When Life Comes Full Circle
Our March Newsletter
Before I did anything else in my life, I was a musician and singer. From age 14, I was playing in clubs underage! When I started my career in healthcare, I also played full time at night. When I got tired of nightclubs and casinos, I started singing in senior living. That changed my life and my mission. My next corporate job in NYC helped me combine my talents in health care and music. And now with the launch of our Senior Entertainment Network, life has come full circle again.
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Entertainment Network Update
We continue to create great momentum. Check out two of the artists we have added to the roster below. And we have a new name and website.
Andrea Miller
“A brilliant young singer” – Al Jarreau
Andrea Miller's voice has been described as soulful, sensual, hypnotic and endearing. In 2020 she became a Top 5 Finalist in the International Sarah Vaughan Jazz Vocal Competition. Influenced by Nancy Wilson, Sarah Vaughan and Stevie Wonder, Andrea is currently heating up the international jazz scene and radio stations. She has performed with Al Jarreau by the way.
Acute Inflections
“A velvety mix of Erykah Badu & Billie Holiday paired with the cool grooves of her 007 on bass” is how one reviewer described Acute Inflections, New York’s sultry duo led by a former Broadway singer. They have appeared onstage with Jennifer Hudson and Keith Urban.
Our immediate plan is to start scheduling week-long series of live streams. Would you be interested? Let me know by replying to the email.
Vaccine Reluctance - Try Music
My friend Grace Meadows, founder of Music for Dementia UK, has come up with a “brilliant idea.” Vaccinations are on all our minds, potentially causing a degree of agitation for many. With their new guide, you can find out how music can be used to help alleviate COVID-19 jab anxiety for people living with dementia and others.
‘A dose of music with your COVID-19 vaccination’ explains how music can be used to manage the physiological symptoms and psychological response to vaccinations among people with dementia.
Perspective on Why Nursing Home Workers Skipping Vaccine
Health authorities across the country have reported widespread vaccine hesitancy among nursing home staff. Uptake among residents is high. But a national survey of certified nursing assistants late last year found that nearly 72 percent didn’t want to be vaccinated. The governor of Ohio reported in late December that around 60 percent of his state’s nursing home staffers had elected not to take the vaccine yet. Last month, a union representing nursing home staff in Maryland and D.C. estimated that up to 80 percent of its members opted not to be vaccinated in the first push at their facilities. One Miami health system found that only half its employees wanted to get vaccinated immediately; about 15 percent said they were not interested in getting vaccinated at all.
Those statistics are much less surprising when you consider who works in nursing homes.
Here is the Other Side of the Coin
West Virginia has emerged as one of the first states to finish giving two doses of vaccines to the thousands of people inside its nursing homes, so Good Shepherd, a 192-bed Catholic home in Wheeling, was among the first facilities in the country to begin tiptoeing back toward normalcy this past week.
Technology Must Be Treated As “Vaccines” Against Loneliness
Although news of COVID-19 and the elderly often focuses on deaths at a particular care facility, it seldom addresses the residents’ lives. The byproduct of that invisible status has been devastating, yet tech represents a ray of hope for a lasting remedy.
Caregiver Smile Summit -
Purchase all three Summits for $49.
Use them as a substitute for your Caregiver Conference just as Rural Resources Community Living Connections in Pullman, Washington is doing this year.
Investment in Video Tech Quadruples
Three-fourths of senior living and care providers invested in video conferencing capabilities for residents last year, quadrupling the percentage of providers who did so just two years earlier, according to a new Ziegler CFO Hotline survey conducted in partnership with the LeadingAge Center for Aging Services Technologies. Survey results also suggested that spending for telehealth and telemedicine technologies also doubled from investments made two years ago.
Re-imaging Senior Living Activities
This is an excerpt from a letter to Steve Moran of Senior Living Foresight from a senior living resident.
This covid nightmare has senior communities posting Facebook photos of residents playing hallway bingo, costumed employees, happy hour carts, even shooting employees with nerf balls!!
Come on! No one ever ever ever does these stupid things in their homes! I have friends and relatives in their 80s-90s and these posts and dumb activities advertised as senior living are disrespectful!
It makes a mockery of growing older! To age means endless bingo — and one place has assisted living residents not memory care pretending to ice fish with kids plastic fishing poles over a plastic tarp of plastic fish!
This makes my head explode!!
These places run Facebook ads of seniors having oil painting shows, but day-to-day their activities calendar is bingo, endless trivia, and balloon toss!
Thanks for listening.
We are trying to change the nature of activities with our Senior Entertainment Network. Read another perspective in Senior Living Foresight.
Meet Some of Our Partner Companies
Sponsor This Newsletter - Contact Me by Replying to this email.
117-Year-Old Survives COVID-19, Celebrates Birthday with Champagne, Port, and Plenty of Red Wine
The Worries of Non-Vaccinated Caregivers
Tens of thousands of middle-aged sons and daughters caring for older relatives with serious ailments but too young to qualify for a vaccine themselves are terrified of becoming ill and wondering when they can get protected against the coronavirus.
In the Media
Sixty and Me Article on Smart Technologies.
US News and World Report - Importance of Curated Resources
Copyright, 2021, The Aging Experience
