Nursing homes adapt to neighborhood concept
By JENNIFER WILSON
News editor
Lu Janzen is adamant: Parkside Homes of Hillsboro should not be called a nursing home.
It's just a home.
This Parkside Homes director is part of a new way of thinking about how many nursing homes care for the elderly. It's about removing the stigma of a hospital or institution and restoring power and dignity to the individuals that live in the homes.
That is Janzen's passion, and it's one that her fellow staff members at Parkside share.
Parkside is phasing in the new neighborhood model of care, also referred to as the household model. This new model seeks to group residents into households of 12 to 15 people, Janzen said.
This group of people functions like a family — eating together, socializing, sharing a living space. Right now, Parkside has three wings of residents, with around 20 people per wing. Each wing is treated as one household.
Within the household, each resident has the right to live an independent life, choosing when to eat, when to get up in the morning, and what to do with their time.
"We want to let the residents choose," Janzen said.
Aside from the obvious importance of treating home residents like people and not simply patients, research has shown that the neighborhood concept benefits residents in other ways. People in a household take less medication, have less falls, and sleep better, Janzen said.
"You spend money to get started, but you save in the long run," she said.
Nurses have also enjoyed the change.
Susie Kliewer, nurse manager, said that nurses and nurses' aids are now assigned to one wing only. That way they get to know their residents better — it's a lot more personal, she said.
The residents appreciate knowing who will take care of them, and in return the staff members see their jobs in a more positive light.
"It's a positive cycle," Kliewer said. "It feeds itself."
Ultimately, Parkside would like to remodel its rooms so that the building has more of an apartment-complex feel, with several residents having their bedrooms connected to a single large living space, kitchen, and bathroom.
They'd have their own front door and doorbell, which the nurses would go through before entering the area — after first receiving permission from a resident.
"It's their home," Kliewer said. "You don't take people to your bedroom to visit."
The goal of the program is to make it clear that nursing home residents are people with rights.
"We schedule things to their tastes, not ours," Kliewer said.
Another area nursing home implementing the neighborhood model is Bethesda Homes of Goessel.
Bethesda began the neighborhood model, or "social model," with its dementia/Alzheimer's unit in September of 2001, said Gloria Rediger, licensed social worker at the nursing home.
Twelve residents live in the household, with their bedrooms down a small corridor painted in soothing shades of blue. In the middle of the hallway is a common area, complete with living area, kitchen, and dining area.
Many of the residents spend a lot of time in the living area, said Alissa Unruh, unit supervisor.
The new approach to resident care has allowed the individuals to be more in control of their own lives — setting their own schedules for eating, activities, etc.
"It's adapted — not fit in a box," Unruh said.
The small number of residents living in the unit, combined with consistent nursing staff, have made the unit feel more like a family, she said. She's even seen residents adopting more family roles, such as the motherly type and the leader.
"It starts to feel like family," Unruh said.
It's important for the people in the unit to keep many of the activities and traditions they used to do at their former homes.
For example, one woman in the unit used to make homemade tortillas; she continues to do that at Bethesda. Two other women have taken on the duty of loading and unloading the dishwasher.
By treating the residents as members of a family, and not just patients at a health institution, the staff are meeting the residents' emotional, spiritual, and social needs as well, Unruh said.
"If we can do anything to improve their quality of life, it's a good thing," Unruh said.
