Columnist Bill Herr taught high school mathematics and science for 32 years before serving as a volunteer and then as a staff chaplain at two nursing homes.  

By Bill Herr

American culture places a premium on a person being physically attractive and having a friendly, outgoing personality. Movies and television promote this. The opposite is a person that has advanced Alzheimer’s Disease or some other physical disability that renders the person unable to do any activity except to breathe.  

At the nursing home a female resident had experienced several strokes and was unable to move her body at all. She simply lay prone in her bed all day and stared straight ahead. She did not speak or respond at all when I spoke her name and read scripture or prayed.  

When she died, I went to the funeral home visitation. Looking at a collage of pictures of the resident, I was stunned to see a photo that revealed a beautiful young lady in shorts standing at the edge of a woods smiling while holding a shotgun pointed upward. It was the resident. She looked like a movie actress.  

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It was in stark contrast to her condition at the nursing home.  I don’t remember details of her life but it was clear that she had been a special person.

Regardless of a person’s inability to speak or respond, it is important to speak the person’s name and talk to them normally. Tell them all the good things you know about them. They might be hearing and understanding more than we know.  

Hearing is the last sense to leave us.  That’s why it is important to be positive and careful what we say, especially when in the room of the resident during a critical situation. I have been in a room of a dying resident with family members present. The resident was unresponsive and the family started to talk about plans for a funeral. I quietly asked them to go outside the room for a moment and I urged them to refrain from what they were discussing.  

In a similar situation with family present, their pastor prayed over the seemingly dying resident. The resident suddenly raised up in the bed, recovered and lived another two years. In relations with residents in a nursing home, whether staff or family or others visiting, and regardless of the mental condition of the resident, it is important to remember the three positives: think positive, speak positive and act positive toward the residents.