Making it OK to Sleep Late

© September 14, 2010 by Imelda Maurer, cdp

My sister and her husband have, for the last few years, enjoyed socializing at a neighborhood senior center. Their custom is to go once or twice a week. Not long ago during a telephone visit, I asked my sister if they enjoyed lunch at the center. “No,” she said, “they serve lunch at 11:30. We are late sleepers and when we get up and take our time in the mornings, we don’t usually make it in time for lunch.”

Nothing unusual in that remark. After many years of hard work, this retired couple can now manage their daily schedule according to their own likes. They share long evenings, get to bed late and like to sleep late in the morning. Fair enough. They deserve it!

In too many nursing homes, for those adults who have to live in one, there is a schedule: breakfast served at particular time as is lunch and dinner. That means that staff members are required to have the residents up and dressed in order to be “on time” for the institutionally scheduled breakfast time.

Lots of problems with this kind of living for years on end. It’s institutional. It’s NOT home. For elders with even minimal cognitive impairment, being awakened and helped with dressing and grooming before they are ready to do so may result in notes in that elder’s chart claiming there was “combative behavior” or that the resident “was uncooperative with a.m. care.” That’s a topic for another entry.

However, the good news in all this is that THE TIMES THEY ARE A CHANGIN’! Progressive nursing homes are “making it ok to sleep late.” An article in The Chicago Tribune highlights a nursing home which is making the move from institution to home.

Note the advantages that are evident: quality of life for the residents; enhanced employee satisfaction; lower costs for the provider.

“Nursing homes that embrace the new philosophy are letting residents decide when to bathe, eat and sleep; allowing them to organize their own activities; and redesigning nursing units into small "households."

Advocates say residents in such homes are happier and healthier; the employees have more job satisfaction; and giving care this way even costs less.”

The administrator is quoted as saying that she doesn’t even like to speak of “allowing” residents to sleep late. "It's not for us to give them that freedom," she said. "They should have it."

There is an important corollary to this story: consumers -- that’s US, the nursing home residents of the future -- must demand this kind of environment and person-centered living. The movement of transformative culture change in nursing homes is a fast-growing ripple. We advocates and consumers must change the ripples into waves!

GO, MAKE WAVES!

Click on the title of this post at the top of this page to be linked to the article from The Chicago Tribune. It is a short, enjoyable and informative piece