Patient Age: 77-years-old
Admission Date: 01/01/21
Admitted From: Packsack Valley Hospital
Discharge Date: 01/21/21
Discharged To: Home
Length of Stay: 21 days
Reason for Stay: Swelling in the legs

Details of Experience:
Joan is a 77-year-old woman who had a prior medical history of hypertension and chronic kidney disease. Joan came to our community on New Years’ 2021. She lives with her devoted husband and started having trouble walking in the days leading up to her hospitalization. She also noticed that her legs started to swell. Upon admission to the hospital, she was diagnosed with edema.

On her arrival to The Willows, Joan was greeted by the Concierge, Yehuda. She was introduced to the nursing team and was given a thorough evaluation. She was then evaluated by the therapy team. This includes speech, physical and occupational therapists.

The teams formulated their goals and plan of care for getting Joan back to her home and husband, as soon as possible. The physical therapy team was focused on getting Joan back to her independent level. Their biggest hurdle was the 14 steps that Joan had to enter her home. When she arrived, she wasn’t able to do any steps. Within a short period of time, she was doing them all with supervision.

The occupational therapy team worked on building up her upper body strength and ADL’s. When she arrived at The Willows she needed modified assistance to go to the bathroom and was dependent for lower body dressing. When she left she was supervision for everything. The Occupational Therapy team educated her on how to use adaptive equipment to help. When she left she was able to do steps with standby assist only. Her therapists said her biggest hardship was her chronic right shoulder pain. When she left her shoulder pain was virtually gone, through the use of modalities. She needed to get home as soon as possible because her husband was recently diagnosed with Parkinson’s.

Joan was visited daily by the concierge Yehuda. She always had nice words for everyone, and always had a smile on her face and was very thankful. She was always seen chatting with her lovely roommate who she now considers a friend.

Upon her discharge, Joan went back to her home and devoted husband. She is easily able to do her 14 stairs with supervision only. She will have an aide come by for a few hours a week to assist her and her husband.

We will miss her and wish her the best.