This weekend I
was able to spend time with some of my family. On Friday night, my mom
drove up to JMU and stayed with me in my apartment. It was nice to finally get
to see her and catch up on our lives. She even took me grocery shopping—and
paid -- which was a plus! On Saturday we got up early and drove to Silver
Spring, Maryland to visit my Grandma Napier. She lives in a large
retirement community called Riderwood Village. To get a feel for the
place, I find myself comparing it to a college campus such as JMU, except it is
filled with a much older population obviously (60+ years). Not only are
there are a variety of housing options and apartments/dorms, there are also
numerous dining halls, art classes, music rooms, a gym, game rooms, and buses that
shuttle people around campus. I have been to this retirement community for
several years now, but this time I found myself looking at it through a new
lens.
I found myself
thinking about epidemiology and even some of my other health classes such as Human
Diseases and Rehabilitative Biomechanics. I paid special attention to the
different types of walkers, canes and wheelchairs the residents were using,
including my own grandma. I also paid attention to the design and set up
of the bathrooms and dining halls and how they were made to accommodate
wheelchairs and such (larger walkways, lower counters, etc.) Another thing I
noticed more so this time then other times I have visited were the number of
“help” cords strategically placed throughout the buildings. The entire
place is designed with the elderly population in mind and it can be directly
linked to health. I think the retirement community does a good job trying to
cover all of the areas of health. They have a church where you can attend
services, they have guest speakers come talk frequently, and they hold social
dances and game nights hoping to get everyone involved and moving.
My grandmother,
herself, lives in a more assisted living area where she has nurses and health
professionals come in and help her bathe, clean, do her laundry, and bring her
food if she cannot eat in the dining room.
There is also a nurse on call at all times if she has a medical need. At age 85 she is now about 4’9” and weighs
roughly 90 pounds, so she is pretty delicate. She suffers from
osteoporosis and has a lot of pain from arthritis. She uses a walker and motorized “jazzi” to
move around. In regards to epidemiology,
I began to think about several common communicable diseases, particularly ones
that the elderly population would be more susceptible to. I realized how easily
things would spread and how devastating it would/could be if this community was
to suffer from something as simple as a foodborne illness in one of their
dining halls or if there was an outbreak of the flu. These diseases don’t
seem as much of a threat to people like you and me, but they can be fatal to
those who are older and already have a more suppressed immune system. I
also came to realize how easy it would be to have an endemic at the retirement
community to because of the close living quarters. All of these factors
make it very possible for something to happen, but there are many methods the
community does to try and prevent this from happening. They offer flu
shots, have hand sanitizer almost everywhere, use gloves when working with
patients and prepare foods under clean and safe conditions.
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| The girls at brunch on Sunday after church! |
On a lighter note,
we also took my grandmother shopping to the mall. She wanted to get some
new brown loafers. We didn’t end up finding a pair that would work, but
we did have fun time. We also got to share a few nice meals together in
their dining halls. Overall, the weekend was a nice “getaway” from school
and work and some special memories were made.
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