved one into a Silverado memory care community. During the COVID-19 pandemic Silverado has 21 memory care communities in six States from Newport beach, California, to Alexander Virginia. And we collected feedback from families across the country who struggled with the choice to move their loved one into a Silverado community. During this pandemic, let's get into the top fears and concerns shared by families. The first and most common concern shared with Silverado is around visitation. Families ask will lock downs and safety protocols prevent me from being able to visit my loved one. And in contrast, will in-person visitation policies make a facility more vulnerable to a COVID outbreak? What are your thoughts? Kim Speaker 1 00:01:54 Visitation is an absolute priority to maintain our residents quality of life, and we've taken steps to encourage it however possible that might be by a video chat or in an in-person prearranged visit. Physical visits can be safe if we're following strict physical distancing protocols as established by local and federal authorities, as well as the infection protocols that we have put in place at Silverado, including the use of medical grade, kn 95 masks increasing ventilation in our communities scheduled hand-washing and respiratory etiquette. You know, we know that an in-person visit is the first choice for most families and residents. We're working very hard to accommodate those in-person visits whenever possible. In general, our associates are dedicated to facilitating open communication while one is in our care. And this focus has been redoubled during the pandemic to allow loved ones, to see that their family is receiving the absolute best care possible. The second most common concern Speaker 0 00:03:00 Shared by families. Kim is rooted in the emotion of guilt. You know, families will share with us. I feel like moving my loved one into a memory care facility during a pandemic is like abandoning them or giving up on them. What would you say to that? Speaker 1 00:03:16 You know, the desire to care for a loved one is a noble and loving calling, but it's really important for people to realize that it may not be the best option for you if their loved one with dementia or themselves preventing caregiver, burnout, limiting dementia, exacerbating isolation, and having access to life enriching engagement programming like our nexus at Silverado, which is an internationally recognized evidence-based brain health program, which has been validated by academic research to show that participants in nexus at Silverado showed a statistically significant 60% improvement in cognition when compared to those who had not had such treatment available. So those are just a few of the reasons that choosing the right care facility may actually be the greatest act of love that you can do for your loved one. Speaker 0 00:04:09 Oh, thank you for that, Kim, you know, the first two concerns from families were on visitation and these powerful feelings of guilt. Um, others have shared the feelings around a fear of a second wave from this virus. Uh, if a second wave of this virus hits, will the health risks increase for my loved one? Will your community go back on a lockdown? Speaker 1 00:04:32 You know, during the first wave of COVID-19, most people were really hit by what wasn't known, the name novel virus means it's a novel, no one has any experience with it. Um, no community had knowledge of what were effective treatments, what were appropriate PPE protocols or even had access at that time to testing Silverado, I can really say proudly, um, has really been the leader in innovating protocols for those living, with a memory impairing disease, to help protect memory care communities from the virus. And if an associate does become positive from outside exposure to then prevent the spread throughout the community. Some of these innovations that we are currently doing that are a part of our protocols include the utilization of can 95 medical grade mask, uh, cohorting of staff in segregated neighborhoods. And those have made a huge difference in what we have seen as we've gotten more experience with COVID, Speaker 0 00:05:35 You know, on this topic of a second wave, I think as we've seen the virus, uh, is endemic in all of the communities that we live in. What have we learned, uh, that gives us so much confidence, uh, in being able to protect those that we care for. Speaker 1 00:05:51 It's been really dramatic in terms of what we have seen once we, all of our infection control protocols in place. We now have experienced that in our memory care communities, we have had 10 different communities that at one time when we've been doing mass testing of all associates, which, which is being done periodically, where we have had an asymptomatic associate. So someone who hasn't been sick looks fine just like they can occur in the greater larger community, but who was positive. And in follow-up testing in those communities over four periods for four different periods, we had no residents become effected. That's Promatic that, that says that our appropriate infection control protocols work, use the universal masking and the other things we have in place. So, um, I think that speaks very well. And I have to say confidently that I would feel comfortable placing my loved one who needed memory care even at this time. And particularly since it seems like this pandemic will be going on for months longer. Speaker 0 00:07:02 And we're more concerned about the ongoing isolation with a resident with dementia. Well, we'll get into that a little bit more later. Well, can the next concern shared by families is related to the cost of memory care. Many have shared that I'm concerned about the uncertainties of the economy caused by the pandemic. Is this a good time to invest in long-term care for my loved one? Speaker 1 00:07:25 No time is a good time for memory care and dementia. Doesn't follow anyone's timeline. You know, I have to say the cost of care is always a factor even during the best of times and times of economic turmoil make that more uncertain. But, but it's important to understand when choosing care options, what is best for what is gained for it, your loved one's wellbeing, brain-healthy programming having the expertise of care professionals to support your loved one during this pandemic, as well as the expertise to work with our family caregivers. So those are all things that can prove significant value at this time, particularly. Speaker 0 00:08:09 Yeah, and we have to remember that even during a pandemic, we are still treating a disease and dementia does not pause during a pandemic. So families have told us that oftentimes delaying placement is delaying care. Speaker 1 00:08:22 And, and in addition to that, not just delaying care, I would say that what is sometimes put in place to deal with the pandemic can actually worsen one's dementia, not just isolation, but um, sometimes people have to use medications and, and chemically restrain someone who might not be following social distancing protocols. Those are the stories we've heard about other locations. And so having a safe, but open and secure environment like Silverado is from my perspective is absolutely the best choice. Speaker 0 00:08:57 Even during a pandemic isolation and loneliness are real issues for someone with a dementia. You know, families have experienced conditions where residents have been isolated in a room in the community, or even restrained to contain behaviors associated with being isolated. We're hearing these stories of many other long-term care environments will my loved one, be isolated in a room at a Silverado community. Speaker 1 00:09:23 Social interaction is vital to a good quality of life and an absolute irreplaceable part of our care. So of course we have taken the appropriate safety protocols to mitigate risk of those social interactions, but the social interacting and the, uh, programming continues in our communities. That is the way we give life. So, you know, experts have brought attention to social isolation as a risk factor for various physical and mental health conditions like heart disease and high blood pressure obesity, diminished immune response, which is particularly important during the pandemic, um, depression, anxiety, and even cognitive decline. Some of the evidence that we've had for our nexus programs, uh, had research that showed that a smaller social network actually had to do with how severe the dementia appeared that a resident had that a person had. So this isolation that is being caused by the pandemic is absolutely a very, very tough and can worsen the dementia. And I was struck by former surgeon general, Vivek Murthy, who said that for years of caring for patients, the most common problems he saw wasn't heart disease or diabetes. It was loneliness. Loneliness is really a concern in many long-term care environments, small residential homes, board, and care group homes, as well as senior living communities that aren't equipped to effectively provide a safe and engaging environment to dementia residents during this pandemic. Speaker 0 00:11:04 Okay. Um, let's review the top concerns from families we've discussed thus far. So we've, we've discussed questions around visitation was, was the top one that was shared, followed by feelings of guilt, um, concerns around the economy and the cost of memory care. Uh, we talked about the anguish of isolation and loneliness, and the last major concern shared with Silverado that families are wrestling with is related to the news about a potential vaccine on the horizon. Should I wait for a COVID-19 vaccine before moving my loved one into a Silverado memory care community? Speaker 1 00:11:39 Well, scientists around the globe are working tirelessly currently on a vaccine. And there are some optimistic projections that place a vaccine as early as a few months away, it could be years. And you know, when add that to what can happen in terms of progression of a dementia and how the proper care can affect quality of life, the benefits of care outweigh the uncertainty of a vaccine. It is important to consider the possibility that there won't even be an effective vaccine for really years to come. In fact, there's still no vaccine available for the 2009 H one N one pandemic, which infected over 60 million Americans and HIV is another example of a deadly virus where scientists have developed effective therapies without an available vaccine. You simply cannot wait for a vaccine to take care of your loved one living with dementia. Speaker 0 00:12:33 Yeah, well, I want to thank you, Kim, for sharing with us, the many reasons families from across the country have confidence in Silverado's reputation as the memory care expert, to meet the unique challenges of caring for their loved ones, with a dementia during the COVID-19 pandemic. You know, the fact that, uh, you and the clinical team and our operations team have figured out how to facilitate safe in-person family visits, even in our welcome neighborhood, uh, where we, uh, move in our new residents, plus our clinical leadership and memory care led by you. That again, showed our innovative culture, even during a pandemic standardizing early on to can 95 mass securing a private lab for testing and segregating our communities into smaller neighborhoods. This enabled us to cohort staff to reduce the risks from COVID-19. This should give families hope that there are real solutions available. I encourage you all to visit our website@silverado.com to learn more about our COVID-19 protocols and safety measures. Too many families are either struggling at home to care for their loved one. During this pandemic or their loved one is isolated in a long-term care setting that simply is not able to care for their dementia, and they need our help. If that describes your situation, then I encourage you to call our family ambassador at your local Silverado community today, and schedule a time to visit. May God bless you all. Speaker 2 00:14:02 .