Robert Johnston pulled tighter on the blanket shrouding his slight 89-year-old frame. The chilled air bothered him, but nothing else about his two-week stay at the Salem VA Medical Center’s Community Living Center was worthy of complaint.
Though Johnston was anxious to return to his Smith Mountain Lake home so he could perch facing his small personal heater, he didn’t mind biding his time in respite care while his youngest daughter and her husband, Alice and Glenn Prather, took a break from caring for him.
He was one of five veterans in respite care at the Salem VA during a recent week. Some 80 to 90 veterans a year check in for two weeks to a month at a time while relatives take time away from around-the-clock duty.
“You don’t really know what it’s like to provide care 24/7/365 unless you’ve done it. There’s no way to describe what it’s like,” said Dr. Jeffrey Lipscomb, director of the Community Living Center. “Respite gives caregivers a break so that they can have time when they don’t have to be a caretaker.”
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