Lucille: Cross Cultural Counseling With Older Adult Populations

Case Description

Lucille is an eighty- eight-year-old female who lives in an assisted living facility. Lucille identifies as Jewish American, having emigrated from Europe in 1948 at the age of 19. Lucille currently lives alone. Her husband and two of her three children are deceased. She has also lost many of her close friends to terminal illness in recent years. Her remaining lifelong friends who were once a support system are now scattered across the country living with their relatives or in nursing homes. They rarely get a chance to speak on the phone and Lucille struggles to text or write letters due to deteriorating eyesight. Lucille is a grandmother to five grandchildren. Her surviving daughters and grandchildren convinced Lucille to move to an assisted living facility when she was no longer able to drive and began having minor difficulties with her activities of daily living (ADL’s). She speaks to her daughters frequently on the phone but rarely sees them in person. One daughter lives a five-hour drive away and the other daughter who lives in the same city cannot come visit frequently due to her own declining health. Lucille’s grandchildren visit once every few months but rarely call. She does not reach out to her daughters or grandchildren but waits for them to reach out to her. She is worried she will be perceived as a burden or bothersome if she is constantly calling and asking them to visit. She sometimes avoids calls from her daughter who is ill as she states speaking to her child and not being able to care for as she did her whole life created a sense of intense guilt. Lucille mainly stays to herself and has made no friends at the assisted living facility despite numerous community activities and invitations to social events at the facility. Lucille states anxiety about her deteriorating eyesight inhibits her from participating in social events, as she feels she will be judged. She states feelings of loneliness and feeling like an outsider. Lucille states openly to the staff that she is struggling with her loss of independence and sometimes feels useless, however will deny making these statements if confronted by daughter or grandchildren. Lucille states she is frequently tired and eats little of the meals that she has delivered to her room. Lucille identifies heavily with her faith and spends much of her time in her room reading her religious texts. She believes many of the individuals in her assisted living facility identify as Christian and states due to this she feels uncomfortable discussing faith with them.