Granddaughter Takes In Neglected Grandmother and Her Transformation Is Beautiful

by Nicole Pomarico

 

She goes from being flea-bitten to healthy and happy.

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Granddaughter Takes In Neglected Grandmother and Her Transformation Is Beautiful

Getting older can be a scary concept, leaving some of us wondering who will take care of us when we're elderly and potentially dealing with poor health and memory. If we're lucky, we have plenty of family around us to ensure that we're happy and healthy when we can't do as many things for ourselves anymore... but obviously, that's not the case for everybody.

Enter this grandma, who her grandchildren shared on TikTok recently. At 82 years old, she had been neglected and struggling with dementia, and when her granddaughter realized the conditions she'd been living in, she immediately took her in and didn't look back.

@yeahright8686 #love #grandmda #Dementia #neglect ♬ Sky Aesthetic - Tollan Kim

Her granddaughter explained that they found "thousands of lice, eggs, and lice feces" in her hair, and she only weighed 78 pounds at the time. This grandma had also had a hard life before this — she'd been in an abusive relationship, survived cancer, and raised her children and grandchildren. 

"I gave her a manicure, cut her hair and put her earrings in, gave her a long bath and then shower," she wrote in the video. "She also has dementia and can't see very well. She couldn't use her voice." 

Seeing the change in Grandma after she'd been taken care of was like night and day, and she seemed to be really happy to be surrounded by family and given the chance to relax and have others watch out for her. She even gained 10 pounds in the first two weeks of living with her granddaughter! 

This grandma is lucky to have family who cares about her, and hopefully, the rest of her days will be much better than the ones she's leaving behind her.

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Granddaughter Takes In Neglected Grandmother and Her Transformation Is Beautiful

He Broke the Law to Build a Better Nursing Home

Dr. Bill Thomas

Part of the Transforming Life as We Age Special Report

Dr. Bill Thomas, a Harvard-trained physician and a 2015 Next Avenue Influencer in Aging, has a message he’d like to share with the world: Growing older is a good thing.

A recent Washington Post story highlighted Thomas’s crusade to change attitudes about aging and encourage people to think of “post-adulthood” as a time of enrichment. “Thomas believes that Americans have bought so willingly into the idea of aging as something to be feared that it has become a self-fulfilling prophecy leading to isolation, loneliness and lack of autonomy,” the article stated.

In 1991, Thomas became the medical director of a nursing home in upstate New York. He found the place, as the Post put it, “depressing, a repository for old people whose minds and bodies seemed dull and dispirited.”

Animals in a Nursing Home

 

So, what did Thomas do? The Washington Post explains:

“[Dr. Thomas] decided to transform the nursing home. Based on a hunch, he persuaded his staff to stock the facility with two dogs, four cats, several hens and rabbits, and 100 parakeets, along with hundreds of plants, a vegetable and flower garden, and a day-care site for staffers’ kids.

“All those animals in a nursing home broke state law, but for Thomas and his staff, it was a revelation. Caring for the plants and animals restored residents’ spirits and autonomy; many started dressing themselves, leaving their rooms and eating again. The number of prescriptions fell to half of that of a control nursing home, particularly for drugs that treat agitation. Medication costs plummeted, and so did the death rate.

“He named the approach the Eden Alternative — based on the idea that a nursing home should be less like a hospital and more like a garden — and it was replicated in hundreds of institutions in Canada, Europe, Japan and Australia as well as in all 50 U.S. states (the animal restriction in New York was voted down).”

The Not-So-Big Approach

 

Thomas has also pioneered small, intimate residences that he calls Green Houses, where residents have their own bedrooms and bathrooms.

The result: “Within six weeks, they had to send a truck around to pick up all the wheelchairs,” Thomas told the Post. “You know why most people [in nursing homes] use wheelchairs? Because the buildings are so damn big.”  (Click to Continue)

Full Article & Source:
He Broke the Law to Build a Better Nursing Home