This is a long post and as such it often takes me hours to days to complete as a cohesive, readable post. Having said that please realize this may not be as “smooth” as it should/could be because after almost 1 1/2 days of writing and near completion of the post, I took a rest break of a few hours to clear my thoughts. When I returned to finish and polish the post, “poof”, it was gone. Every last word. As though all my efforts of the past day or so never existed. To say I’m frustrated is putting it mildly. The real shame of this is it is not the 1st time this has happened. I just simply have no memory of it until the next time my words disappear and the frustration returns. Surely there is a way to save a draft until such time that you can return to finish it. OK, that’s enough, I’ll step off my soapbox and try to return to the point of this post.
So, we made our 1st visit to a memory care unit at Brookdale Senior Living a few days ago. I have to say we were relatively impressed with the entire facility. The physical plant itself was bright, pleasant, clean, and welcoming. There were no unpleasant odors and there were many individualized areas for socializing, activities, performances, etc... There were screened porches and fenced walking trails. We meet staff members ranging from members of the management team all the way to janitorial services. Each and everyone had a smile on their face and displayed a helpful, pleasant attitude. Granted, we were only there a short time, ~2 hours, but I saw no inappropriate or unwelcome actions toward the residents.
This senior living community consists of a personal care living unit, an early-stage dementia memory care unit, and an advanced-stage dementia memory care unit. Each contained on one of three floors, although some of the personal care apartments are on the same floor as the advanced-stage memory care unit. The memory care units have secured entry/exit points to prevent “wanderers” from becoming lost.
The early-stage dementia unit consists of 19 apartments in 3 possible floor plans, a studio, a one bedroom, and a one bedroom delux. Each contains a “kitchen” which has an an apartment style refrigerator, sink, cabinets, and small pantry closet, a large bathroom with a walk-in shower, including a bench seat, and a linen closet, a clothes closer in the main area of the apartment and various storage areas. All floor plans seemed to have more than adequate space for my needs. As a matter of fact, were I choosing today, I would choose the studio. All apartments are provided unfurnished, the thought being the resident will be more comfortable/less stressed when surrounded by their own familiar belongings. Included in the apartment “rent” is electricity, water, trash removal, cable, WiFi, twice weekly house keeping (more frequent in case of accidents), weekly laundry service, outings to the mall, museums, sorts venues, restaurants, etc..., escorted transportation to doctor’s appointments if needed, three meals/day and snacks as you want, and licensed nurse oversight of your care. To qualify for this unit the resident must not be incontinent and must be ambulatory without the assistance of walker or wheelchair.
The advanced stage memory care unit is arranged and operated in basically the same manner with the following exceptions. All apartments are studios and although each studio has its own private bathroom, none have showers. There are large, private shower rooms on each end of the unit. The thought here being that by the time the resident is in need of being on this unit they will be unable to bathe themselves and it will be more comfortable/safe for the resident and aide alike in these specialized showers. There are more visual deflections on this unit to engage the residents as they tend to be less responsive to each other.
Meals are prepared by culinary school graduates on a normal breakfast, lunch, dinner schedule. Each meal is served in a 2 hour block and the resident is welcome to arrive anytime within that 2 hours. The early-stage dementia care unit utilizes open seating during meals whereas the advanced stage dementia care unit operates on a more assigned seating style setting. Most of these folks require assistance with dining and eat at the same time so they are trying to seat folks of approximately the same age and interests to encourage interactions. But the resident can move if there is some reason they are unhappy with their assignment. Each meal consists of at least 3 entrees that change daily, a variety of fruits and vegetables, a bread selection, and 2-3 desert selections along with varying drink selections. If the resident does not want anything on that day’s menu they are free to choose from the deli menu which is always available. The deli menu contains 3-4 types of sandwiches, varying salads, soups, fruits, drinks, and a few deserts. If the resident is still reticent about eating, the staff will work with them to find something they are willing to eat, as long as it’s nutritious. One lady there will only eat some type of egg meal at each meal but she eats a healthy, protein rich meal. Some of you may be saying just let them get hungry enough and they’ll eat. If so you’ve never dealt with a dementia patient literally willing to starve themselves to death because nothing tastes right, they just can’t think of anything they want, or they just don’t want to eat. If they don’t want to eat it’s almost impossible to make them. Hunger be damned.
This facility provides many more services such as medication monitoring, dressing assistance, bathing assistance, dining assistance, ADL assistance, etc, etc, etc.... Each of the are charged basically on an a la crate basis. When the resident moves into the unit he/she is given a comprehensive needs/abilities assessment and any additional care requirements are added per line item to the apartment rent to give the total monthly cost. This facility is entirely private pay or certain types of long term care insurance. No Medicare/Medicaid.
There is a personal problem with this facility. Technically, their minimum age is 65 and I am ~6 years from that. They said they had, in the past, partitioned the review board for younger residents who appeared would be a good fit on the unit and had been successful. However, I am at the lower end in age of their success stories.
There are many more services available but I’m sure you get the big picture for this facility and I’ve got to take a break. And from my rant at the beginning of this post, you can tell I’m not about to leave it unattended for any length of time so I’m going to post at this time. Oh, with all these amenities and services you would be correct to assume living here does not come cheaply. But I suppose it falls back to the old adage, “You get what you pay for.”.
Til the next one...
Randy
