Guest Column: Hillel Lodge is deeply committed to person-centred care

Ted Cohen is CEO of Hillel Lodge.

By Ted Cohen

Hillel Lodge

Canada is facing unprecedented demands on our healthcare system. Nowhere are these pressures felt more acutely than in seniors’ services and long-term care. With an aging population, more vulnerable people than ever require long-term care. Like others in the sector, the Bess and Moe Greenberg Family Hillel Lodge is experiencing these pressures, but because of outstanding professional staff, deeply committed volunteers, and generous contributors, Hillel Lodge is very well positioned to meet the needs of our residents, whose care and safety remain our number one priority.

This year, 2020, marks an exciting time for Hillel Lodge. In 2019, we held extensive consultations with our residents, their families, and community leaders to learn everything we could to ensure we are prepared to meet the evolving long-term care needs of our community. During the consultations, we shared how Hillel Lodge and other leading long-term care homes are embracing new ways of meeting the unique and individual needs of each resident. This care approach is called “person-centred care.”

Person-centred care received enthusiastic endorsement from our stakeholders and has been adopted as the cornerstone of our vision and strategy at Hillel Lodge. As Arlene Rosenbloom, president of Hillel Lodge, stated recently, “Developing the person-centred care approach for our residents is the main reason I embraced the opportunity to serve as president. It is an honour and enormous responsibility to be a leader and proponent for a model for change in our long-term care community. Adopting this approach is critical because of the increasing demands on our sector. I, and all of us at Hillel Lodge, take this responsibility very seriously and look forward to implementing this approach to the benefit of all our residents.”

Hillel Lodge decided to adopt the best elements from the person-centred care models we evaluated. We are adapting them to our unique situation at Hillel Lodge. Working in partnership with the prominent and well-respected Research Institute for Aging, Hillel Lodge will preserve the unique features that make the Lodge a valued resource to our community while evolving to respond to the changing needs of today’s residents.

Hillel Lodge is home to 121 individuals. Each has their own history, interests, and preferences. Person-centred care demands that we continually seek new ways to meet the individual needs of our residents. As we implement this approach, residents can expect new services, care options, and activities that respond to a wider variety of interests and capabilities.

Through consultations with stakeholders, it became clear that the person-centred care approach is wanted and will be well received in our community. While we will implement these changes as quickly as possible, we must acknowledge that person-centred care is a journey of continuous incremental change that will not only impact the services we offer but also will begin to change how aging is viewed and how to honour and empower our seniors. We will implement these changes responsibility and as quickly as possible.

As CEO of Hillel Lodge, it is an honour to help those requiring long-term care live full and engaged lives. I view the adoption of person-centred care as critical as we strive to remain at the forefront of long-term care.

Rekindling memories of special life experiences

Residents enjoy the life-like mechanical pets in the park-like Comfort Therapy room at Hillel Lodge. (Louise Rachlis)

Hillel Lodge has introduced Comfort Therapy, a new program for residents with dementia. Louise Rachlis reports.

A room on the second floor of the Bess and Moe Greenberg Family Hillel Lodge looks like a park, complete with park benches, wall images of trees and recorded sounds of birds chirping.

The room also has a cradle, a laundry basket of baby clothes, life-like baby dolls, and mechanical dogs and cats.

And there are happy expressions on the faces of the residents who are rocking the dolls and petting the animals with heart-warming expressions of wonder, recollection, joy and contentment.

It’s all part of a new therapeutic program, Comfort Therapy, made possible by a special $10,000 donation to Hillel Lodge.

Realistic-looking baby dolls help reduce anxiety, loneliness and agitation among residents with Alzheimer’s and other kinds of dementia.

Since residents began accessing the dolls in November, their family members have told social worker Carrie Connell that the program has made a big difference to their demeanor.

“It gives them a warm feeling to see the contentment on their relatives’ faces,” said Connell.

Caring for a doll on a day-to-day basis helps stimulate memories of early parenthood and fosters attachment through the comforts of touching and holding.

“It’s a way to engage people,” said Connell. “They have memories of all these life experiences. We try to make it relevant to our real world experiences.”

When a recreation aide sang from the storybook Old MacDonald had a Farm, across the room, a resident named Donald began to smile.

“Rhythm and rhyme are really important, and you can read Old MacDonald and other children’s books to the doll,” she said. “It contextualizes those types of activities for them and us.”

The room is in the secure unit but any resident can use it.

“It helps those without dementia feel purposeful as well,” said Connell.

The room is open all the time. The Lodge follows the Montessori approach of leaving the dolls, books and accessories available for the residents to approach and interact for as long as they want.

“Nobody has wanted to keep a doll or animal yet,” said Connell, “but we expect to be able to fill any attachment.”

Hillel Lodge residents care for dolls in the new Comfort Therapy program to help stimulate memories of early parenthood and foster attachment through the comforts of touching and holding. (Louise Rachlis)

“Every day I’m hearing how it really is bringing joy to the residents,” said Hillel Lodge CEO Ted Cohen. “It’s the nurturing it brings out – all of sudden there’s that connection and it’s just remarkable. That is why we’re here – it makes our home special – and we’re so grateful for the gift that made it possible.”

Hillel Lodge’s Comfort Therapy program is thanks to the generosity of Betty-Hope Gittens. At the age of 80, Gittens embarked on “Betty’s Walk,” an 800-km trek across the Camino de Santiago in Spain. “Betty’s Walk” raised over $200,000, and she has donated $10,000 to each of Ottawa’s 13 nonprofit long-term care facilities for use in programming, equipment and/or other purposes that would enrich the daily lives of seniors in their respective homes.

Comfort Therapy is one of many different kinds of therapy at Hillel Lodge, said Cohen. “Some residents may respond more to art therapy, others to music, or garden therapy in the spring to help nurture a plant to life. It gives us a selection of different activities to which they can relate.”

“This has been a very collaborative project,” said Connell. “It has taken a bit longer because of that, but people feel they’re part of it.”

In January, art therapy students were working with residents to create a polished and safe installation for the main wall, bringing the last decorative elements together. It’s based on artist Marc Chagall’s stained glass windows, in three different colours on 36 pieces of foam core board, multiples of chai, being created by 36 residents.

And though the room decor isn’t even finished yet, the benefits are obvious in the happy smiles of the participants.