Monthly Archives for September 2001

Activity programming brings new life to nursing facilities

Published in The Times on September 24, 2001

Wheelchair bound Barbara Moniz, 59 doesn’t sit idly in her room twiddling her thumbs, or watching her four walls.  The resident at Orchard View Manor Nursing and Rehabilitation Center can attend a myriad of planned activities seven days a week, even during some evening hours too.  Once upon a time nursing facilities were known as places to warehouse the elderly.  Now many facilities are centers of life and activity.

Just one week ago, Moniz, a resident council present of the East Providence based nursing facility, along with 60 fellow residents traveled a quick 10-minute ride to a planned outing at Crescent Park Carousel.  Watching the carousel go round and round, and entranced by the lively music, the former Providence resident sat among 150 residents, families and facility staff, just enjoying herself.  Dietary staff provided the necessary nourishment – sandwiches, potato salad, potato chips, lot of popcorn and drinks.

Many years ago, Moniz lived right across the water from the carousel.  “You could always hear that music,” she fondly remembers, stating that she loved “riding those horses.” Now she has new memories of that carousel, like watching her 6-year old grandchild ride the horses, just the way she once did, lurching out the grab the rings.

Three full-time and one part-time staff, families and dozens of volunteers help with other outside getaways too, from taking the Newport Trolley Tour, picnics at Colt State Park and trips to Oakland Beach and Wickford Harbor.

Patricia Poissant’s, a 17-year veteran of Orchard View Manor’s activity department, has seen the facility’s activity calendar become jam-packed over the years.  Once no training was necessary for activity staff.  Now a 60-hour course offered by the University of Rhode Island is required for all activity staff, she says.

At the facility, 180 residents can learn quilting and crafts, and become physically active by playing balloon volleyball, chair dancing, and even take exercise and strength training programs scheduled three to four times a week.

“Residents can attend summer cookouts, sit on benches scattered throughout a large apple arbor, or even pick fresh vegetables from the facility’s garden,: Poissant says.  Each year East Providence residents look forward to the sampling of more than 500 apple pies sold throughout the community, all made by facility staff and residents.

According to Poissant, nursing facility residents can become active in a variety of facility-based clubs, organized for garden lovers, sports enthusiasts, naturists and even gourmet cooks.  Or they can cruise the internet.  Pictures of residents at outings and parties, with pets or children are sent out over the Web.  Computer savvy residents receive emails twice a day and can send back responses regularly.

Dobby the cat roams the halls, and five parakeets tweet and sing to residents as they are rolled in a big cage throughout the facility.  Residents can also be mesmerized by colorful fish swimming in salt and fresh water fish tanks.

Residents who can’t leave or choose to stay in their room have the opportunity for recreational activities too, Possaint tells All About Seniors.  For those avid current event followers, newspapers are delivered right to their rooms, and are available in the lobby and activity rooms.  Crossword puzzles, large print books and talking books for the blind are also made available.

Possaint states that staff even work with residents lying in a fetal position, going into their rooms to read, talk or even perform aromatherapy. “We want to make sure they are not forgotten or left out of activities,” she says.

Roberta Hawkins, state ombudsman and executive director of the Alliance for Better Long Term Care, is pleased to see the variety of activities offered by  orchard View Manor.  “Activity programming should not be just bingo,” he says, adding the quality of life can be experienced in good facilities like this.

Orchard View Manor, one of 30 nursing facilities participating in Building Bridges, is committed to intergenerational programming offered by the Alliance for Better Long Term Care.  While many nursing facilities only offer the programs monthly, Orchard View Manor along with a few other facilities go the extra mile by offering it every other week, Hawkins says.

At these activities young children are educated about the positives of growing older, Hawkins says, while the elders positively gain from the growing intergenerational relationship.  Additionally, the love that passes between the two generations is an unmeasurable benefit too, she says.

Hawkins recommends that before choosing a nursing facility one should learn more about its activity programming.  “Every facility has a different personality and some really put that extra effort into providing a total range of services, from health care to quality of life programming.”

Quality recreation programming is not being provided in many of the state’s 104 nursing facilities Hawkins stated.  “If offered, the programming would provide pleasure, physical. emotional and mental stimulation, not to mention the heart-warming human contact that is needed by the seniors with a wide variety of needs,” he adds.

WWII Vet Reflects on Terrorist Attacks

Published in Pawtucket Times on September 17, 2001

Using hijacked plans as deadly weapons, terrorists have brought death and destruction to the shores of our nation. Not since the American Civil War has this nation seen bombed out buildings or civilian causalities in its cities and towns. The United States may never be the same again.

Television has brought the horrors of a terrorist war up close to the American public, states 75-year-old World War II veteran Owen Mahony. In that war the nation was never directly hit, except Pear

l Harbor, he said.  The former Rhode Island assistant director of Mental Health, Retardation and Hospitals and former executive director of the United Way Organization in Rome and Niagara Falls, New York, saw extensive military action oversees from 1943 to 1946.

“During World War II civilians had little and no direct awareness of what was happening to the soldiers in the battlefields,” says Mahony, a long-time Warwick resident. “Of course, my family in Woonsocket lived through gasoline and food rationing. Those suffering the death of a loved one would signal this with a flag with a gold star, hung from their window,” he said.

The veteran of the Normandy D-Day landing saw a lot of terrible things in battle that his family did not   experience, Mahony told All About Seniors.  “They could look at the battles in the Pacific and Atlantic from afar,” he said, adding that at this time Americans really had little fear that the mainline would be attacked.

Today, it is a different world, Mahony quipped. “Everybody has either seen or visited the World Trad Center or the Pentagon. Or maybe they have flown on American or United Airlines,” he added. But through television, the vivid images of the horrific bloody acts of terrorism in New York City and Washington, DC, the way we view our world will forever change. “The terrorist war is here.”

Mahony, the father of 12 children, a grandparent to 29 very young grandchildren, many of whom are elementary school age, notes that it is most difficult to make sense of last week’s terrorist attack. With such a large family, he was on the phone for six hours tracking all his family down to make sure they were safe. “I was like the center of the communication hub, bringing the latest information so that everyone knew each other was safe.”

Meanwhile, some of his adult children took their youngsters out of school immediately after the attack so they could pray for those who lost loved ones. Throughout the evening, Mahony’s family and circle of friends, from their respective homes, offered prayers of Thanksgiving for those who made it safety out of the bombed-out Pentagon or World Trade Center, or to those who died and to their surviving loved ones.

“The biggest problem my children had was how to interpret their young children what is going on,” Mahoney stated, noting that several of his grandchildren were upset and crying at what they saw during the intensive news coverage. “How do you explain to young children how the hate of a terrorist brings the individual to plow a plane into a building.”

“The surprise attack will bring out the best of our people,” Mahony predicts, just like it did after Pearl Harbor.” Millions of other Americans are bringing comfort to their children and grandchildren, assuring them that even with evil people willing to kill innocent strangers for a fanatical cause, most people are good, he says. “We all know that love absolutely subdues evil.”

Social Security funds could be up for grabs

Published in Pawtucket Times on September 10, 2001

Don’t expect quick government action to provide prescription drug benefits to seniors or immediate meaningful Social Security or Medicare reforms soon.  With the backdrop of a $1.35 trillion Bush White House tax cut, a shrinking budget surplus combined with an ailing economy and dwindling consumer confidence, Congress may be forced to take from “Peter to pay Paul.”

But let me give you the political translation…According to a recent released Congression Budget Office (CBO) August 2001 report, the federal government will need to use $9 billion of the tax receipts used to buy bonds invested in the Social Security trust fund in the fiscal year that ends September 30 to made ends meet, increasing the likelihood that heated bipartisan bickering and congressional gridlock will occur when lawmakers being their efforts to pass next year’s 13 spending bills.

Don’t look for things to get better soon, says the nonpartisan CBO, because by 2003 it’s estimated that $18 billion in Social Security reserves will be needed to keep the government in operation.  By 2005, CBO notes that if current tax and spending policies are followed, and the economy performs as the agency estimates, on budget surpluses will emerge.

Senior groups have expressed concern about the federal government having the dip into the cash generated from Social Security payroll taxes, calling it a tragedy that will block passage of any meaningful prescription drug benefit proposals or Medicare and Social Security reforms.  “The loss of tax revenue due to the present’s tax cuts and the slowing economy will lead to new federal debt and $600 billion in additional interest payments over the next ten years,”  predicted Max Richtman, executive director of the Washington D.C. based National Committee to preserve Social Security and Medicare.

“It’s enough to pat for a generous prescription drug benefit under Medicare,” Richtman says.

“Now it looks like the federal government will have to pay bondholders instead of providing seniors with the help they need on prescription drugs, Richtman added, noting that it’s a case of misplaced priorities.

“The $600 billion (in additional interest payments) could fund a prescription drug program with co-payments and deductible at a level that is more affordable for all seniors,”  Richtman says.  Meanwhile, any funds not used could help pay for repair of glasses, refitting dentures and new batteries for hearing aids, all costs not covered by Medicare. 

Adds Ed Zesk, president of Aging 2000, a nonprofit consumer organization focused on improving health care for seniors, “Its is unfortunate that the Bush administration got caught up in tax cut rhetoric to the point where they are focused into a corner and gave a tax cut without accessing its impact on the future of Medicare and Social Security.  While Americans certainly appreciate a few bucks back from Uncle Sam it is a shame that a nation we are potentially mortgaging our future health care and Social Security for a short term tax rebate.

“Clearly the tax cut has made it virtually impossible to develop any kind of meaningful prescription drug proposal for Medicare,”  Zesk told All About Seniors.  “This is just one example of the long-term benefit being sacrificed for the short-term gains,” he says.

Kathleen S. Connell, executive director of AARP Rhode Island, states that  AARP also opposes a federal government raid on the Social Security funds to finance other government programs.  However, the nation’s largest senior advocacy group was pleased that earlier this year both Congress and President Bush had agreed to protect Social Security by using surplus funds in the program for only debt reduction.  “To use the surplus funds other than for debt reduction would undermine that consensus and signal a trend that we believe would not be good economic policy,” Connell said.

According to AARP research, the overall balances for the program funds would not be affected and full benefits could be paid up until 2038, Connell said.  “The key thing that needs to be understood as long as the surplus is used for debt reduction, it would reduce the obligation of future generations and free up money to help the economy.”

With Congress going back into session, lawmakers must now begin the task of passing 13 appropriation bills for the fiscal year beginning October 1.  With the CBO report raising the issue of spending the Social Security receipts, it is now time for Congress to quit finger-pointing and charging each other of raiding the  Social Security and Medicare program.

With the graying of America, Congress must be aside its political differences and work toward long-range bipartisan solutions to ensure the solvency of the Social Security and Medicare programs.  No longer should seniors accept quick political fixes from either political party.