This has been happening for more than 40 years. Every six to eight weeks, Art Cooper gets a trim at Joseph and
Rocky's barber shop, not far from his Downsview home. But for the
last few years, going to the barber shop is the only time that Cooper,
almost 91 and with advanced Alzheimer's disease, allows himself
to be taken outside his home. Otherwise he balks if someone tries
to lead him to the front door, becoming upset and anxious, according
to his son, Toronto Star photographer Dave Cooper.
"His home is where he's happy, he's safe, he's comfortable
and he's not as confused," says his son.
Art Cooper's home is his sanctuary because of the 24-hours-a-day,
seven-days-a-week home care Dave Cooper has arranged for his father.
Added to the 15 hours a week of care provided
by Preferred Health Care Inc. - the maximum paid for by the province - is a five-person
team of Personal Support Workers from Downsview Services for Seniors. They care
for his father during daytime and nighttime shifts.
The heart of the team
is Pina, a former neighbour, who has worked 40-hour weeks in the Cooper home for
seven years now. Her husband, Danny, is retired. He helps out one day a week maintaining
the garden and doing any repairs that are needed.
From his father's savings,
Cooper pays about $7,500 a month to keep him at home. Thankfully, his parents
were very frugal, he says with a laugh, and saved much of their salaries; today, he can afford to provide his dad with the proper senior care he requires. His
father taught math at Ryerson University; his mother, who died last year, was
a librarian.
"They were homebodies," says Dave Cooper. "Their
idea of a good time was to stay home and read."
And so when he recently
got a call from a staff person at a nursing home he and his sister had considered
for their parents, telling him that there was - finally - a vacancy, Cooper declined
the offer.
He knows many people with Alzheimer's disease suffer a rapid
decline if removed from their familiar surroundings; he knows his father is safe
in his own home - and happy.
"But he couldn't stay without the people
from Downsview Services for Seniors," he says. "They've been a godsend."
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