“Caring For Each Other”- BWH Bulletin - For and about the People of Brigham and Women's Hospital
“Caring For Each Other”- BWH Bulletin - For and about the People of Brigham and Women's Hospital
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May 18, 2001
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In This Issue:
BWH Hosts Governor Swift’s Historic Delivery
“Caring For Each Other”
Here’s Where We Are
A special visit to Boston
Pike Notes
Michelle and Ella
Jessi and Helen
Vlada and Bill
The Eleanor Robbins Community Program
At the Epoch Nursing Home in Sharon, Massachusetts, a group of senior citizens and female high-school students sit around two tables. The groups are abuzz with happy chatter as they cut colorful pictures out of magazines. Every so often, one of the teenagers explains the project to the elderly person sitting next to her—that they are making placemats that will feature a picture of the two of them together, so that the elder person can remember his or her friend. Shirley, one of the home’s residents, begins to smile as her companion Jane shows her the picture of the two of them. “Shirley, you’re so pretty! Look at the picture. You have a beautiful smile!” Jane tells her friend with a smile of her own. Shirley smiles even more. Jean, Shirley and the other people around the tables are all participants in the Eleanor Robbins Community Program, a volunteer program supported by BWH and a pilot research project through HMS. It is funded in part by Dennis Selkoe, MD, and the Foundation for Neurologic Diseases. In the program, high school students fulfill community service requirements or college students complete an internship through weekly visits with patients diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and living in a nursing home or assisted living facility. The volunteers receive formal training from the clinical staff in BWH’s Neurology Department, and receive weekly supervision. “This is a fantastic program” said Deborah Mattia, who supervises the program in Sharon. “As soon as the students come into the room, the residents just light up.” The program began in 1996, when Eleanor, the wife of Stanley Robbins, MD, a senior pathologist at BWH, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and placed in a nursing home. Robbins, his son Jeffrey Robbins, LICSW and Eileen Salmanson, LICSW, began discussing their hope that Eleanor’s condition would improve for a while if she received visitors. “The only time my wife was able to settle down was when I or other visitors were with her providing individual time and attention,” said Stanley Robbins. “It did not appear to matter that she could not recognize her many visitors—the companionship in and of itself was soothing. Best of all were the visits from youngsters or babies from other families—the unit universally lit up upon their arrival, and I noticed that my wife’s unhappiness was immediately and measurably ameliorated.” Although data compilation has not been finished, preliminary findings show that the patients experience a reduction in apathy, depression and behavioral problems thanks to the program. Patients’ families have also expressed a sense of relief that someone other than themselves is helping to care for their loved one’s emotional needs. In addition, the student volunteers experience a sense of having made an important contribution to the lives of an elderly person and his or her family. Salmanson and Jeffrey Robbins recently presented their findings from the Eleanor Robbins Community Program at the Annual Alzheimer’s Foundation Conference, and will speak at the annual HMS national conference titled “Dementia: A Compre-hensive Update.” Currently, several other pilot versions of the program are running in Massachusetts and three are in New Jersey. Requests have been submitted from care facilities in Rhode Island and Connecticut as well.