Episode Description
Jane Woloson, Executive Director at Aberdeen Ridge (and dementia practitioner and dementia practitioner trainer), joined us to share her insights and experience caring for people with memory loss and dementia. Her stories, techniques to help people help themselves, and authentic passion for empowering people will go straight to your heart. And, with a topic that can be difficult, the undercurrent of this conversation is joy, hope and connection.
“I think about a conversation with a daughter whose mother really needed to be in a memory care setting and be more engaged and have more activity during the day and she said, “My mom doesn’t even remember what she was doing.” And my response to her was, but at that moment, she was having the time of her life. And why would you deny her that moment?”
JANE WOLOSON
Resources Mentioned in this Episode
Wish of a Lifetime: https://wishofalifetime.org/
Walk to End Alzheimer’s: https://act.alz.org/
Transcript
Patrick:
Hello, welcome. I’m Pat Going.
Amy:
And I’m Amy Going Haworth.
Patrick:
And this is a podcast about aging from the perspectives of two generations. This podcast tackles what we’re talking about as it relates to living life well.
Amy:
And it seeks to bring the conversations we’re having as parent and child into the open so that we can all learn together. Today, we are so excited to have with us Jane Woloson, who’s the Executive Director at Aberdeen Ridge, which is a life plan community that includes independent living, assisted living, and memory care options for one of the greatest chapters in life. And she has so much experience. serving a specific population of people. We’re here to talk about some of the things that she’s seen in terms of what people are talking about with her and thinking about as she plans this community and also a passion project of hers that we really can’t wait to dig into more. So hi Jane, welcome it’s so great to have you.
Jane:
Hi, thank you.
Amy:
Go ahead.
Jane:
I’ll let you ask the questions. Otherwise I might ramble. So, thank you.
Amy:
You are welcome to ramble. We welcome it. Just to start, Jane, I gave us just a little bit of brief description about your role, but we’d love to know a little bit more from your perspective, a bit about what your day-to-day is like and some of the experiences that led you to this place in your career.
Jane:
Well, I actually came out of the hospitality industry. My undergraduate degree was in Hotel Administration. And back when Senior Living communities were opening, there was a great parallel. They were pulling people out of managing hotels to open Senior Living communities. We’re still managing food and beverage and housekeeping and maintenance and transportation and concierge services, just adding that healthcare component. And that was hard to believe in 1992. So I’ve been doing this for over, I can’t even believe I can say it out loud, 30 years. And that hospitality model was very strong until around 2008 when the real estate crisis hit and people weren’t able to sell their home for what they thought they were going to get. And they stayed in their homes longer until something was more imperative, forcing a move into this supportive living atmosphere. So things shifted to become more clinical. But I think nowadays, you really have to have both strong hospitality and clinical to be successful in this business.
I have the honor and the opportunity to start a community from scratch. It’s an experience that you can’t even describe because you get to pick out the carpet and the silver and the china and the systems that we use and the different policies and procedures and handpick every single staff member. One of my personal goals of selecting a staff member is during the interview process. If they talk to me about taking care of a family member or their favorite resident, then I know that they have the passion to work in this industry. You can train any task, but you can’t train that passion. So over the years, I’ve been able to do that.
I did get an MBA in healthcare administration. I am a certified Dementia Practitioner and a certified Dementia Practitioner in training. So I do have a passion in that type of lifestyle. And over the years I’ve really come to understand that the research is there and implementing those details really does have an impact and make a huge difference in someone’s quality of life. I think about a conversation with a daughter whose mother really needed to be in a memory care setting and be more engaged and have more activity during the day and she said, “My mom doesn’t even remember what she was doing.” And my response to her was, but at that moment, she was having the time of her life. And why would you deny her that moment?
So some of the things that I get to implement, which is so exciting and starting a new building are things that enhance the life in memory care. And some of those things are serving meals on red plates. This enhances someone’s appetite. And it also gives more dimension on the plate. When someone’s memory becomes impaired, they also lose some of their depth perception. So our toilet seats will be colored. So they have a much better chance of hitting the target there.
In a lot of cases, we won’t put up a mirror in the bathroom because it causes stress when someone thinks that there’s someone else in the bathroom with them. They don’t recognize themselves. We serve beverages in clear glasses so they can actually see the liquid. And it just seems to help people help themselves, which is important.
Before every meal, because often times people resort to finger food, our regular system will be to pass out moist, warm towels. So before meal time, everyone’s gonna wash their hands. So if they are moving to finger food, we know it’s gonna be a clean process. And it might be something that they remember from getting a manicure. to wash their hands, or maybe they got to ride in first class, and so they remember washing their hands before eating. But I think that the thought of having dignified dining is important. And everyone sitting at the table should have the same meal. And if they are in finger food, one of my rules is you can put anything in a pita and they can pick it up. And we’ll even have different types of menus. Some of the menus will have words and some of them will have photos of those meal items. So again, we’re helping them. We’re supporting them to help themselves.
Other areas I try to help families with, would be an example of witnessing a daughter being all frustrated because mom can’t remember. She’s like, mom, of course, don’t you remember? Don’t you remember? So I’ve done things like created photo albums and if I know daughter is coming to visit mom, I can open the photo album and show a picture of the daughter. So it kind of preempts the visit and often time mom knows this photo and then can kind of put it together.
But I’ve also seen that totally backfire. And here’s how this backfire turned into a positive. So in the photo album. Mom didn’t remember who daughter was, but instead we looked at some of the other photos and there was a photo of the daughter as a little girl. And she remembered that that was her daughter. So instead of the daughter being all stressed out that mom didn’t remember her, mom started talking about all these stories of her as a little girl that she never knew about. And so it gave her this incredible feeling of how much her mom loved her and all these great things that they did together that the daughter didn’t remember. So it added to her life.
And then another story kind of with the same gist to it, it’s what I call creating those moments of joy and embracing those little moments, was a resident named Joe. He’d been married for 60 years to his high school sweetheart. And his wife was severely memory impaired. So he thought if they drove up to the place where they always used to go necking, that might bring back a memory. And so there they were side by side in the car and he leaned over and… started to caress her cheek and go in for the kiss, and she jumped back. And she said, “Oh no, my heart belongs to Joe.” I know he could have been all upset that she didn’t remember who he was, but he had comfort in knowing that she was still in love with Joe. So those are the things that we have to open our minds to. And and appreciate when we have those little moments of joy.
Amy:
Oh, I love these stories.
Patrick:
I think we’re gonna have the tears again on this episode,
Amy:
Every episode, it wouldn’t be aGoing Older podcast without it.
Amy:
Jane, I just think that those moments of joy that is so fascinating over the years, how you’ve innovated in such creative, experimental ways. Every person I would imagine has – it’s almost like a key. What’s going to be that key to unlock that connection with whatever piece of the memories is there. And as you were talking, it just strikes me that it’s in order to maintain this sense of connectedness for them and for their family members or loved ones. And just it almost feels like you’re sort of a connection ambassador in some ways to keep that important in residents with dementia and their often sense of isolation or loneliness. Is that something that’s kind of top of mind for you? And I really don’t know all that much about dementia. So in some ways, I’m just hoping you can educate me a little bit about what their experience is like and what you monitor and focus on for them.
Jane:
I think often times you’re right. People will self-isolate because they know there’s something wrong. Some people have the social graces to kind of fake it for a long time. Maybe they don’t see as well or they can’t hear as well and they can’t track a conversation. But I try to keep things purposeful. So every day we make our snack. And if people are feeling and smelling and tasting whatever we created, they have that sense of accomplishment and purpose. And maybe they aren’t the ones stirring or shaking a jar to make homemade butter, but all of those senses bring back memories too.
Amy:
Yeah.
Jane:
And smell gets incorporated with some of these memories. If we’re making brownies or chocolate chip cookies, people smell the food baking and it gives them a sense of comfort. Same with different aromatherapies. Different scents create different outcomes or feelings, whether it’s calm or energy. One thing that we always have in a Memory Care area is a quiet room in case someone is over sensitized. But the other amazing thing, thinking back to memory, is music. Someone may not remember what they had for breakfast, but they remember the words to a song that they knew as a teenager. And to me, that’s always fascinating. That’s the last part of our memory to go.
Amy:
Do you think there are some signs that people might wanna be aware of when dementia’s on the horizon?
Jane:
It can be hard, and I think it’s always important to get a healthcare professional involved. Some things are just regular outcomes of aging, and sometimes it means more than that. A true story with my grandmother is they thought that she had Alzheimer’s. But really she had a brain cancer. And she was on so many medications that it made her act crazy. And once that was all straightened out, she kind of became my grandmother again for a while. But she was on a walker by day, and at night she could climb in other people’s windows.
So to kind of peel back the onion and start from scratch again, I think there’s too much poly-pharmacy in the world and different doctors prescribing different things – maybe the same thing with a different name. So it’s important again in a senior setting to use a designated pharmacy so that we can prevent that from happening. The other thing that I always do when there is a dementia diagnosis is get speech therapy involved. Because speech therapy can really help with coping skills. Maybe it’s learning a routine, or maybe it’s putting a hookup by the door to put your keys on. So you don’t have to worry about always losing your keys, because you have a system. It could be as easy as having a big calendar on the wall and crossing it off at the end of the day because now you know what the next day is.
Amy:
I love that idea of routine and even how do we make it easy for ourselves at any age? Habits, systems, but hearing especially that sense of accomplishment and preserving that – it sounds like is such a part of healthy aging no matter what’s going on. Would you agree with that?
Jane:
I definitely agree with that. And in our setting, it’s really important to understand the resident and where they came from and their background. A couple examples would be: I had a resident that was a retired attorney. And thank goodness I knew that because he came rushing into my office all dressed up in his suit coat with his briefcase. And he’s like, I don’t know if I filed the brief. Like he was remembering a stressful time in his life. And so I could easily say, I spoke with the judge, and everything is in order. You filed it on time, and we’re good to go.
And almost an exact same story was a retired flight attendant, although they called them a sky hostesses back then. She was all dressed up with her bow tie and came to the front desk. And she said, I don’t think I can make it to the airport in time. And we just said that. We got a call from the flight service station. All flights are grounded today. And you just saw all that stress drop from her face. So you have to kind of know the story to go with the story a little bit. A resident that was completely frightened of taking a shower come to find out she was an Auschwitz survivor. So she thought she was going into the showers where she would never return.
Amy:
Wow, powerful and just the magic of being able to know the story. Go with the story and how being able to partner and support the resident as the situation actually impacts the stress that in the moment is the truth to them. And so knowing what to do to help. Those are powerful and great examples.
Patrick:
This is a little bit off the dialogue we’ve been having here, but while we have Jane, I would be interested to know her involvement with the Alzheimer’s Foundation and some of the fundraising events that we have coming up in our area that I’m looking forward to. And by the way, what we don’t sell in our garage sales is going to the yard sale. And so we’ll certainly have many items to contribute.
And then also, I already forgot the name of the senior program like Make-A-Wish for kids. Oh right – Wish of a Lifetime. And you were saying that there actually is a website for that also. So I’d be interested in if you could just touch on those two things.
Jane:
Sure will. I’ve been involved with the Alzheimer’s Association, in particular the Walk in whatever city I’m living in. My daughter was six weeks old, our first Walk in the in the buggy, and she’s turning 25 next week. But… All the money raised in the Alzheimer’s Walk goes towards research. And that research is so important. There is not a cure, although there is medication that’s been approved by the FDA just recently that is known to increase memory by 30%. But it hasn’t been approved by the FDA. Medicare or Medicaid. So we are working on that. But in Colorado Springs, we have a Walk scheduled on September 30th. And prior to that, some of our fundraiser events coming up are just a huge, huge Yard Sale, where anything that’s donated and sold – that money will go directly to the Walk and research. And then, you don’t even know about this yet, Pat, is there is a baseball game scheduled on June 21st, which is, it’s the longest day. And that’s the day that we fight against the darkness of Alzheimer’s. So the Rocky Mountain Vibes are gonna donate $5 for every ticket that they sell to the game that day on June 21st. Tickets are only $11. And Colorado Springs is deemed June National Dementia and Brain Health Month. So it all kind of goes together there.
But then shifting a little bit, one of my other great joys is working with a foundation called Wish of a Lifetime. We’ve all heard of Make-A-Wish, which grants wishes to terminally ill children, but this is a Foundation that grants wishes to senior citizens. One special moment occurred when I was talking to a resident years ago who was talking about a time in her life – and she was still talking about it – that she had always wanted to be a Girl Scout. But her family couldn’t afford the uniform. And I thought, oh my gosh, I’m going to try to make her a Girl Scout. So I reached out to a local troop and they made her an honorary member, and she sold Girl Scout cookies! I just felt like I helped to fulfill something that had been kind of haunting her all her life.
So then later, I moonlight as a ski racing coach. So during the week, I’m supporting senior citizens. On the weekends, I’m supporting junior athletes and kind of combining my two worlds. This Wish of a Lifetime was was founded by Jeremy Bloom. Anyone in the ski world may remember he was a World Cup mogul champion who also played college football and actually played in the NFL as well. He was very close to his grandmother and he started this Foundation that granted wishes to senior citizens. So another day a resident came into my office – I love my resident time – and confided in me. She said, you know, years ago, I had been asked to try out to be a Rockette. And she said, I didn’t tell anyone. And I didn’t want to tarnish my family’s reputation because good girls didn’t dance on stage. But she said, I always wondered what my life would have been like if I had taken that path. Well, I knew the Rockettes were in town. This was when I was in Chicago. So I went online to Wish of a Lifetime and I’m like, I’ve got a wish. We have to grant this wish. And sure enough, they jumped right on it. They sent a white stretch limousine. She got to invite one other person to go with her. They drove her to downtown Chicago. They were in the front row of the performance. They got to go backstage where all the dancers were getting ready. And for the grand finale, they suited her up, and she was in the back row.
Amy:
Oh my gosh, that’s phenomenal.
Jane:
It wasn’t a ton of money. And to grant a wish like that, when someone just had this wonder or regret in life, is just so fun and crazy. And I’m looking now at the photos on my office wall. Do you see the picture of me and the guy with the Avalanche shirt? So I had another resident who, he’s Canadian, and he became kind of estranged from his daughter. He got really sick. He had a leg amputated. Yes, and he knew every statistic about every NHL hockey player. He said his mom used to flood the backyard so that they could ice skate all winter long. And he was just going through a tough time. So I thought, oh, maybe we could get a wish granted for him. And the Avalanche came through, they gave us a box seat at the game. They had a jersey made with his name on it. And then there were five former Avalanche players that came and sat with us.
Amy:
Wow.
Jane:
And he kept looking at me. He’s like, why me? And I’m like, why not you? You know, to give this guy that had gone through a huge struggle the last year, this this wish was. So much fun, but I mean I have I have others too and they’re all equally as as amazing
Amy:
What a beautiful organization and just so neat that you’re plugged in and part of that because it almost feels like it gives life to life. You know, it’s just it breathes in this sense of vitality, stepping into these things that just make people innately who they were made to be. And they just get a chance to express that in its fullest way. Dad, I’m curious if you could have one wish.
Patrick:
Oh, I knew you were going to do this. What would my wish be?
Amy:
Yeah!
Patrick:
It’s not become a basketball player. I can say that. I’m vertically challenged. Well, just real quick, I had a pretty successful high school football career in California and at that time you didn’t need to be 6’2 and 210 pounds. I grew up in the Bay Area and there were quite a few Japanese American families and they were very good athletes and typically not overly tall and our football teams were phenomenal because we were so fast and skilled. I hate to even bring this up, but if you can get me on the field when the Broncos kick off I could be the guy that picks up the ball tee! Yeah, I’d like that.
Jane:
Well, I have another story of a gentleman who retired as a banker. He had in his youth played professional soccer. And actually he played on a team in Singapore, which is pretty crazy too. So it wasn’t necessarily, well, it wasn’t a wish, but we went to the Rapids game and it wasn’t a backfire, I would say, but he became so worried that he was gonna have to run out on the field. But they announced him; they put his name up in lights; kids came up all over the place wanting his autograph. So there was joy out of that moment. And how funny that he identified himself as a professional soccer player, not his real financial career as a banker.
Patrick:
You have to be ‘fast on your feet’ in figuring out how to make these situations turn out okay.
Jane:
Right, right. But I could see the joy in his face watching the soccer games on TV. And I’m like, this means enough to him that we need to make this happen.
Amy:
I love that. Well, I’m so appreciative of you, Jane. I don’t know if you’ve picked up on it or it’s ever been reflected back to you, but joy and gratitude have been the theme of these podcasts. It gives me joy to know that people like you are in these places because you’re paying attention to joy. You’re bringing it into spaces for people. That gives me joy. And so whether it’s talking about dementia and finding moments of joy and connection to the Wish of a Lifetime experiences and what will bring joy to people. You help them to think about the vividness of their lives and things they may not have gotten to do or just opportunities to celebrate. I just think it’s so fun to hear how you’re showing up in the world and… offering the gifts and skills that you have to continue to weave that thread into the day-to-day for people. So I’m so appreciative of you being here.
We always like to end with gratitude for our podcasts. And so I will turn it to you. What is one thing that you’re grateful for today?
Patrick:
I’ll go first so we don’t put the pressure on Jane right away. And this is on a lighter note, but we had a podcast a while ago about decluttering and downsizing. And I have such gratitude that your Mother and I have made such progress accomplishing this by just two, three hours a day. It does feel cleansing. And we have not thrown away all of your stuff. Hahaha
Amy:
Joy all the way around on that note. What about you, Jane?
Jane:
Lots of gratitude – for being with people and creating a sense of community. And I guess it’s an honor in that they’re willing to share a part of their life with me. I love hearing people’s stories. Actually, this is a pretty cool story. Knowing their stories can make great connections. Like Pat running into someone that he knew from high school in California and then here in Colorado. So I had a retired physician that was living in a community. I was out in Boulder, Colorado, and he was a prisoner of war on an island off of China. And during that time, he kept a journal. And he tried to help as many people as he could, but he buried that journal because he didn’t want anyone to find it. But two really cool things happened here in Boulder Colorado. Another resident who heard this story said he was on the ship that rescued these POWs! Here they were reunited. Then one of my greatest honors was this retired doctor went back with his family and dug up the journal. And his children let me read it.
Amy:
Wow.
Jane:
I mean, I was just blown away by that honor in reading the stories. Oh my goodness.
Amy:
That is incredible. What a cool position you have to get the receiver and keeper of the stories, lifetimes of stories. How fascinating.
Patrick:
When is your book coming out, Jane?
Jane:
Oh, I could write a book. Behind the doors, perhaps. A lot of great stories.
Patrick:
Well, how about you, Amy?
Amy:
Oh yeah, me. Well I’m excited that or I’m grateful that I made it to this Thursday. There’s a lot of juggling of different commitments going on, but I made it back just in time to be here with both of you today and for that I am truly grateful because I did not want to miss this chance. It’s been a little while since we’ve done a podcast, Dad, and I’ve missed it. And so, Jane, we’re also just so honored that you had time for us today. And I’m just grateful that it all worked out to have this conversation.
Patrick:
Well, until next time.
Amy:
All right, keep living life, keep gathering stories is what I’m taking away and keep bringing joy.
Amy:
This is a podcast about aging. It’s actually a podcast about living. So get out there and live life well. We’ll talk to you next time.