A positive experience with an assisted living community can help other members of a family to explore residency options.

Rich Gast lived in Lafayette, Indiana, hundreds of miles from his mother, Judy Gast who was in a skilled care wing at another community in Tennessee. Rich was facing a looming crisis. The staff in Tennessee appeared to be giving up on his mom. Her quality of life had diminished, she had lost her mobility, and Rich knew it was time to make some changes. Judy needed to be closer to family who could help care for her.

“It was obvious that the community she was living at in Tennessee had pretty much said she needed skilled nursing care and there was nothing they could do to help her,” said Rich. “I took it upon myself to make sure that whatever time she had left was as enjoyable as possible for her.”

Rich began to look for an alternative facility closer to his home in Lafayette, Indiana. He made visits to every facility in the area from Delphi to Rossville to Mulberry to Lafayette to West Lafayette. He visited each facility unannounced, so his first impression was not influenced by advance preparation on the part of the facility.

“I must have looked at every assisted living facility and nursing home facility within a three mile radius of Lafayette,” said Rich.

After he picked his top three choices, he enlisted his wife, Lois Gast, to help choose the best place for his mother to move.

“I took my wife back to the two or three I felt the most comfortable with. I figured my mom is a female, I had better get a female perspective on this,” Rich recalled, with a chuckle.

GreenTree at West Lafayette Assisted Living Community was the first choice, but the challenge of convincing his mother to make the move still lie ahead. According to Rich, it was no easy task.

“It took me six years to convince her to move to Indiana,” said Rich. “One of the biggest reasons that got her interested in Green Tree was the fact that she could have her own apartment and she could have her own furniture,” he said. “She was in a hospital-type room (in Tennessee).”

Rich convinced his mother that if she stayed in Tennessee her quality of life would not get any better, but if she came to Indiana where she had family, she could live in a “great place where she could have her own apartment, great meals, and a full calendar of activities and entertainment” at Green Tree.

At the time of her move to Green Tree, Judy was in a wheelchair. Her quality of life had declined. She exhibited early stages of dementia.

“It was a challenge. It was worse even than I realized,” said Rich about his mother’s condition before she moved to Green Tree.

“Where she was in Tennessee, they had moved her into the skilled care wing where she had dinner with people at the table who had advanced Alzheimer’s and didn’t even know she was there. She spent her days in her bed or in her wheelchair and had little sensor lights on her so that if she got out of her wheelchair an alarm would go off,” said Rich.

Immediately after her move to Indiana, the GreenTree staff worked with her to help her get out of the wheelchair and walk again. She became ambulatory using a walker.

She had lost interest in things she once found enjoyable. The Green Tree staff encouraged her to take part in social activities within the community.

(Photo: Mary Stine, GreenTree at West Lafayette Resident)

“They (staff at GreenTree) had her interested in things again and not just spending her day sitting in her wheelchair,” said Rich.

Judy enjoyed the musical entertainment at GreenTree, and made friends with some long-time residents, as well as new folks.

“Now, my mother was not the social animal. She would go to some of the musical events where they have some sort of entertainment in the dining room. She had two or three residents there she would talk with, other than that, she was pretty private,” said Rich.

At first, it took Judy a few months to adjust to living at GreenTree. It wasn’t that she didn’t like living there; it just didn’t seem familiar to her. But when she finally settled in, she began bragging about how great it was and how much she loved living there.

“She told me many many times in that year and a half she had the best address in Lafayette,” said Rich. “She really loved the place.”

Keeping it in the family

Rich’s mother passed away a short time ago, but his mother-in-law, Mary Stine, recently moved into GreenTree, mostly because of the experience she’d heard about Rich’s mother having while she lived at GreenTree.

“My experiences with them have always been very positive,” said Rich.

One year ago in May, Rich and Lois went on vacation for one week. They were concerned about leaving Mary alone during that time and she was concerned about them being gone. Mary moved into GreenTree at West Lafayette during that week.

“She (Mary) actually had a chance a year ago to take a test drive. She didn’t just have to listen to what my wife I had to say about it. She actually got to try it out,” said Rich.

Last fall, Mary decided that moving to Green Tree would be good for her, but she wanted to wait until springtime when the weather was better to make the move.

“She had a lot of time to adjust before she moved,” said Rich.

Mary has only lived at GreeTree for a few weeks, but seems to be enjoying the experience a great deal. Rich talked about how well she is adjusting to her new home.

“If they’ve never been rerouted from their own home before, there’s definitely an adjustment period. My observation is she (Mary) is adjusting and acclimating quite well and she likes it,” said Rich.

Rich said that he, at some point, might move into Green Tree with a certain stipulation.

“If they ever want me to move in there, they will have to change the entertainment, I don’t want people doing Perry Como or Frank Sinatra. I want a Pink Floyd cover band,” said Rich. He explained, “It’s a difference in the generation, you know?”

(Images courtesy of GreenTree at West Lafayette and Haley7 on Flickr)