Day-care centers are not just for the young anymore.
Elderly citizens who may be too spry or alert for the nursing home, but still need some supervised daytime activity, are discovering the pluses of attending adult day-care centers.
And lucky are the citizens in the northwest suburbs because ”the centers out there tend to be really good ones,” said Jane Stansell, president of the Illinois Association of Adult Day Care Providers, based in Chicago.
Adult day-care centers are a relatively recent phenomena. In the early 1970s, individuals and non-profit groups began developing the concept of adult day-care centers largely in reaction to horror stories about nursing home care. Today, some 2,100 adult day-care centers exist in the United States, with some 77 of those in Illinois.
The communities throughout the northwest suburbs boast a generous offering: Family Alliance in Woodstock; Northwest Community Hospital Adult Day Care Center in Arlington Heights; Senior Services Associates in Elgin, as well as the Parkside Senior Services facilities in Des Plaines, Roselle and at the Moorings in Arlington Heights. The Little Sisters of the Poor have a very limited adult day-care program that they would like more elderly to attend, which is at St. Joseph`s Home for the Elderly in Palatine.
Many of the pioneering adult day-care providers of the 1970s came armed with the holistic view that the physical, mental and emotional aspects of a person must be taken into consideration when providing treatment and therapy. In fact, the best adult day-care centers today provide activities for all these aspects.
Consider a typical afternoon at the Northwest Community Hospital Adult Day Care Center in Arlington Heights, where people are spread throughout an area that was once three classrooms of an elementary school. Ada Reynolds, 93, is playing the piano at the far side of the room. Five people have gathered at the opposite end of the center to help bake cookies.
Near the cookie baking area, others are playing a board game, while another half dozen people have chosen to watch television.
”We don`t have the television on all day, but we believe that if people want to watch television-and some people do-then they should be able to watch television,” said Becky Vasilakis, program coordinator at the center. ”The important thing is that people have a choice.”
Which seems to please 98-year-old Bessie Bensen, whose favorite activity at the center is conversations with her friends. ”I try to get out of making cookies,” she said, preferring instead to tell tales of the days of Prohibition when ”I was busted in a speakeasy.”
All of that activity and all of those choices are a plus, according to Stansell. ”What looks like chaos is probably an indication that that adult day-care center is a good one,” she said.
She noted that at a good adult day-care center, all aspects of a person should be addressed as well as providing for the different needs and interests of those at the center.
”Too often people assume that all elderly people have the same interests. That`s not true,” said Stansell. ”The elderly are like people of every other age group. If you gathered 35 people from your office, what is the chance that all 35 would enjoy the same activity? None, I think.”
And creating opportunities to find enjoyment is a prime goal of adult day care. That`s because one focus of adult day care is helping people maintain their independence as long as possible. To do that they must be given choices. And by exercising choices, they find they can better enjoy life.
At Family Alliance in Woodstock, such enjoyment might mean crocheting, woodworking, or knitting, said executive director Carol Louise. ”The crafts are then sold. Our clients then decide how they wish to spend the money,”
Louise explained. ”They might wish to purchase a sewing machine or some other item, but the decision is theirs.”
Providing choices, though, does not preclude supervision. Indeed, the level of supervision is the defining difference between adult day-care centers and senior centers.
Senior centers are designed for the healthy and mobile elderly who wish to share the community of those like themselves. At senior centers, the activities tend to be less structured, and supervision is non-existent.
Adult day-care centers provide more supervision and structure because those attending are in nearly all cases frail and/or mentally impaired individuals who live with relatives and need trained staff to provide help in some areas.
While supervision is a hallmark of adult day-care centers, these facilities are ”quite different than nursing homes because we recognize and focus upon a person`s independence, not their dependence,” said Stansell.
When people are frail, they often feel useless because they think they can no longer give to others. Worse still, Stansell said, ”Caregivers too often tend to take away from people the opportunity to give as they grow older.”
But at Parkside in Des Plaines such stereotypes are shunned. There, 72-year-old Emma Larson dispenses coffee, cream, sugar and the like to anyone seeking a pick-me-up.
”I don`t go in much for the organized activities. I find them difficult because I can`t hear too well,” she explained, pointing to the hearing aids in each of her ears. But with an affirming nod and small smile, Larson said,
”I like being physically active and helping out, so I do the coffee and I help bring the luncheon food carts in and I help some of the people here who get around with canes.”
Stansell provided advice for those who might be choosing an adult day-care center for themselves or a family member.
”The first thing a family or person should look for is whether the center is the right fit the the client,” Stansell advised. She noted that some centers provide a lot of occupational and physical therapy. Some, like Parkside, have a special and separate program for Alzheimer`s clients. Northwest Community Hospital Adult Day Care Center in Arlington Heights has a special program for stroke victims. Some centers take clients who are incontinent; others do not. And some centers take younger adult clients with mental impairments, though those clients usually don`t occupy the same area as other clients.
”The second thing to look for is how the staff interacts with the clients,” said Stansell. ”Both staff and clients should seem to be enjoying themselves.”
Even a quick glimpse of the expressions on the faces of the staff and the clients indicates a good time was had by all when the folks at Senior Services Associates in Elgin lunch at the Baker Hotel in St. Charles or explore the Elgin Historical Museum.
For those at Northwest Community Adult Day Care, a jaunt to the expansive Woodfield Shopping Center with a luncheon at mall restaurant produces some satisfied seniors as they disembark from the bus/van returning them to the center.
But such robust expressions often belie the very necessary health monitoring that occurs at most adult day-care centers.
”The health care may not be front and center,” Stansell explained,
”but that function is usually there at an adult day-care center.”
Surprisingly, these adult day-care centers have space available. ”We have capacity of 40 people but only about 30 people enrolled,” said Carol Louise at Family Alliance in Woodstock.
Stansell speculated that a lack of knowledge of both the existence and the cost of adult day care probably explains why more elderly citizens have not choosen to attend such centers. The cost ranges between $20 and $40 a day. But state of Illinois subsidies are available.
Most centers will help to line up transportation for those attending. Senior Services in Elgin provides transportation free for those living within Elgin. In addition to transportation, most adult day-care centers provide a morning snack, a hot noon meal, and an afternoon snack. Some centers offer special meals for diabetic clients. And while $20 to $40 may sound like a lot of money, most clients attend only a couple of days a week.
Moreover, ”This is a much cheaper way and a better way to deliver services to the elderly,” said Jean White, director at Senior Services in Elgin. ”Most people could not afford to hire someone who is schooled in providing activities geared especially for the elderly.”
The elderly do not get interaction at home as they do in an adult day-care center. Said 79-year-old Mercedes Aspiras at Northwest Community, ”I could stay at home, but with my daughter and son-in law working, it gets lonely for me there.”
