Residents Give Back to Our Troops

During this holiday season it is important to remember our kupuna and disabled, and all that they have to give back to the community and the rest of the world at large. Just because someone moves into a nursing home doesn't mean that their life stops or that they lack anything to give back to others. At Hale Makua the rich lives of our residents go on as we help them to continue to celebrate life's journey in their new home.

Throughout the month of November, the residents and Activities staff of Hale Makua Kahului worked tirelessly to sew over 60 stockings and fill them with goodies for our service men and women overseas. Stockings included a thank you note or Christmas card, plus essentials such as cold drink mixes, lip balm, beef jerky, granola bars, travel sized shampoos, toothbrushes, coffee creamer, and sugar packets. These items may seem like everyday items to us, but to our troops overseas these were considered treats. Click here to read this cover story on The Maui News website.

On Christmas Eve the residents received their first thank you card from an overseas solider thanking them for remembering our troops this holiday season and for the stocking stuffed with goodies. A second thank you letter was received today from John Dominicis who is currently serving in Kabul, Afghanistan as a special advisor to General McChrystal.

All photos courtesy of Amanda Cowan, The Maui News.

Gingerbread Scented Holiday Cheer

Last week ginger and spice hung in the air around the Aloha Cafe where many of the residents at Hale Makua Kahului were treated to some sweet treats in the form of gingerbread cookies. The residents and Activities staff beautifully decorated dozens of gingerbread cookies for the holidays, which was reminiscent of my own family Christmas party where adults and children alike enjoy making and decorating gingerbread cookies. While many of the residents had fun expressing their unique personalities in their use of sugary confections, decorating a variety of cookies with frosting and sprinkles, I think several enjoyed eating their works of art much more!

Hale Makua Holds Winter Olympics

Yesterday I was treated to a preview of the Winter Olympics - Hale Makua style. The games were held at Hale Makua Kahului in the Aloha Cafe. There were a total of five winter games with six participating teams. Each team was made up of four staff members and one resident or client. The participating teams were the Maui PACE Reindeer, Activities Fa-la-la-la-las, East Elves, West Angels, Ilima Jingle Bells, and Frosty Pikake. Residents and staff looked on and cheered for their favorite teams.

The Winter Olympics for residents and staff was a fun way to kick-off the winter season in Hawaii. Since we don't have much of a winter, the sporting events consisted of games like a relay to see who could dress in skiing attire and "ski" to the finish line the fastest. Only these skiers had to wear flipper instead of skis and used bamboo for ski poles. Residents and staff were treated to a competitive and hilarious afternoon of winter sport-like events. In the end the East Elves took home gold, with the Activities Fa-la-la-la-las winning silver, and the West Angels cinching bronze. My only wish was that the televised Winter Olympics was this entertaining.

Luana's Mission & Guiding Principles

Our mission is to be a self-sustaining long-term care village that is inviting, lively, inter-generational, educational, and valued as part of the journey of life.

These principles guide us through our journey:

• We are a village with compassion, meaningful engagements and diversity - the antidotes for loneliness, helplessness and boredom.
• We honor our community everyone, every day and every way by celebrating life and honoring the journey.

Students & Seniors Come Together for the Winter Ball

Thank you to the St. Anthony's school students, faculty, and advisers who treated Hale Makua Wailuku residents to a Winter Ball on December 4th. Residents got dressed up for the event, and were each presented with a long stem rose as they entered the ballroom. Maui County Mayor, Charmaine Tavares, gave a speech and joined in the festivities by singing Christmas carols.

We truly appreciate all of the students, volunteers and entertainers who help to make the holidays so special for our residents in Kahului and Wailuku. From the Iao Intermediate School kids who decorated miniature Christmas trees to give to residents to Board members that buy and wrap stocking stuffers for residents and musicians that provide musical entertainment, we are so fortunate to be a part of an Island community filled with aloha.

Enjoying a Day at the Maui County Fair

The Maui County Fair is held annually at the beginning of October. The Fair is all about reconnecting with friends and family in an environment where everyone from the keiki (kids) to kupuna (elders) can find something to appreciate. It's a learning experience, a carnival, a chance to enjoy artwork, photos, crafts, flowers, and other exhibits created by Maui residents, fabulous entertainment, and great local grinds - all rolled into one. Hale Makua residents, Adult Day Health clients, and Maui PACE participants all enjoyed a day at the Maui County Fair where they ate, played games, and checked out the horticulture. Thank you to all of the volunteers who made this special day at the Maui County Fair possible.

First in Hawaii to Become an Eden Registered Home

In August 2009, Hale Makua Health Services became the first organization in the State of Hawaii to join the Eden Registry. This designation reflects the organizations’ commitment to improving the quality of life for residents and for recapturing a meaningful work life for their caregivers. As a member of the Eden Registry, we are dedicated to creating communities which eliminate the plagues of loneliness, helplessness, and boredom. These are plagues of the human spirit, not the human body, but they can be just as debilitating and just as deadly as any disease of the body. We have spent several years working toward becoming an Eden registered organization, using the Eden Alternative Principles as the foundation of their Luana initiative. “Luana” in Hawaiian means to live in comfort and ease.

Photos shown are from the celebrations held at Hale Makua Kahului and Wailuku in honor of our becoming an Eden Registered Home, featuring Wailuku residents Eileen Kailihou and Laura Waiohu singing a song, and Kahului resident Frank Molina (left), and Tony Krieg, Hale Makua Health Services CEO, enjoying an impromptu jam session by residents Stanley Koko and Merle Keahi.

Residents Participate in Staff Training on Compassionate Caring

Over the nine year history of our Compassionate Caring program, June 14, 2009, marked the first day that residents actively participated in and contributed to the two days of courses alongside staff and trainers. The Compassionate Caring program was custom designed by Lois Greenwood, PhD, Director of VITEC at the University of Hawaii, and is based on best practices in the fields of total quality management, emotional intelligence and customer service, with a goal of successfully increasing staff morale and providing compassionate care to residents and clients.

Hale Makua Kahului residents John Bellini and Joseph Thomas had asked to attend the Compassionate Caring training sessions in order to learn more about the staff training that directly impacts their care, as well as their daily lives. Both John and Joe thought that the classes were “really good and wonderful,” and John noted that having a combination of staff and residents in the class “took away the barriers of ‘us’ versus ‘them’” that are often seen in service industries.

The resident and staff team, with the help class facilitators, learned to problem solve together and jointly come up with solutions to very real resident complaints. The result has been a combined resident and staff effort to combat the noisy closing of hampers at night when residents are trying to sleep. After one week of their efforts to spread the word about hamper slamming at night, both John and Joe agree that there has been a substantial decrease in the noise attributed to the closing of hampers. It is results like these, which help improve the quality of residents’ lives that the Compassionate Caring program strives for.

Finding a Spontaneous Moment

Earlier this week I was helping with the layout and adding photos into a PowerPoint presentation to be used for basic staff education about what Luana is and the Ten Eden Principles. I was having a difficult time finding photos that helped illustrate Principles Four, Five and Six, which state:

• Principle 4: A Resident-centered community creates opportunity to give as well as receive care. This is the antidote to helplessness.
• Principle 5: A Resident-centered community imbues daily life with variety and spontaneity by creating an environment in which unexpected and unpredictable interactions and happenings can take place. This is the antidote to boredom.
• Principle 6: Meaningless activity corrodes the human spirit. The opportunity to do things that we find meaningful is essential to human health.

I found that as one of the primary picture takers for Hale Makua Health Services, I really haven’t taken any photos of spontaneous moments. The photos I take are mostly of planned activities and events. In order to capture more of these spontaneous moments in photos, I would need to be constantly patrolling the neighborhoods with a camera in hand, something my other job responsibilities don’t really allow.

However, today I witnessed one of these unexpected interactions where one resident had the opportunity to give care. It actually happened to me as I was carrying a box with 70+ canvas tote bags to a craft fair in our Aloha Café. A resident seeing me struggling under the weight of the box, offered to help me by carrying the box on his lap while I wheeled him to my destination. This resident didn’t need to help me, he could have just watched me pass by, but it truly felt wonderful that someone who uses a wheelchair took the time out of his day to make my life a little easier.

The Joy of Music & Dance

Our Activities Departments strive to provide meaningful activities and interactions for residents, and to create an environment that may stimulate variety and spontaneity for unexpected and unpredictable happenings. With such a culturally diverse group of residents, our Activities teams try to engage each resident with an activity that interests them. For many residents with dementia, sensory stimulation is an important part of their lives. With this in mind, the residents at our Wailuku community enjoyed African drumming and belly dancing with the purpose of entertain residents and providing visual and audio stimulation. Entertainment is a diversion that we all need and enjoy. Many of the Wailuku community's residents have dementia and have a difficult time following a plot or understanding details and making sense of the world, seeing and hearing various auditory and visual stimuli have positive effects since it does n ot require undivided attention, logical reasoning, and piecing t ogether a storyline. We are very fortunate to have musicians and dancers who generously donat e their time to share their music and dance with t he residents, such as Belly Dancing, African Drumming,

and Bon Odori (Bon Dance).

Why start a blog about our Luana journey?

The idea to start a blog came about at last week's Luana Core Team meeting as a way to keep other people informed about Hale Makua Health Services Luana' journey, our challenges and goals as a Core Team, sharing of neighborhood best practices, a forum to share thoughts and ideas, etc. We also thought that this would be a great way to keep track of our journey, replacing the scrapbook that we kept leading up to becoming an Eden registered home. With this blog we have the ability to share with staff, residents, their families, other organizations, and the public what we're doing on our Luana Journey, something we could never do with just one scrapbook. Having a blog will also allow us to give more real time updates to readers, and is much more environmentally friendly. I'm doing a little catch-up to get us up-to-date on Luana related ideas and activities from September 2009 until now, so please bear with me as I blog our way into the present.

Ice Cream Carts

This past summer two ice cream carts were donated by an anonymous donor to Hale Makua Kahului for use on the Ilima and Pikake Neighborhoods. In an effort to help residents relive their childhood years of having an ice cream wagon driving around their neighborhood in the afternoon, residents and staff decorated these carts to resemble sidewalk ice cream carts complete with an umbrella and ice cream truck music. Snacks and root beer floats are offered to residents as they are pushed through the hallways. Currently staff are having trouble keeping up with demand.