Richard Olsen, an environmental psychologist at NJIT, and his co-investigator, B. Lynn Hutchings, begin at each home with a top to bottom assessment, followed by the creation of a prioritized wish list of improvements.
Photo courtesy NJIT
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Deanna and Irwin Fellman are recipients of $650 worth of free home improvements through a grant from the Grotta Foundation designed to make care-giving for a family member with Alzheimer’s easier and safer.
Photo by Johanna Ginsberg
One of several grab bars installed by JVS to help Deanna Fellman, who is disabled with cerebral palsy, care for her husband Irwin, who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease.
Photo courtesy JVS
August 13, 2009
Irwin Fellman, 78, suffers from Alzheimer’s Disease and is confined to a wheelchair. A working accountant until his diagnosis three years ago, he now spends his days watching television and playing games on a computer, often with his wife, Deanna, 71.
She has cleared the dining room of their Livingston home and turned it into a makeshift bedroom for her husband. Like other older spouses, she now finds herself in the role as caregiver for her husband. Unlike others, she herself is disabled, with cerebral palsy. But, she said, she tries not to let that get in her way.
To make a difficult situation worse, just three years after Irwin was diagnosed, the cost associated with caring for him has nearly wiped out the couple’s savings. That means there is little in the Fellman budget for extras like repairs and upgrades to make their home environment easier and safer for both of them.
So Deanna was thrilled to find out that Lee Dagger, her caseworker at Jewish Family Service of MetroWest — an agency of United Jewish Communities of MetroWest NJ — had submitted an application for a program providing a home environmental assessment and modifications to make caregiving easier and safer for the couple.
The program is part of a one-year, $41,000 grant from the Grotta Fund for Senior Care to the New Jersey Institute of Technology. The grant enables Richard Olsen, director of health care and aging environments research at NJIT’s Center for Building Knowledge — part of the School of Architecture — to conduct a top-to-bottom home assessment and create a prioritized wish list for participating families.
To be eligible, families must be low-income, caring for someone who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, and have no plans to institutionalize their loved ones for at least six months.
The changes are implemented through a subcontractor arrangement with Jewish Vocational Service of MetroWest and Hope House, a Catholic Charities agency serving Morris County. The grant provides up to $650 worth of labor and materials per family. Changes can include adding alarms or gates to keep people with dementia out of danger, providing automatic lights and anti-scalding devices, and adding general safety tools like handrails.
Olsen, an environmental psychologist, spends much of his academic life examining just how much of an impact such small improvements can make. He has found that such changes can relieve caregivers’ stress and increase the safety of their patients with dementia. The changes make it easier for everyone to get around and increase people’s awareness of their environment, he said.
‘We can do it’
The grant, which ends at the end of September, has enabled Olsen and his co-investigator, B. Lynn Hutchings, a research architect in the Center for Building Knowledge, together with the agencies, to complete work in 16 homes across Essex, Morris, and Union counties. Work is in progress on five additional homes; three more are scheduled.
At the Fellman home, JVS installed grab bars on the garage door leading into the house, realigned the front door, added a ramp to the backdoor entrance, and even fixed a chandelier Deanna was concerned about and a doorbell that didn’t work properly. A bed frame was added to raise Irwin’s mattress off the floor.
Olsen would like to have done more.
“If we had the money, it would have been nice to create access to a shower on the main floor, but that is very expensive,” he said. “But it would have been at the top of my list. I would also like to have installed ramping to the front door.”
Dagger, in an e-mail to JVS that the agency shared with NJJN, wrote “Irwin had been struggling to get outside in his wheelchair because of a faulty ramp, and the couple was not able to afford a replacement. The new ramp now allows him to easily get in and out on his own, offering him some independence. Deanna can now use grab bars to get in and out of the garage, whereas in the past she was holding onto rickety shelves. A grab bar was put in her bathroom, where she had actually fallen in the past, and dangling lighting fixtures and railings in the home were tightened and made safer.
“I even told the couple that I am no longer afraid I will be electrocuted when I ring the doorbell!”
The ramp in the back, however, presents its own challenges. “It scares me,” said Deanna, who has balance issues.
But, she said, she appreciates the ability to continue to care for her husband at home.
“It’s my motto,” she said, pointing to the iconic Rosie the Riveter “We Can Do It” image and slogan on her shirt. “When our children were babies, he diapered them; he helped me. Now, it’s my turn.”
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