GP Stories - Covid and nursing homes

Covid has really been tough for older people, being constantly reminded that this disease is a death sentence for them and having to isolate at home. What has been even tougher is older people in the care homes. They've heard through out the pandemic that Covid has been racing through the homes and a lot of the deaths have been in them. In the care home I help look after, the social isolation has really been getting to a lot of the residents. 

So many of them in the recent months have changed their behaviour and have become low due to non-physical reasons. We've had to go to 'virtual' ward rounds, which is interesting in their own way as residents may have visual or hearing problems. Residents are being shielded from their own relatives; initially total shielding with no face to face but slowly opening up to allowing one group of relatives to be seen behind a clear screen. However a few are missing the physical presence of their family, some falling into depression due to this. One such resident has started over-eating due to their low mood, stating there is nothing else to do and they find it comforting. A few have cried when discussed more in depth, saying they would rather risk the virus just to to be able to hug their family. 

Hopefully the vaccine, which is starting to go round the care homes, will help speed up the return to normality. With mean length of stay of  residents in nursing homes is 13.7 months before death, 26.8 months for care homes, statistically many residents don't have much time left to spend time with their families so the faster the better.