Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: troubled resident

[Laura Fitch (lfitch]

We had a similar situation brought on by Parkinson's.  Neighbor was
temporarily in and out of nursing care.  Eventually after a longer stay at a
good rehab place, she returned to community.  She now has a lot of home
health care providers during the day and an upstairs tenant with care giving
responsibilities.  It is working very well now.  I hope she can stay because
community is where she wants to be!

Laura Fitch, AIA, LEED AP
Kraus-Fitch Architects, Inc.
110 Pulpit Hill Rd.
Amherst, MA  01002
413-549-5799

lfitch [at] krausfitch.com
www.krausfitch.com



-----Original Message-----
From: Lynette Bassman [mailto:lbassman [at] alliant.edu] 
Sent: Monday, June 28, 2010 10:52 PM
To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
Subject: [C-L]_ troubled resident


Hi.

We have an older resident who has recently been struggling with some kind of
dementia-like syndrome (still being diagnosed) that involves acute paranoia
for at least part of most days, and mild confusion during the good times.
Several other residents have been in touch with her adult daughter who lives
about 4 hours away, and have been helping manage the situation and take care
of the resident, taking her to doctors' appointments, trying to soothe her,
encourage her to take her medication, etc.  But her needs are escalating,
and she does not always respond to us.  Instead, she sometimes becomes quite
frightened of us.  So unless the situation improves very soon, we are
thinking that she won't be able to continue to live here, despite all the
loving support that her neighbors can provide.  We are wondering if any
other communities have faced similar situations and if so, what your
experience was.  We especially are struggling with the limits of the care
that it is appropriate
  for neighbors to provide, and how to help her daughter know when it is no
longer okay for her to live here, or at least not without professional
in-home care.  Thank you for any wisdom you can share.

Lynette 
La Querencia Fresno Cohousing
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