Gift dollars have helped VNA & Hospice
make over 75,000 home visits each year to patients like:
Claire was a strong-willed 90-year-old King City
woman. Claire had been on VNA hospice but improved after
6 months, with the encouragement of her husband to live.
Claire had severe cardiac problems so she continued VNA
care under homecare. Unfortunately, her husband died
suddenly and Claire found herself deteriorating quickly.
Claire went back on hospice and the nursing team managed
pain control, wound care and symptoms so she could die
peacefully.
Maria and Manuel have lived, worked and raised a
family in the Salinas Valley for 65 years. Retired from
the fields, Manuel has developed Alzheimer’s and their
children have all grown and moved away. Manuel wanders
and Maria always has to have an eye on him, as he will
suddenly walk out the nearest door and out into the
street. Maria struggled alone for many years until she
learned of VNA’s Salinas Adult Day Center. Now, Maria
drops Manuel off in the morning, twice a week, and goes
off to do the grocery shopping and meet with some of her
old friends while Manuel socializes and plays games with
others at the Center. Maria says it has meant so much to
her to have Manuel safe and happy again. She didn’t want
to loose him physically as well as mentally to an
institution. She said she thought she would never have a
normal life again. But now, Manuel is walking better
from the exercise class, he is less irritable, and he
sleeps all night again, in his own bed.
Frank will be 94 next month – and all he wants is to
stay at home on “spaghetti hill” in Monterey, where he
can care for his wife Angie who is blind and suffers
from dementia. When he learned he needed a heart bypass,
he wondered how he could continue to care for her and
what would happen if he couldn’t. The non-profit VNA had
the answer – telehomecare. By placing a small unit in
the kitchen, VNA is now able to check frequently on
Frank’s health. With the VNA nurse in her office and
Frank in his kitchen, they can see and hear each other.
A VNA nurse still comes to the home once a week and on
other days, Frank uses the unit to check all of his
vital signs again – weight, blood pressure, blood oxygen
and heart sounds – and the results are transmitted to
the VNA office. VNA sends the test results to the
doctor’s office and discusses any changes that seem
appropriate. The camera on the home unit allows Frank to
show the VNA nurse the label on a new prescription, for
example, or a wound that may be concerning him. Frank
says the best part of telehomecare is that it “gives me
an incentive to help myself. A doctor’s appointment can
be one or two months apart, and a lot of things could
happen. I know this is keeping Angie and me together and
out of the hospital.”
David was struggling with Helen’s dementia. She
seemed depressed all the time and wasn’t eating
correctly. When the doctor recommended that he look into
the Salinas Adult Day Center, he felt defeated and
guilty. The first day he brought Helen in, he was
surprised to see all the other clients talking and
playing chair-volleyball with a beach ball. He told me
later, “What a lively group they all were!” Helen
attended the Day Center for two years before her death.
David says they were the happiest two years of her life.
She loved going down to see her “ladies” and would often
ask David to drive down on weekends to peek into the
window to make sure the Center truly was closed.
(Names have been changed to protect our patients'
privacy)
Tel: 831-372-6668
Claire was a strong-willed 90-year-old King City
woman. Claire had been on VNA hospice but improved after
6 months, with the encouragement of her husband to live.
Claire had severe cardiac problems so she continued VNA
care under homecare. Unfortunately, her husband died
suddenly and Claire found herself deteriorating quickly.
Claire went back on hospice and the nursing team managed
pain control, wound care and symptoms so she could die
peacefully.
Frank will be 94 next month – and all he wants is to
stay at home on “spaghetti hill” in Monterey, where he
can care for his wife Angie who is blind and suffers
from dementia. When he learned he needed a heart bypass,
he wondered how he could continue to care for her and
what would happen if he couldn’t. The non-profit VNA had
the answer – telehomecare. By placing a small unit in
the kitchen, VNA is now able to check frequently on
Frank’s health. With the VNA nurse in her office and
Frank in his kitchen, they can see and hear each other.
A VNA nurse still comes to the home once a week and on
other days, Frank uses the unit to check all of his
vital signs again – weight, blood pressure, blood oxygen
and heart sounds – and the results are transmitted to
the VNA office. VNA sends the test results to the
doctor’s office and discusses any changes that seem
appropriate. The camera on the home unit allows Frank to
show the VNA nurse the label on a new prescription, for
example, or a wound that may be concerning him. Frank
says the best part of telehomecare is that it “gives me
an incentive to help myself. A doctor’s appointment can
be one or two months apart, and a lot of things could
happen. I know this is keeping Angie and me together and
out of the hospital.”