Families of Alzheimer's patients push for restarting in-person nursing home visits
Push to allow in-person visits at long-term care facilities
Families of those in long-term care facilities are pushing the state to allow in-person visits again.
ATLANTA - The first time Dan Goerke visited his wife Denise after the coronavirus lockdown began in March, it was through a window of her memory care facility, and it was heart-wrenching.
"There was this piece of glass between us," Goerke remembers. "It was so sad because she would reach out. She would try and reach out with her hand and touch me through the glass."
Denise, now 63, was diagnosed in her mid-fifties with early-onset Alzheimer's disease.
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Dan Goerke visits with his wife Denise through a door at her long-term care facility in Georgia. (Dan Goerke)
Eight years later, she is living in a memory care facility and is in the advanced stages of the disease.
The Goerkes have tried virtual visits, using the FaceTime app, and door visits, but, Dan says, the disconnect has always been there.
"You could just see this faraway look in her eyes," he says. "She could not focus on us or didn't want to focus on us. I got less and less of a reaction from her, every time I talk to her."
The Goerkes, who found each other and married in their forties, have spent much of the last decade coping with Denise's diagnosis and the changes it has brought into their lives.
Both became advocates for the Alzheimer's Association, lobbying Congress to increase research funding to potential treatments for the memory-robbing disease.
Dan and Denise Goerke pose for a photo in 2018. Denise was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease in her mid-fifties.
These days, Dan Goerke says, it is almost impossible to connect with Denise in a meaningful way, and the physical separation from her family has taken a toll on her.
"I kind of expected a decline," Goerke says. "She's a very vivacious person, very social person, very tactile; she loves to reach out and touch you. All of a sudden, that went away completely, and I'm sure she struggled with, 'What is going on, where did my family go?'
I think she's realized it's not the same, and it's just been really depressing for her."
Georgia's 617 long-term care facilities, home to over 41,000 residents, have been hit hard by the pandemic.
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Denise Goerke smiles during a visit with her children at her long-term care facility in Georgia, prior to the pandemic. (Dan Goerke)
1,995 residents have died from complications of the virus, making up 42% of the state's 4,727 deaths, as of August 17, 2020.
To try to protect residents, the Georgia Department of Public Health restricted all non-essential visitation to long-term care facilities, with the exception of certain situations, such as end-of-life visits.
"I completely believe in the lockdown, and that needs to go on to protect these residents," Dan Goerke says.
Still, he says, there has to be some middle ground, a way to keep residents safe, but allow their families to reconnect with them.
He is part of an Alzheimer's Association of Georgia caregiver support group that now meets online.
Almost every member he has spoken to, Goerke says, has watched a loved one's condition worsen over the last five months since the lockdown began.
"It's painful to hear the pain in the voices of the other caregivers when they talk about what a terrible situation this, and not being able to go hold the hand of their husband or wife of 30 or 40 years," Goerke says.
He and other family members are urging state health officials to find a way to re-start in-person visits.
Just to be able to hold her hand," Dan Goerke says. "We've got to figure out a way to do that safely, for everyone."
Goerke says families would be willing to go through rapid testing before their visits, move meet-ups outdoors and limit visits to just a few minutes at a time.
Goerke says he will do whatever it takes to bring families like his and Denise’s back together.
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