Long-Term Care - Illinois General Assembly

• Services available in Illinois should promote the continued independence of seniors as well
as their autonomy, dignity and privacy. Facility-based programs need not convert to
assisted living, although certainly that is one way of bringing the beds off-line and meeting
the demand. Facilities can implement client-focused models, including the Wellspring
model, or Pioneer movement, or the Edens project. There are advantages and
disadvantages in each of those programs. For example, a Pekin nursing home is now
running a restaurant, a menu-based restaurant system for their meals, and it is open to the
public. It is fantastic. The food is delicious. The residents are happy.
• There are 3 generations of seniors developing in this state. They are all going to have
different kinds of needs and desires. The frailest and oldest in this state came out of the
Great Depression. They remember the good old days of Model Ts and gas lanterns. The
youngest generation come out of the 50s, grew up on the Beatles and think the Mustang
was the coolest thing in town. These two generations don't always have a lot in common.
“A few weeks ago I was in Oregon, and I was on a shuttle bus. I realized there
was a senior center tour with me. I became interested when I heard a couple
speak to another couple looking relatively my age, asking what time the senior
center bus was going to go home, so I began to listen.
They had been on an excursion the weekend before to go body surfing and
have a clambake on the coast, and in a few weeks they were all going to see
the Simon & Garfunkel reunion concert. Now, the 90-year-old woman who was
in that group and the couple that were in their 70s or 80s might not have been
interested in that any more than the younger couple was interested in some of
the things that the older people wanted to do. But the reality is, they had all
come together to go to a salmon bake on the ocean.”
Michael O’Donnell
Illinois Association of Area Agencies on Aging
Ed is an 88-year-old gentleman currently residing in McClain County Nursing Home. He
entered the hospital about three months ago, after falling in his double-wide home in
Bloomington. The comprehensive and coordinated system in place, through the Area Agency
on Aging, got to know him. He had already been receiving home-delivered meals for some
time. His wife is in the McClean County Nursing Home and has been there for seven years with
Alzheimer's disease. Twice-a-week a special bus from Bloomington-Normal Public Transit
would pick him up and bring him to the nursing home so he could visit his wife. He had an
established relationship with the nursing facility. When he needed care and emerged from the
hospital, he asked to be sent to the McClean County Nursing Home, where he currently resides.
Earlier today we heard about the prospects of going home for nursing home residents, and his
prospects are very good. He has been diagnosed as an insulin-dependent diabetic. He entered
the facility already blind, due to macular degeneration. So the problem was: how does he
monitor his blood sugar at home as a blind person; and how does he measure the doses and
get the doses administered in a safe and proper manner? Well, they've got his blood sugar
stabilized now, so he could store 30 units of insulin in his refrigerator at home, if he had
someone to help him once a day administer that medication, and that's where the Center For
Independent Living comes in. They have a blind outreach specialist who has been visiting him
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