Meet Elsa

Elsa was a fiercely independent widow in her late 70s who had been living alone for almost 10 years. During that time, she had suffered a number of serious illnesses and had undergone multiple surgeries.  She also had a heart condition that required the implantation of a pacemaker, and she had developed macular degeneration, which compromised her ability to see.

Although Elsa had become increasingly frail, she was determined that she would continue to live independently, in her own apartment. Her family was concerned that she appeared to be losing weight, was withdrawn and depressed, and although she had always enjoyed a drink or a glass of wine, she also seemed to be drinking more.

• We arranged for a nutritionist to meet with her and her family, to determine what she was eating and how often.
• We suggested a program to have meals prepared and delivered to her but she rejected that plan, preferring to have her family help her with meals.
• Elsa’s daughter, who lived not far from her, took her shopping for groceries when Elsa asked her, but Elsa didn’t have much of an appetite.  So we helped the daughter develop a weekly shopping plan to ensure that she always had nutritious foods to snack on when she felt like eating.  At the same time, the daughter was already bringing meals to her mother, but they were generally left uneaten, so we suggested ways in which the daughter could present and package the meals to make them more appealing to the mother.
• We contacted the CNIB, who went to Elsa’s home to teach her how to live safely with her blindness, and we safety-proofed her home to reduce the risk of injury and accidents.
• We itemized her many medications, including their purpose and dosage,  and ensured that it was up-to-date on a regular basis, both for her regular medical visits, and to ensure that the information was available in an emergency situation, since this lady also had multiple, potentially lethal, drug allergies.
• We arranged for a qualified assistant to accompany Elsa to her many medical appointments and to report back to the family, when they were unable to go with Elsa to keep these appointments.
• We arranged for a companion to visit periodically with Elsa, so that the daughter did not have to take time off work during the day when Elsa was feeling lonely and isolated.

On a longer term:

• Elsa was determined that she would never live with her children, so we encouraged the family to start looking at assisted-living facilities for the time when Elsa was no longer able to live alone.  We made several recommendations, including facilities that we had researched, and helped the family determine how they could evaluate the facilities based on their mother’s specific circumstances.
• We encouraged and coordinated the establishment of a will, a power of attorney for property, and a power of attorney for personal care.  The power of attorney for personal care became particularly important, as Elsa developed illness-related dementia several months before she died, and was no longer able to make appropriate health-care decisions for herself.
• Being in control was very important to Elsa, but she did not have much control over her illnesses or the damage they were doing to her.  But we were able to give her an element of control by encouraging her to pre-plan her funeral, an act which gave her great peace of mind.
• We arranged an appointment with the funeral home that appealed to her so that she could check it out (she didn’t know it; she just liked the way it looked on the outside). We worked with the family and the funeral home as they went through the planning process and, when the time came, we were able to ease the burden on the family by coordinating with the funeral home to ensure all the arrangements, including the post-funeral reception, went according to plan.
• Finally, we helped with the disbursement and disposal of the assets that Elsa had left behind.