Tag: Kelley Smith

Kelley talks about red flags to watch for that may signal when to intervene as an adult child or loved one of a senior who may need care. Maybe you've noticed that your mom used to keep her house spotless in the past, but now you see spoiled food in the fridge, stacks of stuff in odd places, and she's ordering strange stuff by mail. You know your loved one, and some things will stand out as unusual. Are they grabbing onto furniture and walls to support themselves? Making excuses for you not to visit? Kelley provides advice when you see behaviors that stand out as unusual in our senior loved ones.

Kelley Smith at CarePartners Senior Living joins Suzanne Newman to talk about how and when to intervene as an adult child or loved one of a senior who may need care. Families may be concerned about their role while honoring parents facing Alzheimer's or dementia. Kelley Smith says to best serve parents and grandparents, first understand what you need as well as what your parents need. When you have conversations, give them time to process so they aren't on the defensive. Create an open dialogue to figure out the next steps. Bring up that you noticed things are getting more challenging for them around the house. Casual conversations often work better than a scheduled meeting.

Whether regarding skilled care, skilled nursing, or memory care, especially during the pandemic myths have persisted about senior living. This segment focuses on family members who care for a senior loved one. It's important to understand your role to make sure they have the best quality of life possible.

Kelley in this segment focuses on quality of life: what to expect in a senior living or assisted living community. It's not what you might think, and there are a lot of preconceived ideas about skilled care. Nothing's perfect, but if you're a caregiver and it's affecting you to where you can't do it any more, or you're in a situation where their needs are over your head, you're not serving them by keeping them at home.

In this segment Kelley explains that the general public's impression of senior living is based on folklore. People think their mom will move in and be isolated, as when you changed schools as a kid. But that's not giving the communities enough credit. A lot of communities have ambassadors that introduce your mom  to new people. That's why you fill out a social assessment – for instance if she's from Norway they might sit her with someone from Norway. A lot of communities put their residents first, with activities, and have a way of making sure the residents are entertained throughout the day.

Whether regarding skilled care, skilled nursing, or memory care, especially during the pandemic myths have persisted about senior living. In this hour, Kelley talks about myths heard all the time about senior care. We remember great-grandma or great-grandpa being in nursing homes, which weren't pleasant places. They don't exist any more — skilled nursing has taken over, and it doesn't look the same as it did even five or ten years ago. If you don't know anybody in assisted living, if you've never been to an assisted living facility, you don't know what actually happens. Skilled nursing now is more like a rehab center that need 24-hour care not appropriate for a hospital setting. People don't realize that things like therapy dog visits and music therapy are available, providing a quality of life — they don't even know that it exists.

Kelley talks about capturing special moments — how we can memorialize these moments to make them last. Take a picture, but frame it and put it up in her room or on her wall, because even if she's in memory care, it helps. Some other ideas are making recordings, scrap books, or a gallery wall.

Kelley talks about lightening up a senior loved one's day. One thing Kelley's done often is dressing up in costumes, such as pirates, food, and baseball players. It got to be fun, and it created events that were about them, and helped them look forward to your visit.

Kelley talks about how to lighten up and have fun, getting creative, not taking everything your senior loved one says personally. Putting yourself in their shoes, trying to understand and listen as a peer if you can, how would you feel if you were in their situation, helps.

Kelley talks about winning the Nesby Glasgow Essence Award. Many reasons for that were for her outside-the-box ideas, such as how to be creative with seniors. In this segment, Kelley talks about how to step into the mindset of being creative in the moment, ways to entertain, be fluid, with seniors.