By Kallie Lee, Community Relations Director, The Village at Mercy Creek
In a world still recovering from a pandemic, the pros and cons of Senior Living continue to be strongly evaluated by adult children and caregiving spouses looking to enhance their loved ones’ quality of life. Often, their worry is the ability to interact while keeping them safe. Not to mention concerns about the emotional toll a move from their long-time home to a new setting would have. There is no doubt that the decision to move to a higher level of care is never an easy one.
At The Village at Mercy Creek, we have heard many unique reasons that would prompt this type of life-changing event. Without fail, the most common is the negative effects of social isolation in a home setting. Many seniors report feeling alone in their homes but deal with this because of the perceived loss of independence associated with moving to a Senior Living Community. They may already be experiencing the actual loss of independence in their home but are trying to cope with or mask this. In many instances their partner has passed, the pandemic made them fearful of going to the places they once loved, and they may have lost mobility and can no longer drive or walk long distances. We cannot tell you how often families have turned to us for guidance because of the physical distance between them and their loved one—wishing they could interact more or keep a closer eye on their overall health.
That is why we are excited to go live with a new program, LifeLoop, that offers busy and/or distant family members a solution to getting involved. LifeLoop is a HIPAA-compliant and secure application that allows you to be actively engaged and attuned with Life Enrichment calendars, community events, upcoming appointments, communication with our team, maintenance work orders and so much more! The things that were once a worry with loved ones being at home are now things that families can observe and provide input on, even at a distance. LifeLoop allows interaction via a convenient app that is downloadable on your phone or via the website.
LifeLoop delivers a holistic approach to care with social engagement, cognitive challenges, and spiritual and emotional support. The proof of its overall value is easy to see once used and is backed by user surveys that show improved psychosocial well-being and higher employee satisfaction in the communities that utilize this program. LifeLoop’s senior users have reported a 33% reduction in resident loneliness; 52% of team members using this platform agree that LifeLoop has made it easier to communicate with families; and 57% of team members agree that LifeLoop has made their job easier while allowing them to do what they love most—spend more quality time with residents.
LifeLoop has many functions, but one of our teams’ favorites is the resident tab. Here you can see photos and a detailed biography of each resident including where they grew up, how many children they have, their earlier occupations, and of course, preferred activities. The resident tab also provides real-time data to analyze the trends in residents’ overall participation in our Life Enrichment programming. This can be filtered by day, week, month, and so on to start seeing patterns. This helps our team provide a more person-centered approach to care and fun! For instance, as the graph on page 6 shows, we are now able to pinpoint a resident’s preferred type of activity. This will help our team effectively prompt and engage this resident in the areas of physical, spiritual, and emotional well-being. From this data, we could also ask this resident how we can improve our intellectual and occupational approaches to be more engaging with the hope to improve programming overall.
As we continue to unlock all LifeLoop has to offer, we look forward to hearing the feedback from our families and residents!
If you have any questions about The Village at Mercy Creek or LifeLoop, please reach out to Community Relations Director, Kallie Lee. To tour or learn more about the Village at Mercy Creek, located at 1501 Mercy Creek Drive in Normal, call 309-268-1501 or visit www.villageatmercycreek.org. They are always happy to help!
