Click the slideshow to view collages by Robison residents (we’ll bring you more artwork throughout the week).

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Please RSVP by May 10 here.

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The program brochure summed up the class thusly: “We come from all over the world to meet in a small room on the 3rd floor at Rose Schnitzer Manor. There we all learn from each other. The students are also the teachers. We laugh and cry. We embrace our differences and discover our similarities we are thankful!”

That gratitude, in large part for the opportunity to deepen their experience with the English language, beamed from the stories the graduates shared with the audience. They spoke about where they came from, how they got to the U.S., and what they do here. The last to speak, Benito Lopez, who teaches Spanish to the residents at Robison Jewish Health Center, conquered the room with a recording of his homeland Guatemala’s national anthem and the display of its flag (see photo).

The class wishes to thank the Culinary Department for the celebratory spread, the administration and management of Cedar Sinai Park for their support, class instructor Carolyn Caldwell for her loving dedication and commitment to the growth of the group, resident Arnie Silver for his ongoing support, and class assistant Elizabeth Moore for her knowledge, time, and kind support of the program.

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A request for advanced interventions to treat illness is usually a request to defer death and requires hospitalization at the end of life.

A request to limit interventions to comfort care usually means no resuscitation, no ventilators, no tube feeding, possible surgery, or treatments like dialysis. It also means providing sufficient pain control to improve quality of life even if it may hasten death. It includes personal care for dignity and comfort, individual feeding of specially desired foods and liquids, and setting up space for the family to spend more time with the resident. Hospice staff can be brought to the facility at the end of life and assist other staff with special interventions to increase comfort. Paramedics will not be called when death occurs, rather the physician will be called to “pronounce” the time of death. The facility will notify family, if they are not present, and the funeral home, if appropriate.

Residents with progressive dementia, especially of the Alzheimer’s type, will, if they do not die sooner from another medical condition, enter a vegetative state when they will refuse food and liquids. It is fairly universal in the disease and leads to death. It is also painfully difficult for families to watch, not least because starvation seems unacceptable in our society, and there is a temptation to intervene. Artificial nutrition and hydration from tube feeding and intravenous treatments are available and families may choose this route. However, these interventions have not been known to extend life, as the body of the advanced Alzheimer’s patient appears unable to absorb the nutrients. These interventions also have medical complications of their own for the resident and family to navigate.

In long-term care facilities, nursing staff are on the front lines with death and usually communicate with families about its imminence. Physicians are called and orders for treatment and medication given, but nurses are best able to provide families with information and possible timelines. Receptionists, aides, social services staff, therapists, and administrators are not able to guide families beyond what they have been told by nurses.

When a resident is very ill and near death, families should request protocols for remaining in contact with nursing staff for their own comfort and reassurance. While “the good death” we continue to see on television and in movies rarely occurs, the process of dying in a long- term care facility can be made relatively comfortable and pain-free with cooperation among staff, physicians and family members. The best way to ensure this is to think of the “unthinkable” ahead of time, plan, and utilize the staff of the facility to implement a care plan acceptable for everyone.

The post Elder’s Family Learning Initiative: End of Life Care, Pt. 2 appeared first on Cedar Sinai Park.

The following entries by RSM residents were selected as winners:

• “Uncle Izzy” by Sam Berry
• “Friday, December 14, 2012″ by Florence Blitch
• “Waiting” by Diane Budner
• “A Mother” by Alice Cahana
• “Haunted” by Evelyn Hirsch
• “Mother Tulip’s Chant” by Martha M. Pomeranz
• “Sonnet” by Robert S. Putterman

Here’s the tenth of 13 submissions we’ll be reprinting here (with permission from their authors).

“Three Relationships” by Marion Gans

She said she would be at my side
I’ll always be there for you!
That was my good friend speaking.
I haven’t uttered those same words
Yet I appeared before she signaled
Easing major trials and trauma.
I needed her but only once
She offered lame excuses.
When my life faced a rocky path
She said, “Let’s go to lunch.”

What does a longterm friendship mean?
Did I expect too much?

She is my most demanding child
Hard to fathom, shape or guide.
Her path was through a tangled maze
With goals I can’t absorb or process…
I mask my deep concern with smiles
Slinking toward the simpering sidelines
Praying her creative psyche
Finds a compass, sees a haven.
She won’t seek safety, like her mother.

Does a parent’s love bring no reward?
Did I expect too much?

She encouraged me to be her partner
Dividing chores and projects fairly.
We forged a business, smugly cheering
Talents blended, bloomed and balanced.
Success was just a step beyond.
Till hearing loss slowed my responses
Patience was in short supply.
She moved into a vague indifference
I not hearing, she not listening.

Must a partnership be equal?
Did I expect too much?

Three women shaped my heart, my future.
Each bringing gifts and good intentions.
But now the joy holds disappointment:
Why can’t they be perfect like me?

The post LeadingAge Creative Writing Contest: “Three Relationships” by Marion Gans appeared first on Cedar Sinai Park.

There is no surprise in the fact that sick, old people die, but there is shock in the constant changing of the environment in a long-term care community. More residents die or move to higher levels of care because there were more of them concentrated in the one community. This academic explanation cannot describe the impact of these changes on staff, residents, families, and other visitors. The remarkable swiftness of the passage from life to death should never cease to amaze us but the frequency of the passage in long-term care settings can be distressing to all involved.

In How We Die Dr. Sherwin Nuland points out that death has always been a subject of both terror and attraction to societies advanced and primitive. Since the beginning of the 20th century, people with access to modern medicine have expected that, if they did not die violent or accidental deaths, they could expect “a good death”—dignified, pain-free, with some conscious time to interact lucidly with loved ones. That rarely happens now and it rarely happened prior to the modern medical experience. The more medical interventions and the more sophisticated means used to defer death, the less likely the patient will experience whatever they perceived as “a good death.”

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Milt was a model for a recent campaign recruiting seniors and family members for focus groups

We are pleased to announce this year’s Volunteer of the Year from Cedar Sinai Park: Milt Hasson has been an active volunteer on our campus since he and his wife Jean moved here in June of 2007. In fact, Milt used to volunteer in his youth at the original Robison Home when it was in downtown Portland. Milt is a very busy man. To name just a few areas he volunteers in:

• He leads services on both sides of the campus.
• He leads sing-alongs with the Jack Rosen Trio.
• He sings in the Rose Schnitzer Manor and kiddish on Friday evenings in the Newmark Dining Room.
• He participates in all theatrical events and Purim Spiels.
• He serves as Resident Council president for Rose Schnitzer Manor, he chairs the Religious & Cultural Committee, sits on the RSM Administrators Advisory Committee.
• He works in the Rose Schnitzer Manor gift shop.

Milt will be honored at the 2013 Jim Edwards Volunteer of the Year Recognition Lunch on April 24th at Mennonite Village. He will join other volunteers being recognized who are residents of LeadingAge Oregon member facilities.

We are every so grateful to Milt for the hours of service he has given to Cedar Sinai Park.

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Rabbi Isaak speaks at the inaugural Senior Lunch and Learn at Rose Schnitzer Manor

Rose Schnitzer Manor and Neveh Shalom have teamed up to host a Senior Lunch and Learn for Jewish seniors on the first Friday of each month.

At the recent luncheon on Friday, April 5th, Rabbi Isaak showed pictures of his trip to Burma and talked about the Jewish presence in that predominantly Buddhist country. Although Burma’s Jews once numbered in the thousands, there are currently only approximately 20 Jews in Yangon (Rangoon), where the country’s only synagogue is located. Most of the Jews left Myanmar at the commencement of the Second World War, and later after General Ne Win took over in 1962.

About Senior Lunch and Learn

Jewish seniors who are members of Neveh Shalom or are part of the Portland Jewish community are invited to attend the lunch on the 1st Friday of each month at Rose Schnitzer Manor, 6140 SW Boundary Street, Portland, OR 97221. Tickets are $5 and include beverage, soup, entree  and dessert and can be purchased on the day of the event. RSVPs should be in at least one week in advance of the first of each month.

Questions, please call Neveh Shalom Program Director Jennifer Greenburg at 503.293.7313 or Cedar Sinai Park Community Life Director Kathy Tipsord at 503-535-4394.

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The following entries by RSM residents were selected as winners:

• “Uncle Izzy” by Sam Berry
• “Friday, December 14, 2012″ by Florence Blitch
• “Waiting” by Diane Budner
• “A Mother” by Alice Cahana
• “Haunted” by Evelyn Hirsch
• “Mother Tulip’s Chant” by Martha M. Pomeranz
• “Sonnet” by Robert S. Putterman

Here’s the ninth of 13 submissions we’ll be reprinting here (with permission from their authors).

“Sonnet” by Robert S. Putterman

We often thirst for what is first in life,
What is that precious thing that we must know.
Because our days are often filled with strife,
It’s hard to find the purpose for this show.

Perhaps, we’ve thought, the answer is in wealth,
Although we know that that has ne’er been true,
And then the subject of our constant health
Has always been there, out there in the blue.

Since neither meet the test with errless grace
The answer lies in something else for sure.
The only truth that stares us in the face
Comes quickly through like sparkling crystal pure.

It’s loving friendship that we find comes “first”
To answer what we know is life’s main thirst.

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