PHILADELPHIA — For the first six months of the pandemic, Kim Boddy could see her mother only through a window.
Marguerite Forbes, who has had Alzheimer’s disease for 10 years, spent most of those months sitting in her room at a nursing home. Boddy was “beside herself” with worry over her mother’s condition and the time they were losing.
After September, there were visits — separated by six feet and plexiglass — every couple months. Forbes, who is now 90, just found them confusing.
Once the two were vaccinated, Boddy could see her mother more often and assess the damage that nearly a year of inactivity and isolation had added to the ravages of old age and dementia. Forbes, who had by then moved to the nursing home at Rydal Park, a Jenkintown retirement community, had stopped walking. She wasn’t communicating well before, but her language had deteriorated. Her hands shook. Forbes fed herself before, but had started letting others feed her. Worse, when Boddy saw her, “she was just blank.” There was no sign of recognition.