Winter of Discontent for Elderly




Home \| Elder Rights \| Health \| Pension Watch \| Rural Aging \| Armed Conflict \| Aging Watch at the UN

	SEARCH	SUBSCRIBE
			Mission \| Contact Us \| Internships \| Donate Now!

back

Winter of Discontent for Elderly

By Dawn Shurmaitis, the Times Leader

February 4, 2004

When it comes to battling winter, senior citizen Betty Jean Knorr sports a secret weapon: Get-A-Grips.

"I wear my grippers every day," said Knorr, showing off thick rubbers that guard against slips and falls. Like many area seniors, Knorr, 71, of Wilkes-Barre , said this winter's low temps and heavy snowfall often turns daily trips into daily trials. "It's been very difficult. For the first time, I've had to take the handicapped van."

For some seniors, a harsh winter can mean more than the inconvenience of a slippery sidewalk. It can mean empty cupboards, broken bones, soaring heating bills and depression.

"Sometimes, social workers see that there is no food in the refrigerator," said Colleen Jones, Prime Time Health coordinator for Luzerne-Wyoming Counties Agency on Aging. "Seniors are paying so much for medicine or heat, they do without."

Unrelenting cold has meant much higher heating bills for everyone, including elderly on limited income, say area social service agencies. Low temperatures cause other problems, too.

More than 20 elderly people a week call the Help Line looking for a willing hand to shovel driveways and sidewalks, said Tom Foley, director of Help Line, an information and referral service for Luzerne and Wyoming counties. Last year, Help Line tried to get funding for a snow-shoveling program but state budget cuts killed the idea.

"There's definitely a need out there," said Foley, whose staff was reduced from eight to four full-time workers when cuts reduced his budget from $400,000 to $280,000. "The only thing we can offer them is a list of churches and community centers. Hopefully, they'll be able to steal a kid that way."

Elderly who tackle their own shoveling sometimes slip and fall in the process, say area doctors. Every day this winter, emergency room doctors at Wilkes-Barre General Hospital have seen an average of three seniors with broken bones or head injuries - the result of snow-related accidents.

"When you're dealing with an old person, it's extremely hard to get back on your feet," said Dr. Russell James, chairman of the department of emergency medicine at Wilkes-Barre General Hospital . "A lot of them live alone so we're kinda obligated to put them in the hospital."

Patients suffering fractured hips typically stay in the hospital for a week before heading to a rehabilitation center, James said.

Dr. Jack Consalvo, chairman of Mercy Hospital 's emergency department, said the hospital saw 5 to 10 percent more cases of depression attributed to cabin fever among the elderly this year.

"The younger people get cabin fever, and they start drinking, get angry and start beating on each other," Consalvo said. "With seniors, they usually come in for something else and after questioning we can pull it out of them. They're depressed."

Consalvo said signs of depression are reports of weakness, lethargy, lack of appetite and difficulty sleeping.

When the skies are clear, the Wilkes-Barre senior center serves up to 85 lunches daily, Jones said. When it snows or sleets, seniors stay home. On Tuesday, 17 seniors canceled.

If they can't get to senior centers for food, the elderly can turn to the Meals-on-Wheels program, which needs 24 drivers to deliver two meals a day to an average of 170 seniors throughout the Wyoming Valley , according to volunteer Sally Kotch. But Tuesday, because of the weather, eight of those drivers canceled, sending the rest of the team scrambling to pick up the slack.

"Our volunteers are usually elderly, too - some of them in their upper 80s - and when the weather is like this you can't blame them . They're frightened to drive," Kotch said. "Today we had to send out the kitchen help - that's how desperate we were."

This winter, Meals-On-Wheels canceled deliveries four times because of treacherous roads. In anticipation, volunteers deliver extra dried soup so the needy have something to eat. Or, the elderly can stockpile their cold meals.

Sometimes, just getting around can be a pain - literally or figuratively.

Winter or summer, Bill Roberts likes to watch the world go by from a bench on Wilkes-Barre's Public Square . But this winter, that's been nearly impossible. "The benches on the square and the sidewalks aren't cleared out," said Roberts, 91, of Hanover Township . "And you have to go out in the middle of the road just to catch a bus."

"They don't clean the sidewalks and we have to stand in snow that high," chimes in Dan Fretty, 72, of Wilkes-Barre , holding his hand a foot off the table at the Wilkes-Barre senior center.

Dial-A-Driver director Bill Jones said overall ridership is up 14 percent from last year. The majority of those rides are to doctors, thanks to a particularly vicious flu season. "This cold has just impacted everyone," Jones said. "We were a little upset at that groundhog yesterday."

Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow Monday and predicted six more weeks of winter. The forecast calls for highs in the 30s and lows in the teens this week with more rain and snow predicted for Friday.