Adult day centers offer safe alternative
BETHEL 6/12/07 -Marla Maskell of Hartford had been homebound for five years.
The 53-year-old has multiple sclerosis, is confined to a wheelchair and has no family help, she explains. But thanks to a growing list of social services, Maskell is homebound no more.
Visiting nurses provide her care at home. It’s help she certainly appreciates, but last fall her Visiting Nurse Association case manager offered a different kind of help: she referred Maskell to the Gifford Adult Day Program in Bethel.
One of 15 sites in the state, the non-profit Gifford Adult Day Program offers seniors and disabled adults day care services and the necessary supports to remain in their homes while also allowing their home caregivers needed respite.
Open from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, the Gifford Medical Center Adult Day Program is on Route 107 below Gifford’s Bethel Health Center. The program and others like it around the state offer adults not yet ready for nursing home care an alternative to the isolation many face.
“This program is another service allowing our seniors to remain healthy and more functioning within their communities,” says Gifford Adult Day Program Director and nurse Judy Santamore. “I just think we work all our lives and we get older and all of the sudden we’re isolated. These people have gone to church, had their children and now they can’t get around.”
Started in 1999 at Gifford Medical Center in Randolph, the Gifford Adult Day Program moved to Bethel in 2005.
Led by Santamore, a licensed practical nurse, with the help of three licensed nursing assistants and a volunteer, the Adult Day Program provides its participants medication management and medical supervision, baths, nail care and other personal hygiene help, healthy meals, plenty of activities, transportation to and from the program, and, perhaps most importantly, a safe environment. The care is provided on a sliding scale fee and often with the help of state and federal sources, such as Medicaid and Medicare.
“We provide the basics that they might not be able to get at home, like a balanced meal. And we work with their families and their physicians to maintain their health status,” Santamore says.
For Maskell, a wheelchair accessible van from People Movers Inc. made the trip from Hartford to Bethel possible and now a woman once stuck alone at home spends a day a week surrounded by friends and caregivers.
“I love doing the crafts,” Maskell says, as she paints part of what will be a wind chime.
It’s the company that Randolph’s René Nadeau, 79, enjoys the most.
He spends two days a week at the Bethel center.
“I enjoy it very much because I’m with people. I have someone to talk to and we do different things,” Nadeau says.
Nadeau is also in a wheelchair. His wife works, leaving him home alone. The Adult Day Program is a welcome alternative to lonely days. “Coming here puts me in a good frame of mind for the rest of the day,” says Nadeau, noting his wife is also comforted knowing that he is safe.
Alice Metcalf of Tunbridge has six children to keep her active. But the 76-year-old is legally blind and lives alone. Two days a week at the Gifford Adult Day Program means she too has a new set of friends and can work on craft projects.
“I really enjoy it here,” says Metcalf. “It gives me a chance to get out and be with people. I just look forward to it.”
Nadeau and Metcalf are examples of a growing number of aging Vermonters. According to a report by the Vermont Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living, by 2020 Vermonters age 65 and older will make up a fifth of the state’s population – more than double the 1990 figure.
With home health services in great demand and an estimated 64,000 Vermonters acting as caregivers, adult day programs are considered vital to helping meet the state’s need for elder care.
“Without adult day there are so many people who would probably have to be in nursing homes a lot earlier. I really feel that adult day helps delay or prevent nursing home placement. Family caregivers provide the bulk of the care in this country and state. It’s really important that we support them by having these types of options available to them,” says Camille George, director of the Community Development Unit of the Division of Disability and Aging Services. The division is part of Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living, which certifies the state’s adult day programs and provides some funding to participants.
“They say that adult day is the best kept secret in long-term care and our goal is to make it not such a secret,” George says.
For Maskell, the secret is now out.
“I didn’t mind being at home,” Maskell says, “but it’s nice to get out.”
If you know a senior or disabled adult who would benefit from adult day services, call Gifford’s program at (802) 728-2165. For a full listing of adult day programs in the state, on the Web visit: http://dail.vermont.gov/dail-programs/dail-programs-providers/dail-providers-list-adc/dail-adc-providers-default-page.