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Transitioning from Illness to Health and to a New Home
In February, 2006, Linda Gaibel, LCSW, CMC, did a consultation for two sons who were
concerned about their 92 year old father, Mr. Brown, who was recently hospitalized
for congestive heart failure and a bladder infection. While he was in the hospital
for a week, his 87 year old wife seemed to be showing signs of dementia by acting
very confused. Through Rona Bartelstone Care Management & Home Healthcare, the
son who was in Orlando, FL arranged for a full-time home health care aide to be
with his mother and also requested a geriatric care manager to help with planning
for the future and supervision of care for both parents. The other son and his wife
also live in Florida, closer to the parents, but they were overwhelmed by the current
crisis. The sons along with Mr. & Mrs. Brown were planning to move to a retirement
community in North Carolina in May, and wanted the care manager to evaluate the parents
to help determine if the couple would be able to manage the move and adjust to the
new environment.
Linda Gaibel, the Care Manager, began seeing Mr. & Mrs. Brown on a weekly basis for
evaluation and supportive counseling soon after Mr. Brown returned home from the hospital.
Mr. Brown was frail and needed physical therapy to fully recover. Mr. Brown was very
involved in his health care, he was mentally alert and was always reading about his
various medical conditions, which included diabetes.
The home health aide provided by Rona Bartelstone Care Management and Home Healthcare was
a good match for this couple and they were very grateful for her help. They also related
well to the Care Manager and used the weekly meetings to talk about their anxieties
concerning moving from their home in Florida where they had lived the past 20 years
and making a move to the retirement home in N. Carolina. Their home is near the ocean in
South Florida and had sustained hurricane damage during the storms of the previous summer.
This, along with the fact that one son and his wife would be moving from Florida to a new
home very near the retirement home in North Carolina was part of the motivation for their
relocation.
In the first few meetings with the Care Manager, Mr. Brown did all the talking. It soon
became apparent that Mrs. Brown had a serious hearing problem. With the help and guidance
of the Care Manager her daughter-in-law took Mrs. Brown to an audiologist and after a
period of adjustment to the hearing aides, she also became more verbal during the meetings
with the Care Manager. Mrs. Brown had been wrongly diagnosed with dementia and it was the
Care Manager who helped the family to realize that it was very a serious hearing impairment
and not a cognitive decline that caused Mrs. Brown's initial confusion. Imagine the sense of
relief that the entire family experienced, knowing that Mrs. Brown's situation had a
relatively simple solution and was not the beginning of a long degenerative decline!
Both Mr. & Mrs. Brown were very committed to one another and expressed concern for each
other in supportive ways. They were both hopeful about making a new beginning in North
Carolina, and were able to air their anxieties in a helpful way with the Care Manager, so
that it did not negatively impact their relationship or their expectations.
Mr. Brown developed some insight to realize that that he would sometimes become irritable with
his wife when he was not feeling well. With this insight he was able to be more aware of his
behavior and try to become more considerate toward his wife when he was feeling stressed. This
insight also helped his wife to realize that this was not a personal attack and it enabled her
to cope better when he wasn't feeling well.
The sons requested the Care Manager work with the admissions person at the retirement community
in North Carolina to assess the level of care that the Brown's should move into at the new residence.
It was mutually determined that the assisted living section would most closely meet their joint needs.
Mr. Brown recovered sufficiently to make the move with his wife and son in May, 2006. Both he and his
wife were grateful to the Care Manager for her support during this transitional time. They were happy
about making the move to North Carolina and looked forward to living in a new, social setting. The
Care Manager was able to help them realize that they could draw on their strengths as social, outgoing
people to facilitate their beneficial adjustment to the structured activities at the retirement home.
Since the Browns seemed to be quite limited when they were first met by Linda Gaibel the Care Manager,
this relationship felt especially successful because they went from seemingly very frail back to health
and to a new beginning in a wonderful new environment.
For more information on any of the above and how we can help you, please contact:
Rona Bartelstone Care Management & Home Healthcare
phone: 1.800.678.7224
email: info@rbacare.com
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