My parents are at home, not in a nursing home, at 88 and 86. My father has dementia. We stayed away from them for 3 weeks when all this started and my mother was going downhill fast—living with someone who asked countless times a day what a time it is and whether he should go feed horses he no longer had was causing her to lose it. Zoom didn’t quite make up for it.
Since we started being careful (no hugs, distancing) but still visiting, my mother has gained 6 pounds (which she desperately needed to do). I think there’s a chance they would have wasted away had we not resumed our visits. It’s a trade-off, but people should be able to decide what they want to do. I know people have died alone in nursing homes without any family contact and I don’t understand what exactly they were being protected from.
On a side note, one of my sisters-in-law had COVID (no contact with my parents, nor did anyone in her family) and she said it was like a bad case of bronchitis. She took Tylenol for the fever and headache and was over it in a week. Not everyone dies.
My parents are at home, not in a nursing home, at 88 and 86. My father has dementia. We stayed away from them for 3 weeks when all this started and my mother was going downhill fast—living with someone who asked countless times a day what a time it is and whether he should go feed horses he no longer had was causing her to lose it. Zoom didn’t quite make up for it.
Since we started being careful (no hugs, distancing) but still visiting, my mother has gained 6 pounds (which she desperately needed to do). I think there’s a chance they would have wasted away had we not resumed our visits. It’s a trade-off, but people should be able to decide what they want to do. I know people have died alone in nursing homes without any family contact and I don’t understand what exactly they were being protected from.
On a side note, one of my sisters-in-law had COVID (no contact with my parents, nor did anyone in her family) and she said it was like a bad case of bronchitis. She took Tylenol for the fever and headache and was over it in a week. Not everyone dies.