By Jess Nall
Tribune-Courier News Reporter

BENTON– While there are many forms of health care for children with physical and mental disabilities, adult assistance programs are few and far between. In past decades, Special Education has increased awareness of children with special needs and made health care more readily available.
Unfortunately, these school-based programs are only in effect during childhood and teenage years and aren’t in session when school is out.

Easter Seals Adult Day Care noticed a gap in medical assitance and has stepped in to provide care for a wide range of special needs adults.

George Kennedy, Vice President of Adult Services, said Easter Seals decided to focus its attention on adults about eight years ago. “As Special Education programs became involved at a younger age we changed because we weren’t the only program providing services.”

Easter Seals patients range from 16-year-old high school students to 93-year-old grandmothers.

The adult day care service began as an Employment program for the disabled, offering minimum wage jobs to those unable to recieve employment.

In 2000, Easter Seals began the adult day care program in conjunction with employment placement. Though the two programs are now completely seperate, Easter Seals helps people recieve employment for approximately 90 people each year.

The program has been in operation on a national basis since 1954 and made its way to Benton last year.

After a growing amount of interest in the Paducah location that expanded from one or two patients to over forty, Easter Seals employees saw an opportunity to help in the Benton area.

Director of Adult Day Services Susan Supple stated, “We wanted to start a program here because we saw a need. I have four people that drive to Paducah from Murray and that is a very long commute.”

Easter Seals is a nonprofit organization designed to provide assistance to both the patient and their caregivers no matter the circumstances.

Kennedy said that the cost of the program can be covered, at least in part, with Medicaid benefits. “No matter the payer source, whether it be out of the pocket of the patient or the insurance company, we treat everyone the same and give them the same quality of care.”

The Benton center currently has six patients under their care but have room for up to forty. Supple stated, “We fear that some people don’t know that this program is available. Especially older caretakers who are caring for their adult child, we can help substantially with their day to day struggles.”

Supple explained that Easter Seals is a medical model with dual focuses. The center offers a full-time registered nurse and a full-time Licensed Practical Nurse to care for its patients. Supple explained, “we do a lot of medical things and we can take any medical needs. Anything that a hospital or nursing home can do, we can do here.”

Supple said the main goal of the program is to keep people in their homes and out of nursing homes. “We don’t want them to go to the nursing home for any reason. I work part-time in a nursing home and when I work in the Alzheimer’s unit it just breaks my heart because I know that if they had a little bit of adult day care and a little bit of home support they would do so well.”

It is because of this aspiration that the center offers to give patients showers, medication, personal care or other needs they may have.

Medical needs aren’t the only focus of the Easter Seals program. Stimulating the mind, enriching activities, self worth and a fun environment are areas that the employees put a lot of emphasis on.

Patients at the center are offered a variety of activities they can participate in including exercise, scrapbooking, gardening and games.

“For the elderly, we always try to keep their mind active and that’s where I think the young people help.”

“So we have a broad range. It’s really nice. Everyone talks about intergerational and they talk about little kids with grandparents,” Supple said, “but actually when you get a 16-year-old with a 93-year-old, there is a truly unique relationship that develops.”

Close friendships aren’t only shared between patients, Registered Nurse Melinda Lamboy said that she is also feeling the love.

“I’ve been here since September of last year and I started out at the Paducah center and transferred here,” Lamboy stated. “I enjoy this type of nursing because it is probably one of the most rewarding fields that you can be in as far as having the affection and the kisses and the hugs and the thank-yous and just appreciation that comes from our clients.

“I have worked at a lot of different areas in nursing and this is the most rewarding as far as I feel appreciated and I feel like I matter.”