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WATERBURY - Dr. Richard Silverman had worked at the Cedar Lane Rehabilitation and Health Care Center for about a year before deciding his patients needed more from him than a routine exam. Sensing their desire for more frequent human contact, the pulmonary critical-care physician from Southbury formed the Home to Home Foundation. The group has a 10-member board of directors that meets once a month to arrange activities and events for nursing homes and acute life care centers in Waterbury, which has the greatest concentration of long-term care facilities in Connecticut. Even with a busy practice,
Silverman finds time each day for the foundation. Sometimes, he'll
cradle his
cellular phone in one hand and eat lunch with the
other while he arranges a program or makes contact
with someone who'd like to help. His wife jokes that
he's taken on another job; Silverman said the
foundation is too important to him not to give 100 percent. Local businesses and corporations have pledged volunteers, and some have agreed to donate money, although most are holding out until the foundation is better established. "We're not trying to put focus on what nursing homes are doing wrong," said Tavis Tindall, a Waterbury lawyer who is on the foundation's Board of Directors. "We're trying to complement and supplement. We want to enhance what they're doing." With federal reimbursements on a constant decline, Silverman knows life care centers have to pinch pennies. "They work within the restraints of their budgets, and they do a terrific job," he said. "I just thought I could do above and beyond just a routine exam." So far, the foundation
has completed five projects. It sponsored a marigold growing contest
for between
90 and 100 residents of Cedar Lane and Cheshire House, a 60-bed,
skilled nursing and rehabilitation facility on Working with recreational therapists, the board has proposed a number of other ideas, including ice cream socials, Olympic-style games, mystery trips, visits by pets, musical performances, indoor miniature golf tournaments, antiques road shows, theater trips, fashion shows, fishing trips, sporting events, antique car exhibits and visits by sports stars. "We all sit around at our meetings and we just come up with as many ideas as we can," Silverman said. He talked excitedly about starting a pen pal program between residents and area school children, and making care packages for people to ease their transition from independent living to a life-care center. An often lonely existence
in a perfect world,. according to Silverman, all residents
of long term care facilities would experience the same joys as people
who live independently. However, that is not reality. Many, people
who enter long-term care face
it alone, said Silverman; an assistant clinical professor at the
Yale University School of Medicine who practices at St. Mary's and
Waterbury hospitals. Often, they don't have
family to. visit them, and they make few
friends Being-bedridden doesn't mean they can't benefit from human contact and social activity; Silverman said as he walked the halls; smiling at and waving to patients, "These people's faces light up when they see someone, something, out of the normal routine," he said.
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Inspiring his patients People don't have to perform extraordinary feats to get Silverman's
attention. He knew Rich Marino, a resident of the Cedar Lane, was
a huge wrestling fan, so he invited him to a match at the' Hartford
Civic Center. People like Marino, 33, who suffered a traumatic brain injury in a car accident when he was a teenager, don't often have guardian angels like Silverman looking out for them, said Phyllis Belmonte, Cedar Lane's administrator. "The look that you see on Dr. Silverman's face when he talks about improving these people's lives is the wane look you see on the residents' faces when they experience something good," she said. Needed: money, volunteers Silverman has shown he has the passion and commitment to launch the foundation. All he needs now is cash and people willing to volunteer. "I have a bunch of people who have ideas and vision.
I need people to help implement it," he said. There will be corporate solicitation, and fund-raisers will be held. A spokesperson is being sought; possibilities include actress and Bridgewater resident Mia Farrow and actor and Waterbury native Dylan McDermott, who is related to Marino, the Cedar Lane resident. The first major fund-raiser is planned for September, when a theater troupe from Massachusetts will come to Waterbury to perform. A representative from Mayor Michael J. Jarjura's office will be asked to help coordinate the event. Silverman thinks that if the foundation can succeed "The goal is to encompass the entire state as soon as we get more backing," he said. Providing interaction "The kind of thing I give to him this program will give to others," Joni Barnett said. "He's a brilliant man who cannot speak and cannot write. He needs contact: He seeks stimulation." Marino has befriended Silverman, and they usually visit when the doctor does rounds. "This is the stuff that brightens his day," Silverman said gas gestured to the walls in Marino's small room, which are covered with framed photographs of professional athletes and wrestlers. There are life-size cutouts of New York, Yankee Derek Jeter and wrestlers The Rock and The Undertaker. Marino also has an extensive collection of wrestling videos. Even his pillow case has a wrestler on it. "He's more or less why I started this," Silverman said, as he looked through a picture book of wrestlers with Marino. " I saw how he reacted when he got something, and it just took, off from there." Belmonte said she wishes the foundations programs could be extended to all life-care centers. "What I like about this is that it gives the residents an opportunity to be part of the community at large," she said. Tindall said he now appreciates how even just a few moments talking with a life-care center resident can brighten their day. He remembers how his great-grandmother craved the attention when she was in a nursing home. "What was so important to her was the human touch, bringing kids in and letting them talk to her," he said. "It makes a big difference.
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