Decorating Our Eden Alternative Tree

Eden Alternative Tree is meant to symbolize each long term care communities' commitment to the Eden Alternative journey and the achievements we have made so far.

Wailuku residents finished decorating their tree last month. They chose to add ceramic plumeria blossoms to the tree, making it look like the trees at Hale Makua. The photo above shows residents Sarah Takatani and Dolly Villarimo carefully adding flowers to the tree.

Wailuku Activities Director, Thaedra Aiyana-Pascarella says “The Eden Tree symbolizes our Eden Alternative journey towards making our community home-like and increasing feelings of well-being of those who live and work here.” The tree is now proudly displayed in the Wailuku dining room.

This story illustrates Eden Alternative principle #8: “An Elder-centered community honors its Elders by de-emphasizing top-down bureaucratic authority, seeking instead to place the maximum possible decision-making authority into the hands of the Elders or into the hands of those closest to them.”

Changing Our Care Plans

The RAC and Activities teams have been working with carepartners and residents to make a change to Resident Care Plans. This change is intended to be a step on our Eden Alternative journey towards resident-centered care.

Starting soon, carepartners will see a new page in the Care Plan Binder. The binder is most often used by CNAs but will be available to everyone who works with a particular resident. Each resident will have a page that introduces them to the carepartners, including a photo, short biography, and a few preferences. The preferences may include favorite activities, favorite topics to talk about and preferences for care.

The sheets are intended to help carepartners, including both clinical and nonclinical staff, see the residents they work with as individuals and provide care for them according to the resident’s preferences.

In the future, the RAC Department hopes to add the new information to Care Tracker so that it will be the first thing carepartners see in a resident’s record. For now, the pages will be available in the Care Plan Binder on each neighborhood.

This change illustrates Eden Principle 7: “Medical treatment should be the servant of genuine human caring, never its master.” The new information sheets encourage carepartners to get to know the residents as human beings instead of just as patients to be treated.

Gardener Cultivates Our Human Habitat

Meet Tamotsu Tasaka. He greatly enjoyed raising orchids and vegetables in his garden at home. As he adjusted to living at Hale Makua, Mr. Tasaka found that he could continue being a gardener by taking care of the flowers in the East Neighborhood. His wife takes him to visit his garden at home, but he always wants to come back and take care of his garden at Hale Makua too.

Mr. Tasaka's gardening illustrate Eden Alternative Principle #2: “An Elder-centered community commits to creating a human habitat where life revolves around close and continuing contact with plants, animals, and children. It is these relationships that  provide the young and old alike with a pathway to a life worth living.” and Principle #4: “An Elder-centered community creates opportunity to give as well as receive care. This is the antidote to helplessness.”

Aftermath of Storm Flossie

Story and photo by Teresa Lopes.

This morning when I got to work I could hear the swishing of a palm tree against the concrete while walking from the Weinberg parking lot to the building entrance. I looked up ahead of me and saw John Kaauwai with a huge palm frond in his hands sweeping the entrance way. He was as busy as can be, and on a mission to clean up all the leaves and flowers that Tropical Depression Flossie left at the entrance. 

John said he was feeling real good this morning and he picked up the palm and swept the whole entrance way. He told me to find the housekeeper who normally sweeps outside and let her know he did it for her. Tori had come to work at 5:30am and saw all the leaves and flowers that she had to swept up after she finished cleaning the activity center. She was surprised when she went out a little after 7:00am and saw that the area was cleaned! When she saw the pictures that I took, her mystery was solved. Tori was so happy and appreciative of John's help. She said she was going to find John to thank him personally. Mahalo John!

This story illustrates several Eden Alternative Principles:

• Principle 4: An Elder-centered community creates opportunities to give as well as receive care. This is the antidote to helplessness. - John not only provided care for Toni by helping to cleanup after the storm so that she didn't need to, but also for other staff, residents and visitors who use the walkway.
• Principle 5: An Elder-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. - John just happened to see the palm frond and thought it would be good to use to sweep aside debris from the storm.
• Principle 6: Meaningless activity corrodes the human spirit. The opportunity to do things that we find meaningful is essential to human health. - John was feeling good this morning and wanted to help out by sweeping the building entrance.
• Principle 8: An Elder-centered community honors its Elders by de-emphasizing top-down bureaucratic authority, seeking instead to place the maximum possible decision-making authority into the hands of Elders or into the hands of those closest to them. - John chose to sweep aside the leaves and flowers himself without having to ask anyone if it was alright.

Professional Baseball Player Visits

Eri Yoshida, a pitcher for Na Koa Ikaika Maui baseball team, did an impromptu visit at Hale Makua Kahului on July 15 to present residents with a signed baseball and tickets to baseball games. While at Hale Makua Eri spent time talking with Shinobu Abe, who joyfully shared that her nephew is Washington Nationals catcher Kurt Suzuki.

This visit illustrates the Eden Alternative Principle 5: An Elder-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. 

Supporting Our High School Scholars

Each year Hale Makua residents make lei out of yarn or fabric for the Hawaii Community Foundation. The Foundation helps many people on Maui and one way they do that is offering scholarships for college students. The lei made by our residents are given to scholarship recipients at a ceremony honoring their achievements.

In the photo Joyce Falconer winds yarn for a lei. The work that residents do every year making lei illustrates the Eden Alternative Principles 4 “An Elder-centered community creates opportunity to give as well as receive care. This is the antidote to helplessness.” and 6 “Meaningless activity corrodes the human spirit. The opportunity to do things that we find meaningful is essential to human health.”

Blossoms for the Brave

On Friday May 24, Hale Makua staff members and volunteers traveled with 13 Long Term Care residents to the State of Hawaii building in Wailuku. They attended an event called Blossoms for the Brave to honor veterans. Kaunoa Senior Center organized the community to make 2,500 lei the morning of the event. Our residents brought plumeria flowers from Hale Makua’s Kahului campus and hands willing to work to the event. Two days later on Memorial Day, the lei were placed at the Makawao Veterans’ Cemetery.

This trip to Blossoms for the Brave illustrates Eden Principles #4: “An Elder-centered community creates opportunity to give as well as receive care. This is the antidote to helplessness” and #6 “Meaningless activity corrodes the human spirit. The opportunity

New Clothes, New Ideas

Residents at Hale Makua Kahului had a problem. Many residents love to go shopping with the care partners to buy clothes and other items. Until recently, after each shopping trip, new clothes were passed from the Activities staff to Environmental Services, and then to the Neighborhood Clerk. Residents brought the issue to staff, letting them know that it was taking too long to get new clothes back.

Kahului Activities Director Teresa Lopes went to her staff with the resident’s suggestions and found a way to make the process easier for residents. The Activities staff quickly agreed to help.

Now, when residents return from a shopping trip, care partners label their clothes and add them to the resident’s inventory immediately. Then the residents can take their clothes with them. The same process works for clothes that residents buy at craft fairs and the  bingo store.

In the photos, resident James Miller gives his new shirt to Bety Idica and watches as she labels it. James was the first resident to have his items labeled by the Activities staff. Teresa Lopes says that “residents are happy and it’s working so beautifully.”

This story illustrates Eden Principle #8 “An Elder-centered community honors its Elders by de-emphasizing top-down bureaucratic authority, seeking instead to place the maximum possible decision-making authority into the hands of the Elders or into the hands of those closest to them.” When residents brought up a problem, staff did not reply that it was someone else’s job, they found a solution that simplified the existing process.

Everybody Pitches In

 

National Nursing Home Week gave Hale Makua a chance to show off their teamwork skills with this year’s theme: “Everybody Pitches In.” Staff, volunteers, and residents all work together at Hale Makua as care partners. In Kahului, they demonstrated team spirit by dressing up in different colors each day of the week and by participating in activities.

The Kahului Activities team organized a Sports Day where staff and residents teamed up to compete in stacking cups, twirling streamers, and tossing rings onto Coke bottles. In the photo above, Day Health client Charles Kaeha rips pages from a magazine while his team members cheer him on. In the photos below, resident and professional Japanese karaoke singer Mitsonubu Kawahara sings “Yama”, and resident Winona Nunes sings “Hawaii Aloha” along with staff. These moments illustrate Eden Principle #4: “An Elder-centered community creates opportunity to give as well as receive care. This is the antidote to helplessness.”

 

National Nursing Home Week is celebrated in the month of May, and recognizes residents in long term and post-acute care settings, the dedicated staff who care for them, and the value of care planning where everyone "pitches in" for optimal outcomes. The observance is an opportunity to involve families, community members, youth, and others in a community-wide show of support and respect for these individuals and the staff who provide care or support services. 

This year’s theme was “Team Care: Everyone Pitches In!” Today’s skilled nursing care facilities (a.k.a. “nursing homes) encourage resident and family involvement in designing a personalized, resident-centered care plan: a program of medical, therapy, nutrition and social activities. Participation in care is the best way to ensure residents and families are satisfied with the quality of care that they receive.

Undersea Encounters

On Wednesday April 24, Hale Makua residents had the opportunity to visit the Maui Ocean Center. The Center is one of the most visited attractions in Hawaii and it showcases Hawaii’s unique marine life and culture. Accompanied by Kahului Activities staff and volunteers, residents saw fish, sharks and sea turtles during their tour. They were even able to touch some of the sea life in the outdoor tanks! In the photo, residents pose in front of an outdoor fountain. 

This story illustrates Eden Principle #5: “An Elder-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.”