Age knows no boundaries to the volunteers at a Walnut Creek-based center for patients with Alzheimer’s disease.
After all, some of those who help at the Respite Center, based at the Contra Costa Jewish Community Center, are in walkers and are older than the clients they’ve come to assist.
“I’d say the average age of our volunteers is 75,” said Marianne Hinckley, senior co-director of the 12-year-old program.
“The volunteers and participants are the same age. It makes it more like a party.”
Keeping a festive atmosphere is the whole idea behind the program, which runs from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays. The center and its volunteers decided that serving people with Alzheimer’s and memory-sapping diseases on the Sabbath was a mitzvah, according to Hinckley. Participants play bingo, sing songs, eat lunch, create artwork and simply socialize while their regular caregivers get a few hours off. The cost ranges from $17 to $23 a day.
Currently, 40 patients attend the program under the supervision of a small, part-time staff and a force of 55 volunteers. The program’s come a long way since its early days, when just five people attended once-a-week sessions.
While most volunteers are members of the CCJCC, the program itself isn’t religious and draws both Jewish and non-Jewish participants.
But its home at the CCJCC is no fluke. According to Hinckley, the notion for the center got a major push when a Jewish couple using a similar program at a nearby Presbyterian church noticed a cross on the wall and wondered why the CCJCC didn’t offer similar services.
Pat Scott of Walnut Creek started bringing her 76-year-old mother, who has Alzheimer’s, to the center last September. “Being a caregiver for someone with dementia is incredibly stressful,” said Scott.
At the center, her mother is “treated with love and dignity,” Scott said. Volunteers “talk to them like there’s no problem, even if the conversations don’t make sense.”
Besides assisting both patients and caregivers, the program also benefits elderly volunteers by giving them the satisfaction of accomplishing a mitzvah.
“They work really hard helping people have a good time, building self-esteem,” said Hinckley.
Though none of the volunteers currently cares for a relative in the program, many know about the ravages of Alzheimer’s. Some have now-deceased spouses who have had the disease or have out-of-town relatives coping with it.
Rose Barishman, an 87-year-old Walnut Creek resident, figures she’s giving regular caregivers some therapeutic hours of free time. She knows of what she speaks since her husband suffered from hardening of the arteries and memory loss before his death. “I could understand what the caregivers go through,” she said. “After all, it’s a 24-hour-a-day job.
“I do feel good helping as I do.”
She’s concerned for the well-being of the patients as well, stressing the importance of making them feel secure and happy.
“The program is run more or less like a social club,” she said. “We don’t let the participants feel they are much different from what we are. We try to keep up conversations with them.”
Barishman’s 89-year-old sister, Augusta Sobel, also helps out at the center weekly. Sobel, who had polio as a child, uses a walker. “I can’t really get around to help them, but I do talk to them,” she said. Sobel also plays the piano at the sessions.
“We try to make them feel very much at home.”
Volunteer Eva Hyman, a 62-year-old retired dietitian, figures the time she spends at the center helps the families as much as the participants.
“I thought I wanted to give my time to something that was worthwhile,” said Hyman, a past board member of the CCJCC. “It’s fairly exhausting mentally and physically, but it’s a good tired.”
The routine at the program is intentionally predictable so participants feel comfortable .
Children attending the CCJCC’s preschool regularly stop by for visits. “They call us ‘the seniors,'” said Hyman.
Participants often give the youngsters pictures they’ve colored that correspond to a theme being studied in the preschool.
“We treat the coloring of pictures as a gift to the children,” said Barishman.
At other times during the day, old songs and movies are selected so they’ll be familiar to participants.
“You’d be surprised how many of those clients remember the words to those songs,” Hyman said.