Day Break Center opens to nearly full house

SANDPOINT — It’s hard to let go when you’re dropping them off for that first morning away from your direct care and supervision. You walk in, not knowing exactly what to expect, wondering how they’ll react when they realize you’re leaving for a while.

But before long, bonds are formed and friendships start up. There are activities waiting, exercise in the form of play, new things to learn and old stories to share.

The participants settle in quickly and, after a little while, their loved ones settle down, too.

On Thursday morning, the snug little space called the Day Break Center acted as the stage for this very human drama. Four older adults — all of them with some form of dementia — arrived for opening day of the adult day care center on the arm of a spouse.

For the next five hours, the group interacted through personal stories and trivia games, played balloon volleyball to work out their upper bodies and, more than anything else, enjoyed spending part of the day in different surroundings with different people.

Something interesting happened in the process. Grandpa was no longer telling “that same, old story.”  With a new audience, he was regaling the room with a tale that animated him and held the listeners’ attention.

Other participants tried out favorite jokes and got genuine laughs again for the first time in years.

With a mixture of surprise and relief, their spouses felt a weight lift from their shoulders. This safe, supporting place would assuage any guilt they had about letting someone else watch over things for a few hours. They would have time to run a few errands, or mow the lawn. Or just breathe easy for a moment or two.

“The focus of the center is on the member of the family who has dementia, to give them social stimulation and things to do that maintain their functioning and improve their quality of life,” said Kelly Hurt, program director for the Day Break Center. “The other goal is to help the caregiver so they don’t get burned out.”

Esther Gilchrist, the Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) representative for the Area Agency on Aging who helped develop the adult day care center concept in Sandpoint, said community support has been resoundingly strong. She thinks that support is based on how many families are affected by dementia. One local survey placed the number of Alzheimer’s patients in the immediate area at 400 people, but Gilchrist said per capita statistics from the Alzheimer’s Association would put the number at more than twice that many people — perhaps as many as 900.

“Maybe some of them aren’t identified, some are in the early stages, some are in denial,” the VISTA volunteer said. “When I do my presentations, I always ask how many people in the audience have a family member with Alzheimer’s and several hands go up. Then I ask, ‘How many of you know somebody with Alzheimer’s?’

“Seventy-five percent of the hands in the room go up.”

The transition into the caregiver role can be both daunting and disorienting. Many spouses, as well as children of parents with dementia, see the talents or mental acuity of their loved ones starting into a slow fade and, in response, pull them ever closer out of protective instinct. Quite accidentally, they might also be limiting much of the interaction that is needed to for those loved ones to keep their minds active.

According to Hurt, the Thursday session was a welcome change for some of the people who experienced the center for the first time.

“One participant said, ‘This sure beats sitting in my room staring at four walls all day,’” she shared. “I didn’t see any anxiety — nobody said, ‘I want to go home.’

“I think it was harder for the caregivers to kind of let go,” she added. “There were several family members who stayed for an hour or so and I think it was good for them. They needed to see that it was going to work.”

“A couple of caregivers were there to make sure everybody was happy — and they were,” said Gilchrist, who visited the center on opening day. “The participants looked like they were having a wonderful time.”

The Day Break Center’s current location is small — only about 1,000 square feet of space in the former DocSide Medical Building behind Bonner General Hospital — but it is well-staffed with Judy Totten, a CNA who conducts exercise classes for seniors and teaches fall prevention, and Hurt, who holds a Master’s degree in social work and is licensed in that field.

“I’ve worked with the elderly for 20 years and I love that population,” she said. “I love their stories and I honor their wisdom. I think that’s partly because I’m Native American and I was taught to honor my elders.”

A few weeks ago, the volunteers working on the adult day care center were still wondering if enough people would find out about the place to make it a viable service in the community. After Thursday’s opening — which welcomed four participants in a setting that can accommodate only five — they are already talking about a larger space.

“We’d love to have a bigger place where we can go outside, have a garden — that’s the vision,” Hurt said.

Gilchrist agreed that the home-like environment and secure surroundings at the Day Break Center are a good start, but she, too, has her sights on something grander.

“I have a dream there,” she said. “I would like to build a proper center with enough room for 40 participants and a garden. I would like to see the Senior Citizen Center and the Senior Thrift Store in the same complex, along with a child day care center, because the interchange between the seniors and the children is marvelous for both of them.

“It’s a big dream,” she added, “but if you don’t dream big, you never get anywhere.”

The Day Break Center has opened its doors to musicians who would like to perform for the participants or craftspeople who would like to teach them crafts to volunteer their talents for what is assured to be a receptive audience. The center also is looking for volunteers to work on its fundraising committee, with the eventual goal of establishing a larger setting that can serve more people.

The Day Break Center is open Wednesday and Thursday from 9 a.m.-2 p.m. For information call 265-8127. Those interested in the fundraising committee can contact Sharon Walton at 263-3913.