Is it safe to visit family in nursing homes this holiday?

Families should exercise caution when planning a visit to a loved one in a nursing home during the third wave of the coronavirus pandemic, Valerie Cotter argues.

The first publicized US outbreak of coronavirus took place in a nursing home in King County, Washington, in late February. A reported 81 nursing home residents were infected, as were 34 staff members and 14 visitors. As a result of the facility’s transmission control efforts, residents were confined to their rooms and visitors were prohibited, raising concerns from patients’ rights advocates and the residents’ families.

But as the United States faces its third wave of the coronavirus pandemic and an average of more than 160,000 new cases of COVID-19 a day and climbing, restrictions on nursing home visitations are on the rise.

The US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversees thousands of nursing homes across the United States, issued guidance recently urging nursing home directors to discourage residents from leaving facilities for home visits with their families during the holidays.

Here, Cotter, an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing, a principal faculty member of the Center for Innovative Care in Aging, and a nurse practitioner in the Memory and Alzheimer’s Treatment Center, breaks down the nuances of nursing home visits during the coronavirus pandemic and what families should keep in mind when planning a holiday visit if permitted by their state:

The post Is it safe to visit family in nursing homes this holiday? appeared first on Futurity.

from Futurity https://ift.tt/2J9A8Sz