GILROY — In the dining area in the Gilroy Healthcare and
Rehabilitation Center, simple, oversized Bingo cards with just
eight squares filled with numbers and Easter-related pictures
– such as a rabbits, rainbows and eggs – are laid out on the
table in front of four aging men and four children.
GILROY — In the dining area in the Gilroy Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center, simple, oversized Bingo cards with just eight squares filled with numbers and Easter-related pictures – such as a rabbits, rainbows and eggs – are laid out on the table in front of four aging men and four children.
John McWhinney, with his white hair feathered back and donning a maroon sweater, meticulously aligns his Bingo card perfectly with the side of the table and does the same with the other cards to the left and right while the children, seated around him, playfully fill the room with noise. Seemingly oblivious to the noise, he carefully takes his plastic red bottle caps that are used to cover the Bingo cards and neatly lines them up in two straight rows of four on the table.
The game begins, and Learning Center Program Director Irma Ramirez calls out numbers: “12 … 3 … 10 … 1 …”
McWhinney watches his board as the numbers are called out, but doesn’t cover up his number three when it’s called by Ramirez. However, when he hears the number one – even though it’s not on his board – he springs into action and covers up all but one of his squares.
At another table in the room, 3-year-old Naomi Rosales looks on at senior Jose Montiel, 78, with interest as Ramirez continues to call out Bingo numbers and symbols – in this case calling out the symbol “Rainbow.”
Rosales peers over to Montiel’s board and in a sweet, innocent voice says, “You got a rainbow, huh?” Montiel looks down at her with a smile and nods, placing his bottlecap over the rainbow symbol.
Sitting across from McWhinney is Carl Perkins, a retired Sears salesperson, looks on at the game with passing interest. When one of his numbers is called, the 72-year-old covers it up with one of his bottle caps he keeps in his lap. But if one of his pictures is called, he looks at the card Ramirez holds up, but it doesn’t click that he needs to cover it up on his board, and he stops paying attention to the game. With a little help from Ramirez, Perkins realizes that he has an egg, which Ramirez just called out. He has Bingo, and he smiles as everyone claps.
On a wall in the back of the room, a sign reads “Today is Wednesday, April 16, 2003. The season is spring. The weather is sunny and warm. The next holiday is Easter.”
These are facts that aren’t always apparent to the folks who call this place their home. For on this particular wing of the 134-bed rehabilitation center live the center’s Alzheimer’s patients who have been most affected by the disease. The 28 patients are kept in what is called the “elopement unit,” so named because if they weren’t kept in a locked ward, they likely could end up walking right out of the clinic and into a situation that could endanger themselves or others.
Aging men and women come here when their memory begins to fail them and when they look at themselves in the mirror and don’t recognize the person looking back at them. They are living out their final days, and yet some of them don’t even remember their most precious moments of their lives.
Because of this, the unit could be a dull, dreary, sad place. However, Gilroy Healthcare doesn’t have that feeling. The Alzheimer patients, who might normally refuse to get out of bed, are strolling up and down the hallway. They’re happy to chat, they are active and, above all, they are smiling.
And that is because this unit also is the home of the intergenerational program, which is just beginning its second year at the clinic. A co-op day care facility on the floor means that the Alzheimer patients are placed near children and spend more than an hour of their day interacting with them.
Basing the program on what is known as the Eden Alternative, the center is hoping the interaction with the children will help patients relieve stress levels, feelings of isolation and depression and help their eating habits and mobility. And, so far, the results have worked.
According to employees, Gilroy Healthcare’s program has been a perfect fit both for parents working at the clinic and for the elderly folks who call the center their home. The children learn a lot about the elderly residents, lose their fear of them and have a safe place to stay; the Alzheimer patients, who before seemed unhappy and unresponsive, now are out of bed each day and shuffling to the children’s room.
“Residents who don’t respond to anything will respond to them,” said Amanda Saltonstall, director of social services at the facility. “They’re very fond of them. They’ll remember children’s names but not what day it is. It’s quite significant in their lives.”
Anyone who has experienced Alzheimer’s in a loved one can understand what a heartwrenching disease it is. What begins as minor symptoms turns into the loss of a loved one before their physical death, as they often forget the most important people in their lives.
“The first sign is you lose your sense of smell. Eventually it gets worse. There are some forms that start as early as 40 years old, and some that don’t show until the 70s,” said Pansy Rogers, Alzheimer unit program director. “They’re still there, they’re just frozen in time. It’s when they start the wandering behavior that they end up in a place like this.”
The children arrive at Gilroy Healthcare, located at 8170 Murray Ave., at about 6:30 a.m., and it isn’t long before their noise starts to coax some of the 28 Alzheimer patients out of bed.
The children are at the center until 4:30 p.m. They eat meals and take naps like at most day cares, but they also spend several hours each day interacting with the Alzheimer patients. They do arts and crafts, play games and simply talk with the patients, who often come out of their rooms and walk down the hall to the children’s rooms just to see what they are doing.
“The children help decrease their stress levels,” Rogers said. “The Alzheimer patients kind of go off into space. The children help bring them back down.”
In the course of a year, an old dining room and small office were turned into a child-safe play area and an outside play area was created. Toys were donated to the center and employees were trained on how to care for the children and prepare for their interaction with the seniors. During the year, 12 children entered the program, all of them children or grandchildren of Gilroy Healthcare employees – and those employees spend a little of their day with their child. A nurse is on staff in the ward at all times, and there are four certified nurse’s aids during the day and two at night.
“What makes it unique is that staff members are able to bring their children here, and they contribute for half an hour,” said Gilroy Healthcare Executive Director Jerry Hunter, who started the program after seeing its success at Los Altos Subacute and Rehabilitation Center. Both centers are owned by Covenant Care California, and they are the first two centers of what the CCC hopes is all of its 45 national locations to take on an intergenerational program.
Eleven parents have placed their children in the center for just $12 per month, including Patty Villarreal, the activities coordinator at the facility and mother of Alexis and Sebastian, who spend their days at the center. The parents also must spend half an hour outside of their work schedule each day to volunteer at the center by helping clean up after lunch or doing activities with the children.
“I was paying $1,000 a month for two kids, and now I pay $20,” Villarreal said. “It gives staff a peace of mind, because they know their kids are right here.”
Once the children get accustomed to their surroundings, they learn being around the older folks isn’t anything to be frightened about.
“At first they were scared, especially of the wheelchairs,” Villarreal said. “Before, they didn’t want to go into their rooms. Now it’s no problem. They have an adjustment, too.”
The children also learn valuable lessons while they spend time with the elderly, Rogers said.
“Most children at that age are not subjected to people this age,” said Rogers, whose children spent a lot of time near elderly people because her dad suffered from Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimers and spent a lot of time in convalescent homes. “The difference, from what I can see, is it teaches compassion and understanding of the elderly, tolerance and patience.”
The staff at Gilroy Healthcare has yet to see how the children will react if one of the patients at the center passes away.
“So far, it hasn’t been an issue,” Rogers said. “Kids are so desensitized anymore and they meet so many people here that they probably wouldn’t notice.”
The Alzheimer patients, who generally dislike seeing anything around them change, also surprisingly seemed open to the start of the children’s learning center. The only complaint most of the patients have is when the children go running up and down the hallway – a little too fast for the older folks. But according to Saltonstall, the youth wandering the halls of Gilroy Healthcare give the patients a feeling of youth and energy that the nurses alone can’t.
“It’s like a piece they can hang on to. They’ve lost so much of themselves,” Saltonstall said. “It’s a great program and everybody benefits from it.”
