S10 E225 - Advantages of Respite Care

In this informative episode, host Wendy Jones sits down with Morgan Bird, Leasing Consultant at Oakmont Northville, to discuss the importance and benefits of respite care for seniors and their families.

Morgan explains respite care as a short-term stay in a senior living community that gives caregivers a much-needed break while providing seniors with full support, meals, activities, and a safe, engaging environment.

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Care, Meals, and Comfort:

• Three chef-prepared meals daily
• Housekeeping and fully furnished apartments
• Assistance with daily needs if required

Morgan highlights how consistent meals and nutrition help improve seniors’ health and prevent weight loss or poor eating habits.

Activities and Social Life:

• Daily activities like exercise, bingo, and clubs
• Group outings to restaurants, stores, and entertainment
• Transportation with certified drivers

Support Services:

Care can include help with medications, dressing, and mobility, with additional on-site support available as needed.

Caregiver Relief:

A major benefit of respite care is reducing caregiver burnout while ensuring loved ones are safe, engaged, and well cared for.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is Next Steps for Seniors with your host, Wendy Jones. Each week, Wendy brings resources and information to help guide you through those next steps with elderly parents and loved ones. If you have questions or topic suggestions, you can call us at 248-651-5010.

SPEAKER_02 0:19

Hello and welcome to Next Steps for Seniors Conversations on Aging. My name is Wendy Jones, and I'm very blessed to be your host today. And every week we really do our best to bring some information to you. You know, we all get older. It happens to everyone. And a lot of us in our, let's say, 50s and 60s right now, who are caring for our aging parents might be overwhelmed. They might be stressed. So our topic today, because you know you're running meals back and forth, meds back and forth, trying to make sure they're safe. You know, you don't want them to fall, taking them to doctor's appointments. If that's you, then I'm talking to you right now. Because there is an amazing opportunity to do respite care. And that's the title of our program today. What is respite care? And to talk to us about respite care, we are very blessed to have an amazing young woman in our office in our studio today, Morgan Byrd. Hi, Morgan. Hi, Wendy. How are you today? I'm good. Thank you for having me. Yes, we are very blessed to have you. You are a leasing consultant for Oakmont Northville and started in activities, which is such a fun place to start.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

Such a fun place to start. You know, it gave me the pathway to kind of lead into this leasing consultant role, and it will always hold a very special place in my heart.

SPEAKER_02 1:37

Families that are overwhelmed, and I love Morgan. She helped me with my own parents just do a respite. And I wanted to have her here today because she did such a great job with this respite. I was like, you need to tell everybody about this. So people are really overwhelmed at home because there's so many things that need to happen on a daily basis. So when they need a break and they're just like, please help me, just give me a break. I or I want to go on a vacation, or my parents just want to try something out, but they don't want to commit. Talk to us a little bit about respite care and what you can do to help them.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

Absolutely. So, you know, respite care for a senior, it's kind of you're the unknown. You know, going into a community setting, you can feel as though, you know, you're losing a lot of that independence. And respite care really helps seniors get a glimpse into what senior living and what a new life can offer for them. But also that, you know, reprieve for families that might be providing, you know, the care, like you were saying, running meals back and forth, you know, making sure pillboxes are set up. You know, it really offers both their loved one and the family that rest and relaxation that they really are needing.

SPEAKER_02 2:48

And respite means short term. Like it just is a short-term stay. So, you know, when you think of the summer ahead of you right now, and you're thinking, gosh, I would love to go up to the cabin for the week, or I would love to go somewhere, fund Colorado, whatever, for a month. You can't do it because you are concerned about your parents, which honoring our father and mother is what the Bible says. So I am all about honoring your father and mother, but I'm also all about making sure we take care of ourselves.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

Absolutely. Caregiver burnout is a real thing.

SPEAKER_02 3:20

It absolutely is. So tell us how respite care works in your community.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

Yeah. So how our respite care works, we offer a minimum of a 30-day stay. You know, we feel like that 30 days really gives seniors the full experience of the community. You know, it's not that you just are paying for a room. You get all your amenities included. We treat you just like you're a resident that is a long-term stay. You know, we take care of all of that cooking, you know, your three meals a day. We take care of your housekeeping, you know, you get all the activities with the socialization, transportation with the bus outings.

SPEAKER_02 3:54

Okay, I gotta say something about the bus. This is so fun. They actually took all these little seniors on a bus to the casino.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

Yes, that's one of the favorite spots to go for our community is the casino. We try to sneak that one in there about once a month every other month. It's so fun. What other places does the bus go? So we do a lot of local stores. You know, we have the Nino Savagios that just opened up down the road off of Haggerty at our community. I saw that. Yep, that's been a big one lately. You know, local stores, Kroger, you know, all those local stores. We'll go to local restaurants. That's a huge one. Our Foodie Club, they help our activity director pick which places they're gonna go for the month.

SPEAKER_02 4:30

So when you're not able to drive anymore, this is big. You still want to get out. These senior communities have transportation right there for you with a certified driver. So why not take advantage of this respite opportunity in a community for a month? And I recommend a month. I'm glad you said that 30 days, right? Because anything shorter, you just don't get the feel for it.

SPEAKER_01 4:55

Yep, you really do. You know, they always say it takes about 30 days to pick up a new habit or to get a new routine, and you know, the place you're living can fall right into that category too.

SPEAKER_02 5:04

And tell us a little bit about how the meals work because people really, I mean, when I'm I don't cook now, so when I'm 80, I'm for sure not cooking.

SPEAKER_01 5:13

Yeah. So at Oakmont, we offer three chef-inspired meals a day: breakfast, lunch, and dinner. There's a hot option at every meal. Our chef, Lewis, he creates a menu for the week that has the you know set menu options, but we also offer a really wide variety of alternatives. You know, residents, our residents have different interests and tastes. So you're not ever locked into that meal that is on the menu, even though it's always a very great, well-prepared menu. We have a whole variety of alternatives that are listed, you know, as well to provide that really diverse experience. And I would say that the dining is probably the most important thing for seniors going into a community.

SPEAKER_02 5:49

I will say if you have parents at home right now, one of the first signs is they're losing weight. Yes. And when you open the refrigerator, you see a lot of expired foods and maybe unhealthy foods. A lot of those frozen foods, you know, easy microwave dinners. Yeah. And you're thinking, how are they getting through? I mean, this it's all sodium, it's just not healthy. And to be able to go to a place, I think that was the number one thing, really, that people, like you said, are like, oh, I just get to show up at a dining room, look at a menu, order, right? It's not just the meal. You get dessert, you get a pepper.

SPEAKER_01 6:26

Oh, yes, dessert with lunch and dinner. You cannot ever pass on a good sweet treat.

SPEAKER_02 6:31

Yes, those desserts are fantastic. Let me tell you, I heard about those. So I do feel like, and because it's already furnished, because it's important that you don't have to like bring all of your furniture in, set it up, and then have your mom and dad go, Oh yeah, I don't want to be here.

SPEAKER_01 6:49

Yeah, that's the that's the luxury of respite too, is you do get that fully furnished room. You know, we provide you all your towels, your linens, your bedding, couches. It's a whole fully furnished apartment. So when you walk into the room, it's kind of like a little piece of home. You don't have to worry about the move because that can be a stressful part of it. And the whole point of a respite short-term stay is to provide that relief.

SPEAKER_02 7:12

So we totally don't do that if we're making it more stressful for us. But yeah, I love how you said that. So at the end of the day, you can go to a hotel for what, $130, $150 a night, or you can go to a respite short-term stay in a senior living community. And if you're listening to this program and you're outside of Michigan, you can actually Google respite short-term stay, senior community. They have them all over the United States.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

They do. And you know, at our community, like Wendy was saying, get a hotel nowadays that 130 upwards a night at our community. Our respite is 150 a night, and that's including everything we listed: your meals, your housekeeping, your utilities, your maintenance. We really take all of that so you can kind of look at it as a little bit of a luxury hotel.

SPEAKER_02 8:04

A lot of a luxury hotel. It's fantastic. I'm telling you, if you are pulling your hair out, banging your head against the wall, going, Oh my gosh, I can't do this for one more day. This is an opportunity to be catered to. I actually relate it to a cruise ship because if you've been on a cruise, you have so many options of activities to do. You have so much food to eat, and you have all these people that are like you that just want to have fun, right? And that's what you find in Respite.

SPEAKER_01 8:34

You do. And I think it's really important to highlight too the way that our community is set up is that we even offer that additional daily living support for those residents that might need help with managing medications, getting dressed in the morning, getting into bed at night, even just escorts down for socialization to meals and activities. We have third-party providers on site that can provide all of that for our residents. So even if you, you know, are independent but you have those daily living struggles, that doesn't count you out of our respite program. So it really meets a wide variety of needs for seniors.

SPEAKER_02 9:06

Walk us through like a day in the life of like somebody who just comes in, tell us what they would do throughout the day.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

Yeah. My favorite thing when I'm touring through the community and we're exiting our model, I always say, now let's walk through these hallways like you're starting your day here at Oakmont. Really envision yourself touring this community. You're gonna see yourself getting up and going down for breakfast. After breakfast, you might attend an exercise class in the morning. You might just enjoy the beautiful enclosed front porch. Then you might go take a morning nap, depending on, you know, how your daily routine is.

SPEAKER_02 9:37

Sure, a morning nap.

SPEAKER_01 9:39

And then between lunch in the middle of the day and dinner in the evening, there's so many things to do between those times, scheduled activity-wise, or just sitting and socializing with your neighbors of the community. There's always somebody out to talk. Our community is so open and friendly to new residents that really opportunities are endless. You could hit your two o'clock bingo, enjoy a happy hour afterwards. And we have a lot more small personal interest activities. You know, we have our book club, our foodie club, our men's club, our women's club, and we're always adding new things in. So if there's something that might not fit your interest, it's gonna get added to the calendar. So the opportunities are truly endless once you leave your apartment in the morning.

SPEAKER_02 10:18

So if you are interested in a one-month respite and you're in Michigan, we're gonna give you the number. So get your pen and paper ready. But if you're outside, like I mentioned, the state, anywhere, actually, respite stay in a senior living community, is what I would Google. And or call me, call Wendy Jones over here at Next Steps for Seniors. We absolutely can also help you. Our number here at the office is 248-651-5010. And Morgan is going to share her number on how to get a hold of Morgan.

SPEAKER_01 10:51

You can reach any of our staff at Oakmont at 248-449-1480.

SPEAKER_02 10:58

Thank you for tuning in to Next Steps for Seniors. And remember, there is a way to take a break, and it's called respite care. Thank you for tuning in to Next Steps for Seniors. Our podcast drops twice a week, Tuesdays and Fridays at 7 a.m. Find us on your favorite podcast platform and be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. To learn more about Next Steps for Seniors, visit us at Next StepsNumber4Seniors.com.