The post below is adapted from an except of our white paper, Re-Imagining Home Care: New Needs, New Approaches. This is the 2nd in a series of of 11 posts.
Ted and his wife Marian – everybody called her “Mikie” – retired to Cape Cod in the 1970s. In 1984, at only age 60, Mikie was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Its progress was quick: she received home medical care from visiting nurses, but within six months, with her children at her bedside, she died.
An increasing number of home care clients
l |
Home care aides were soon back at the house, however. Years earlier, a stroke had left Ted with limited mobility. He was able to walk with a cane, and even to drive short distances; he could manage through a day. Now a widower and alone, he declined noticeably and was in a wheelchair within a year. So after a family conference, the home care aides returned: twice daily visits for meal preparation, medications, grooming, hygiene, and related needs. But Ted spent his days in his wheelchair watching TV reruns. His adult children, with jobs and families off the Cape, visited often and managed his care from afar, but they were sometimes unaware of changing needs or significant events until they came for weekend visits and read the care log kept on the kitchen counter. Otherwise reasonably healthy, Ted’s daily routine did not change much until he entered a nursing home 16 years later, in 2000. (more…)
