> By Genevieve Wong  

> Photographs by Eric Sueyoshi

 

 

 Kyong Ham claims she is like many seniors living in America. Although the 77-year-old tells her social worker she functions well on a day-to-day basis, she will also admit that old age has gotten the best of her.

“I don’t have big problems, but my health was in bad condition before,” she says, via a translator. Ham used to live in Chicago, but the weather became too much for her. The snowy winters exacerbated her arthritis and gave her pain in her joints, so she relocated to Los Angeles, hoping the warm weather would alleviate her leg pains. And while things are better, she still walks slowly and can’t lift heavy objects. Ham lives alone and speaks no English. She’s not sick enough to enter a convalescent home, but needs assistance.

“I worry about her when I’m away at work, even though she’s pretty self-sufficient,” confesses Ham’s grandson Kenny Yim, who also serves as her main financial caretaker. He admits that between his job as a sales manager and his long commute to work, he has little time to see his grandmother.

So where does a woman like Mrs. Ham go?

Ham is one of many elders who attends the dozen or so Korean-speaking adult day health care centers (referred to as ADHCs) in Los Angeles, according to Helen Lee, a community program assistant at the Department of Aging in California. Before she relocated to the West Coast, Ham said she wanted to make sure her move didn’t burden her relatives in L.A. like it had in Chicago. Access to an ADHC has helped.

Currently, two types of senior day care programs exist: ADHCs and adult day care centers.

Adult day care centers are designed to provide care and companionship for seniors who need assistance or supervision during the day. The program offers relief to family members or caregivers and allows them the freedom to go to work, handle personal business or just relax, all the while knowing their relative is well cared for. These programs are available nationally. Elders must pay out of their own pockets for this service.

Sarah Kim is the program director at a senior day care program run through the Korean Women’s Association in Tacoma, Wash. She looks after 60 seniors. Her clients range from 65 to 99 years old. “It’s the only alternative here because we don’t have a Korean [speaking] nursing home,” Kim says.

ADHCs, on the other hand, are free to low-income seniors and are available in a handful of states: California, Nevada, Arkansas, Louisiana and New York. These establishments offer more intensive health, therapeutic and social services for individuals with medical problems. ADHCs are usually privately owned, but their services are covered by government-sponsored health insurance (like Medi-Cal, the Medicaid program in the State of California).