Sense of Community
The Power of Presence
Clip | 1m 58sVideo has Closed Captions
COVID isolation impacted personal connection's role in health and happiness
Dementia care specialist Mark Applegate recounts how COVID-era isolation affected his mother while she was receiving hospice care in a nursing home, and how personal connection can be transformative to our health and happiness.
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Sense of Community is a local public television program presented by OPT
Sense of Community
The Power of Presence
Clip | 1m 58sVideo has Closed Captions
Dementia care specialist Mark Applegate recounts how COVID-era isolation affected his mother while she was receiving hospice care in a nursing home, and how personal connection can be transformative to our health and happiness.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
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NARRATOR: Mark Applegate is a dementia care specialist for senior age in Springfield.
He was also a caregiver for his mom for years.
MARK APPLEGATE: In 2021, Mom was on hospice care again and COVID was happening pretty hard.
They called us in one day and the nursing home and said, it looks like your mom's going to pass away this weekend.
She had some seizures and she's really struggling.
We'd been doing window visits for six months at this point.
They didn't let people in the building at nursing homes.
They said, in this circumstance, we'll go ahead and let you-- we set aside a room and we used a lot of Germ-X on the room and stuff to make sure it's safe for you to come in.
You can spend the last time until she passes away with her.
Me and my siblings went there and hung out with her.
We expected this to be our last weekend with her.
We played the old songs on our phone, laughed, and talked.
And she was awake.
She wasn't in a coma, but she was just doing poorly.
Six, eight, 10 hours passed.
They said, well, you spend the night here.
It's fine.
They gave us a roll-out bed.
We slept on the bed and visiting and talking.
And day two is here.
And they're still coming by like, she seems to be not passing away, right now she's not.
They sent us home on day three and said we're sorry.
And we're glad to be able to let you spend time with her, but we have to send you out again because of COVID.
And she lived another two years.
One thing you can learn from that story is she was probably dying partially because of isolation, because she had only seen us through the window for-- after seeing us every single day for years, isolation was legitimately killing her, not just theoretically.
She was wearing out.
But it also shows the power of being able to love on them and to share those stories and share life and stuff.
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Sense of Community is a local public television program presented by OPT