{"id":172731,"date":"2021-02-05T22:37:41","date_gmt":"2021-02-05T19:37:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/hug-tent-provides-safe-embraces-at-colorado-elderly-home\/"},"modified":"2021-02-05T22:37:41","modified_gmt":"2021-02-05T19:37:41","slug":"hug-tent-provides-safe-embraces-at-colorado-elderly-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/hug-tent-provides-safe-embraces-at-colorado-elderly-home\/","title":{"rendered":"#\u2018Hug tent\u2019 provides safe embraces at Colorado elderly home"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#\u2018Hug tent\u2019 provides safe embraces at Colorado elderly home<\/strong>”
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LOUISVILLE, Colo. \u2014 Lynda Hartman needed a hug.<\/p>\n

It had been at least eight months since she touched her 77-year-old husband, Len, who has dementia and has been at an assisted living center in suburban Denver for the last year.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, she got a small taste of what life was like before the coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n

Sort of.<\/p>\n

Thanks to a \u201chug tent\u201d set up outside Juniper Village at Louisville, Hartman got to squeeze her husband \u2014 albeit while wearing plastic sleeves and separated by a 4-millimeter-thick clear plastic barrier.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really needed it. I really needed it,\u201d the 75-year-old said after her brief visit. \u201cIt meant a lot to me, and it\u2019s been a long, long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hartman, who fractured two vertebrae and could no longer take care of her husband by herself, said she thought he was a little confused but that it was important for them to embrace again.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been trying to do it for a long time,\u201d she said. \u201cIt felt good. I kept hitting his glasses when I hugged him, though. And he got cold.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although the setup wasn\u2019t ideal, Hartman said, \u201cAt least you can do something, and it\u2019s important.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since the pandemic hit, similar tents have popped up around the country and in places like Brazil and England, where some people call them \u201ccuddle curtains.\u201d<\/p>\n

The assisted living facility in the Denver suburb of Louisville, which has fully vaccinated its residents and staff, partnered with nonprofit health care organization TRU Community Care to set up the tent with construction-grade plastic on a blustery but warm winter day this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s just a huge weight off their shoulders, just being able to have that hug that they haven\u2019t had in so long,\u201d said Anna Hostetter, a spokeswoman for Juniper Village at Louisville. \u201cWhen we were planning this and setting it up, and I saw pictures, I wasn\u2019t sure if with all the plastic and everything you could really get that human contact. But I teared up on some of them. It was really special for our families.\u201d<\/p>\n

The hug tent will go up again Tuesday, and staff are planning to keep hosting them.<\/p>\n

For Gregg MacDonald, holding hands with his 84-year-old mother, Chloe MacDonald, was important because they hadn\u2019t touched since April. She likes to get updates on her grandson and granddaughter.<\/p>\n

\u201cTime is a precious commodity, so while we all wait to get back to more normality, in the meantime, everyone is doing what they can,\u201d Gregg MacDonald said. \u201cSo I app<\/a>reciate any efforts that they are making to allow us to have more contact with everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amanda Meier, project coordinator for TRU Community Care, said she, her husband and some volunteers built the hug tent around a standard 8-by-8-foot popup frame and attached the construction-grade plastic with glue and Velcro. Plastic arm sleeves built into the tent are attached with embroidery hoops.<\/p>\n

Since the beginning of November, she has helped set up four hug tents in Colorado and said the feedback has been positive.<\/p>\n

\u201cLots of tears, but happy sort of tears, and a lot of shocked expressions of how in the world can we be doing something like this. It\u2019s so weird,\u201d Meier said.<\/p>\n

But after the initial weirdness, the benefits are clear, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can see sort of relief in their bodies and their faces when they finally get to have that physical contact, which is really a basic human need. And in these facilities, a lot of times they\u2019re missing it anyway because they\u2019re just not with their families,\u201d Meier said. \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s measurable, really. You just know it when you see it and feel it when you\u2019re there.\u201d\n <\/p><\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#\u2018Hug tent\u2019 provides safe embraces at Colorado elderly home” LOUISVILLE, Colo. \u2014 Lynda Hartman needed a hug. It had been at least eight months since she touched her 77-year-old husband, Len, who has dementia and has been at an assisted living center in suburban Denver for the last year. On Wednesday, she got a small…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":172732,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/02\/hug-2.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[92098,10318,1545,73248,70365],"class_list":["post-172731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-2-5-21","tag-colorado","tag-coronavirus","tag-elderly-care","tag-senior-citizens"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172731\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}