A resident in a facility where I was the Director of Nursing, claimed the reason he and his wife got married while in their late eighties, was the following,” It was a marriage of convenience. Rather than using a cane or a walker, we can lean on each other.”

Mobility is the capacity one has for movement. In infancy, it is a major mode of learning and interacting with the environment. Throughout life, it remains a significant means of contact, sensation, exploration, pleasure, and control. In old age one moves more slowly and purposefully, sometimes with more caution.

Do you often ask yourself what gives your skilled nursing facility its identity or what makes it stand out amongst competitors? If your patients, residents, and staff come to mind, you’re on the right track. But, now what?

Your facility is a story unfolding across all customer touch points.

Several decades ago two prominent psychologists wondered whether giving institutionalized elderly people a tiny amount of control over something in their lives would have a positive influence on their personalities.

What they did was to give a house plant to each resident in a nursing home. Half of the residents were told that the plants would be cared for by the nursing staff. The other half were told that they were responsible for the care of the plants. They were to decide when to water the plant and how much sun it should have. At the beginning of the study, the two groups were similar in physical and mental vigor. Three weeks later, there was no difference in the health of the plants, but there was a lot of difference in the psychological adjustment of the residents who were put in charge of caring for their plants. The group given personal responsibility rated themselves as more alert, active and vigorous.

A grim choice confronts some people when they face problems associated with advancing age.  Do they have to accept insecurity and deprivation? Must they surrender much of their independence and integrity in order to be helped?

Elderly men and women may prefer to go it alone instead of taking advantage of available resources to which they may appear as stubborn and unrealistic.  But they many feel life would no longer be worthwhile if they were to become too dependent on others for their needs.

Our society will continue to insist on using chronological age for many purposes. We can live with this practice if we recognize that to set up a chronological checkpoint for calling a person ‘old’ is simply a matter of administrative or statistical convenience. It is an unfortunate usage but difficult to avoid. We can, as a society, minimize the negative impact of this practice by making a clear distinction in our own minds between chronological age and the individual’s actual physical, mental and social situation. We can also refuse to be swept along by the implicit relationship between chronological age and human value. ‘Ten years older’ does not mean ‘ten years worse’ or ‘ten years less valuable.’

            Age-grading emphasizes society’s interest; functional age emphasizes the direct facts about the individual.

“I feel like a mushroom.  They keep me in the dark, so I keep them in the dark.”

A key member of a leadership team muttered these powerful words when we conducted an organizational assessment for his company.  This is what happens when organizations fail to create a culture that embraces open communication.

Consider how damaging it is when an influential member of your leadership team withholds information.  From you. From staff. From residents. The negative impact is tremendous.

Creating culture candor.

Organizations that have a strong culture that focuses on communication will outperform those left “in the dark.”  Transparency allows organizations to run more efficiently and effectively.

It starts with sharing information.  Anytime you have an important message to communicate, we suggest doing so in at least five ways.  Some ideas include:

For some reason, many leaders in healthcare like to equate things in their lobby to person-centered care. Player pianos. Coffee for visitors. Seating areas with plants. Leaders that were eager to tell me about how they are “doing” culture change have proudly presented each of these examples to me.

Pathetic.