Health |

Visiting loved ones when ‘you can’t hold their hand’: Families continue to struggle with isolation at senior facilities

Prevented from seeing her father in the early days of the pandemic last year, Janelle Silva thought up a new way to let him know she was near.

During her morning runs, Silva would stop outside Summit of Uptown in Park Ridge and write a message in chalk on the driveway where her father, Henry Silva, could see it when he looked outside the window of his independent living apartment.

“I was doing it so frequently that I would leave chalk pieces underneath the car port in a little nook,” Janelle Silva said.

The COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on senior living facilities has been especially severe. So far, it has infected more than 67,400 residents and claimed the lives of more than 8,600 across the state, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.

But lockdowns, aimed at containing the virus and stopping the spread, created an isolation among residents and a separation between families that many hope will not be long-lasting now that COVID-19 vaccines are slowly becoming available.

“While he is young and for the most part healthy, I fear we don’t have as many days together,” Janelle Silva said of her father, 73, who declined to be interviewed for this story. “I also fear that isolation can shorten someone’s life, so I want to make the most of the time we do have.”

During the lockdown period of the pandemic last year, Silva said her father, used to taking walks, was restricted to his studio apartment, which caused Silva to have concerns about his emotional health, she acknowledged.

“There was a point where I suggested, ‘Dad, maybe this is the time you disregard the lockdown and come over and have dinner,'” she said. “I was like, ‘What are they going to do? Keep you in quarantine? You’re already in quarantine.’ But he said, ‘No. They are doing what they know is right. I’m going to stay.'”

Even with restrictions lifted, the family is still trying to stay safe and healthy through limited contact. On Thanksgiving, for example, Silva’s father chose to remain at Summit and celebrate with family over Zoom, she said.

“He is now our Zoom coordinator,” Silva noted.

Silva said she believes Summit of Uptown “evolved” in how it responded to the pandemic as the months passed and made efforts to keep residents’ spirits up with “happy hour” carts and a socially-distant car show in the summer. Additionally, the residence, which also contains assisted living and memory care apartments, made a counselor available to Silva’s father if he needed such services during the pandemic, Janelle Silva said.

Currently, Henry Silva and other residents of Summit of Uptown’s independent living section are the only residents permitted to have family visits, as assisted living and memory care sections are restricted to caregiver or “compassionate care” visits, said Judd Harper, president of the Arbor Company, in a statement.

“We arrange video calls to keep families connected to their loved ones during this time,” he said. “We also provide frequent updates to our residents and their families through emails and letters.”

Worries about dying alone

Jenny Lynn Raffe, of Elmwood Park, said the isolation her elderly mother, Virginia Haumann, experienced last year at Ascension Living Resurrection Place, formerly Presence Resurrection Nursing and Rehabilitation, in Park Ridge prompted her to remove her mother from the facility.

“Every time I saw my mom on Zoom, she was in bed,” Raffe said. “Many times she looked horrible, just gray and horribly bloated and laying in bed — like she was laying in a coffin.”

Haumann, 78, has dementia and became a resident of Ascension Living because she needed extended care after a hernia surgery, her daughter said. She had previously resided in an assisted living facility.

Raffe said she was unable to visit with her mother in-person at Ascension Living from March until mid-summer. Prior to the lockdown, her mother appeared to be doing well and “feeling better” following her surgery, Raffe said.

But then family visits came to an abrupt end.

“It was horrible,” Raffe recalled. “I couldn’t sleep. I thought, ‘What if she were to die?’ For her to pass away without the family members there is just the cruelest thing ever.”

When lockdown restrictions were lifted, it was not the happy reunion Raffe had hoped for.

“When we were finally able to come and see her in July, I nearly lost it because on that July day, she looked horrible,” Raffe said of her mother. “She looked so scrawny, her face was shrunken in and she was very upset. She said, ‘They are leaving me here to rot.'”

The following month, Raffe said she moved her mother out of the facility and into her Elmwood Park home, where she is cared for by home health care workers and receives physical and occupational therapy.

“Since she’s been home, she’s definitely come around,” Raffe said last month. “She’s much more relaxed as far as understanding that she’s not left alone anymore, that’s there’s somebody there, which is me or the caregiver.”

Molly Gaus, spokeswoman for Ascension Living, said the company is following CDC, state and local visitation restrictions that are “designed to protect our residents, associates and families.”

“Our team is helping our residents and families stay connected in many different ways, including through virtual visits, closed window meetings, distribution of notes that come in via mail and our online note delivery service, as well as via photos and videos posted to our Facebook page,” she said. “Our creative, talented team of associates has gone to great lengths since March to provide joy and support during this most unbelievable time.”

‘You can’t hold their hand’

Roberta Pack, 85, said she promised her husband Robert Pack, 95, that she’d always be with him and he wouldn’t have to go to a nursing home. And she tried, for a long time, to stick to that promise, even when his Alzheimer’s became so advanced that he would get lost in their own home, or leave at 2 a.m. and have to be brought back by neighbors or police.

After her husband fell three or four times, once sustaining a brain bleed, doctors told Pack that she needed to put her husband in a memory care facility. In November, Pack brought her husband to Norwood Crossing, an assisted living facility near Norridge on the Northwest Side of Chicago.

But with rising cases of COVID-19 in the area, Pack’s first visit had to be canceled. No “medically unnecessary” visitors are allowed inside Norwood Crossing, according to its website, though it is now allowing outdoor visitors with restrictions.

“I haven’t been able to see him. I think that’s probably the hardest part,” Pack said in a December interview. “Because you can’t hold their hand or anything. And even if he doesn’t know who I am, at least he’d know somebody was there.”

The couple doesn’t have kids, and this is the first time she’s living without him.

“We’ve been married for 54 years, and this is really the first time he’s just been away where I knew he wasn’t going to come home,” Pack said.

She’s seen her husband through an iPad video chat, but he doesn’t “have the concept” of looking at the screen, and doesn’t know where he is, she said, adding that he seems OK.

Pack can see that he’s getting hair cuts and shaves, and that he’s clean and changing his clothes. Norwood Crossing is doing a “beautiful job,” she said.

Still, it’s difficult to be without her husband. She talks to her friends on the phone, and tries to clean and straighten the house, keeping busy when she feels emotional.

“I don’t think it ever gets easier, no matter how you lose your soul mate,” Pack said.

Oak Park: very short visits

During a recent visit to the Oak Park Arms retirement community, Stephanie Schrodt wore her face shield, face mask and brought her laptop, all part of the new normal when visiting her mother.

Schrodt and her mother, Lynas Waun, were able to meet inside the building’s lobby, where they sat six feet apart, and went online clothes shopping.

“Our visits can be as short as two minutes where I deliver something…” Schrodt said. “Once in a while, we meet in-person in a room that is designated for us or in the lobby when others are not present. These visits last under an hour.”

Insider her room, Waun is checked on every two hours by staff, and her family has been in regular contact since the pandemic began this spring.

“In the beginning, my siblings and I were concerned about the amount of time she was spending in her room, but we also understand this was essential for everyone’s safety,” Schrodt said. “My siblings and I increased phone calls to her and Oak Park Arms started handing out activity sheets.”

Recently, Oak Park Arms residents have also been able to dine at a distance inside the dining room, while limited in-person activities have resumed.

“I enjoy a weekly music program,” Waun said. “I feel residents have respected the limitations in programming and family visitations. They are very committed to cleaning protocols to keep the residents safe.”

‘We cannot have visitors’

At Brookdale Oak Park, 1111 Ontario St., residents have spent a majority of the year eating meals inside their rooms as the 13th floor dining room was closed to allow for social distancing.

Resident Galen Gockel, 88, said he fills out a menu each day to make his choices for the next day’s meals, which are brought directly to his apartment door.

Brookdale residents have also been asked to no longer go shopping at nearby Trader Joe’s or Walgreens, with many having food dropped off by family and friends.

“My daughter lives in Wisconsin and our grandson lives in Brookfield, so they drop off some food in our vestibule and staff is very good at telling me when it’s here,” Gockel said. “In the vestibule, they have one table for drop-offs and another for pickups. We cannot have visitors. That’s firm.”

Residents are able to walk around the building, and limited activities have resumed, though attendance is limited. Brookdale also allows a barber to come into the building twice a week.

“By and large, I would say the overwhelming attitude is the people in the building understand exactly what’s going on. They understand if they’re not careful, they can end up being a carrier and possibly infect somebody else. I haven’t heard much complaining.”

Brookdale’s location does allow residents, when weather allows, to walk at nearby Austin Gardens.

While many have accepted the new rules and restrictions, Gockel says there are likely some who are having a hard time adjusting to spending a majority of their time inside their rooms.

“It is true that we don’t see each other nearly as much as we used to. That’s no surprise and for some people that’s a downer,” Gockel said. “I think there are some people who really regret being alone.”