Mo Murphy is the Health & Wellness Director at White River Assisted Living & Memory Care, overseeing the community’s care team.
With both assisted living and memory care, Murphy ensures each resident is receiving the care they need to thrive and live life to the fullest.
Mo has been a nurse since 1988. She moved to Washington State from Minnesota, and was working at her father’s dairy milking cows when she saw an ad in the paper advertising Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) classes. She got her license and began her career in assisted living, transitioning to skilled nursing for three decades, before returning to the assisted living side, eventually landing at White River in February.
Get to know Mo in this interview!
What is it that you enjoy about working with older adults?
“It’s very rewarding, you’re helping them at a fragile time in their lives. I also have a heart for dementia and Alzheimer’s. My grandmother had Alzheimer’s. I moved her into my home with me and took care of her. I didn’t know if I’d be able to keep her with me until she passed away, but it did work out that way, and now I have moved in with my parents because my mom has dementia. There’s an art to taking care of people with dementia. It takes a special team to work with dementia, it takes a lot of patience.”
How do you help memory care residents make the transition to the community?
“In memory care, those first 72 hours are really important because we’ve taken somebody who’s already confused, taken them out of their familiar surroundings and brought them in here. So we try to spend more time with them and help them get adjusted. And it’s interesting; some people have a rough transition and other people say, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m home.’”
What’s an average day like for you?
“Mornings are fairly busy. We go over the 24-hour board, and then I go to both buildings and check all the orders to make sure everything got put through. I make sure all the meds have been passed out in the last 24 hours and follow up on any issues.
For instance, this morning in assisted living, somebody documented that one of the residents is having increased confusion, and then a second caregiver on a different shift documented the same thing. So I’ve directed the resident care coordinator there to test and see if she has a UTI.”
Can you tell us about a success story you’re proud of?
“This was at my prior company, but I had a lady that had been in a horrible car accident. Before that she’d been completely independent. In the accident she broke her femur, and during the hospital stay, they found that her gallbladder was bad, so they took her into surgery, and the surgeon removed the gallbladder but nicked her stomach. She almost died.
When I went to evaluate her in the skilled nursing community, she had a duodenal tube. They were bypassing her stomach to give it time to heal. She was wheelchair bound, and just looking at her I could see where it would kind of scare people for assisted living. But when I did her assessment and talked to her, I could see a very independent and motivated woman.
I went ahead and admitted her because I felt throughout the evaluation process that she would participate well with physical and occupational therapy. She wanted to walk again and we made that our goal, and by the time I left after about six months, she was up walking independently again.”