Page 10 - Healthcare News Jan/Feb 2022

MEMORY CARE CONT’D
for Rehabilitation.
Why? Because the memory-care population is on
the rise as Americans live longer than ever — and early-onset dementia in younger people is ticking up as well. So the model JGS has adopted, of making sure all the points along its continuum of services can handle different levels of dementia, is one increasingly taking hold in the world of senior living and care.
“We were the ones who spearheaded dementia- friendly Longmeadow a few years ago, which was really important to us, to make people aware of the differences of folks that have this higher level of memory loss, because people really didn’t know how to deal with them. They didn’t know what to do, how to act,” Schelb explained. “We wanted to make people aware, so I worked with the senior center, some emergency responders, and we worked with the Alzheimer’s Association and got certified as a dementia-friendly town.”
Similarly, making JGS a dementia-friendly campus was a natural evolution, she noted. “Except for Genesis independent living, every single piece of the campus concentrates on memory care.”
Gardening Tools
The Garden gives Ruth’s House an element of security and higher-level care for individuals with dementia, Schelb explained.
“Maybe you start out in traditional assisted living, and as they progress [with memory loss], we could
add services to the apartment as long as they’re not a wander risk, and if they do become a wander risk, we’ve got the secure Garden level, which is beautiful inside and out,” she said, noting the waterfall, scenic walkways, and benches out back; the fact that the area is safely fenced in is obscured by the landscaping.
“We just wanted to make it this gorgeous, park-like environment. A lot of people like to walk, and and here they can be outside, and it gives them that sense of freedom.”
In the Leavitt skilled-nursing
facility, two nursing neighborhoods
are dedicated to caring for people
with memory impairments, Halpern
explained, while staff of the other
JGS programs, like Wernick and Sosin, are trained in working with people with memory loss as well.
“As a campus, we’re caring for elders, and it sort of goes hand in hand that, as people get older, they’re suffering memory loss,” she told HCN. “So we take the care of people with dementia, memory loss, and Alzheimer’s disease as a central care delivery that we train our staff on during orientation.”
That orientation, when staff are taught how to engage with people with dementia, is followed by annual reviews and specific skills-training events during the year, she added, noting that JGS will be
Sue Halpern (left) and Mary-Anne Schelb say incorporating memory care into the entire JGS continuum makes sense with people living longer and dementia becoming more prevalent.
using grant funds to expand that skills training. “We’re a person-centered campus, and we deal
with memory impairment across our entire campus the same way,” Halpern added. “You take the ap- proach that you’re meeting the person where they are.”
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10 WWW.HEALTHCARENEWS.COM JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022