Memory care
Memory care, or Alzheimer’s care, is a type of long-term care. When it becomes difficult to take care of someone with dementia or Alzheimer’s disease at home, you might want to consider memory care. With memory care, you can ensure that your loved ones are in a supportive, comfortable, and safe community that feels like a second home. These facilities offer a uniquely designed and safe environment for their residents and focus on improving their quality of life.
What Are Memory Care Facilities?
A memory care community or facility is a residential space that caters to the special needs of seniors suffering from memory loss. Some of the services provided by memory care facilities include memory-enhancing therapies, specialized staff, a secure environment, and 24-hour care. These features distinguish them from the other kinds of senior care facilities. You can see what they are doing to get a better idea of how they help their residents.
Memory care offers support to seniors with dementia and Alzheimer’s in many ways. Their experienced staff is trained to provide dementia care. The best memory care facilities have a low staff-to-resident ratio. This makes it easy for every resident to get personalized dementia care. To reduce confusion among residents, the facilities have unique layouts. The facilities also coordinate their services with other healthcare professionals to offer their residents the best possible support.
Why Are Memory Care Facilities Needed?
As dementia is progressive, its symptoms will gradually worsen, which would make it difficult for elderly adults to live independently. As Alzheimer’s progresses, the behaviors of your loved ones will become challenging to manage. It may no longer be safe for them to live at home.
If your relative has advanced dementia, they need to stay in a safe environment to receive 24-hour supervised care. In the later stages of dementia, people cannot independently perform simple tasks and daily activities like using the toilet, dressing, and bathing. Their disorientation, aggression, and confusion will get worse over time. This would affect them and the people around them.
Family caregivers will also find it hard to fulfill their other responsibilities, like children and work, while caring for a family member with advanced dementia. The emotional and physical stress of providing full-time care for someone with Alzheimer’s can affect the health of caregivers. Memory care offers exceptional care for those with memory loss while providing support for caregivers.
The Environment Provided By Memory Care Facilities
Memory care facilities provide a safe environment for their residents. These facilities are equipped to prevent wandering- a dangerous yet common Alzheimer’s and dementia behavior. People who wander might get hurt or lost.
Memory care facilities prioritize residents’ safety. To ensure that the staff locks the facility’s exterior doors. Some communities might also have doorbells or keypads at exits and entrances to make it easy for the staff to monitor who leaves and enters the building. Many memory care facilities have enclosed courtyards or gardens for their residents where they can spend time safely.
Clearly identified spaces, reduced background noise, proper lighting, and personalized apartments are a few of the design elements that reduce disorientation and confusion in memory care communities. By promoting a sense of familiarity and safety, these facilities help the residents to feel at home and relax.
Often, bigger senior living and communities have memory care facilities, too, with a separate wing devoted to memory care. Memory care facilities may also be standalone communities meant exclusively for people with memory loss.
Staff At Memory Care Facilities
Staff in memory care communities receive regular, thorough, and specific training to provide round-the-clock care for residents with memory loss. They encourage the residents to retain their independence as much as possible while supporting them whenever needed. The staff also promotes social interaction and ensures that the residents are comfortable at all times. They organize art classes and brain games to stimulate the residents’ memory and encourage them to enhance their skills.
Memory care staff know how to manage the residents’ difficult symptoms and behaviors compassionately by using dementia care techniques. They try to reduce the requirement for antipsychotic medication and adopt a non-drug approach while caring for the residents and managing their behavior.
The facilities also offer care coordination services and work closely to plan the residents’ activities and assess their health. They coordinate with dentists, cardiologists, podiatrists, primary care physicians, and outside health care professionals while caring for the residents. To learn more about how memory care facilities support residents with dementia and Alzheimer’s, visit https://rowntreegardens.org/.
