Patient’s Age: 88-years-old
Patient’s Name: Sylvia
Admission Date: 08/10/20
Admitted From: Putnam Hospital
Discharge Date: TBD
Length of Stay: TBD
Reason for Stay: A fall caused by fainting at home
How did this patient hear about Cortlandt Healthcare? Putnam Hospital and Admissions
Details of Experience:
Sylvia Forsmith was just getting out of bed when she fainted and fell to the floor. She was on the floor for an hour and a half before her husband returned from the store and found her. She couldn’t call him herself because the phone was out of reach and she was helpless on the floor. When he found her, he called 911 immediately. An ambulance soon showed up and took Ms. Forsmith to Putnam Hospital Center.
While at the hospital, she was checked for injuries and got several X-Rays done to make sure she didn’t have any broken bones. What they did find was she had Congestive Heart Failure. When Sylvia found out she needed to go to rehab, she knew she didn’t want to go back to the place she was at before. She needed a place where people are kind and willing to help with whatever she needed. This was when she found out about Cortlandt Healthcare. Mrs. Forsmith thought it was so wonderful that our admissions team put in a lot of time reassuring her, saying Cortlandt was the right fit for her. From this moment on, Sylvia knew that we would be the ones to take good care of her to help her get the help she needed.
When Sylvia got to Cortlandt, she was greeted by our nursing staff and concierge to make sure she felt comfortable right away. During her first night with us, she started to feel anxious, but our night supervisor, Mon, helped her feel relaxed. Going forward, she didn’t have any problems because she knew she was in good hands. Sylvia shared, “Cortlandt Healthcare is so much better than the other rehab I was at before. Not a single person is negative here and all the CNAs are just friends that want to help you! They’re so reassuring and great!” She also thought Millie and Nicole were so compassionate and sweet and she loved to start her day out seeing them.
After Mrs. Forsmith was evaluated with our rehab team, she was assigned therapists for Physical and Occupational Therapy. This was when they created her short and long-term goals. These include facilitating independence with self-care tasks; increasing sitting balance during activities of daily living (ADLs); safely performing bed mobility tasks with the use of side rails to get in and out of bed; performing functional transfers and decreasing risk for falls; and regaining her prior level of functional abilities. Nancy and Cori were her therapists and Sylvia loved them! She thought they were so encouraging even when they weren’t in therapy. They wanted to keep her motivated to keep working towards her goals. At first, they worked on a lot of little things to help her hands. They did lots of arm exercises to get some of her upper body strength back. Once they had some upper extremity improvements, they moved to her lower extremity so she can gain strength back in her legs and be able to walk more independently. Sylvia worked really hard during her rehab sessions and noticed it got harder each time but she kept pushing and she can now walk up and down the hallway! She is now working on her transfers so she can become independent and go home to her husband.
Sylvia Forsmith is a retired New York City public school teacher. Her favorite grade to teach was 3rd grade. She retired in 1996 to her home in Carmel, New York where she and her husband of 55 years have lived together. After retirement, she enjoyed gardening and taking care of her many cats and dogs. During her free time here at Cortlandt, she enjoyed painting and doing other crafts with Luz, and she enjoyed her Urban Zen sessions.
If needed, Sylvia would return to Cortlandt Healthcare for rehab in a heartbeat and would highly recommend us to all her friends who need it. “Thank you Cortlandt Healthcare for an encouraging and supportive atmosphere.”