Unfortunately, there are subpar Alzheimer’s care and woodlands assisted living facility with inattentive personnel, and without you knowing what you’re looking for, it’s easy to pick one that won’t satisfy your needs for quality care and monitoring.
Choosing an Alzheimer’s care facility, on the other hand, might be considerably easier if you understand the process well enough to know what you’re looking for. My job is to make your decision-making process as simple as possible; we’ll go over the many highlights and features of superior care facilities across the country and get down to the nitty-gritty to help you find Alzheimer’s care and assisted living facilities that will provide the level of care your loved one requires.
You should be prepared to evaluate Alzheimer’s care and assisted living facilities based on hygiene, diet, décor, and activity time, four hallmarks that, if met adequately, often reflect the level of care provided at the facility. Even though I completely understand the difficulties you have in your search for a decent facility, don’t get discouraged; with time, you’ll be better equipped to ask questions regarding the care provided and find the ideal location for your ageing parent or loved one. Allow the following highlights of distinctive Alzheimer’s care and assisted living facilities from throughout the country to guide you in your search for the exceptional treatment and care for your loved one.
Because the facility’s staff performs the bathing, cleanliness is monitored and managed on a daily basis. To make a patient feel more at ease, a good facility should work with his or her current bathing pattern. If people are poorly groomed during your tour of the facility, it should give you a good idea of the amount of care they are receiving.
When baths are located in a resident’s personal room, slips and falls are prevalent; the Los Angeles Jewish Home for the Aging, for example, established a separate bathing facility from the residents’ rooms to prevent these types of mishaps. In Connecticut, for example, Alzheimer’s care and/or assisted living facilities must provide a separate apartment with a bath as well as bathing help (1). While the staff will establish a plan of care for your loved ones when they arrive, you should talk to the facility’s director about how hygiene is handled, whether grab bars and other safety equipment are available in the bathing areas, and how often patients are observed during the day.
Diet: Getting people in Alzheimer’s care and assisted living facilities to eat appropriately is a common complaint. Even if a facility serves three square meals per day, people will lose weight if the food is of poor quality (or quantity).
The Woodlands Assisted Living of Tomball has a residential kitchen with supervised cooking activities for Alzheimer’s patients to encourage them to eat (2). Similarly Alzheimer’s disease, including the often missed loss of taste and smell. A diet for a senior with Alzheimer’s disease should consist of roughly 55-60% carbohydrates, 12-15% protein, and 25-30% fat (3). Residents should have access to substantial snacks, ‘comfort’ foods, and a range of beverages on a continuous basis.
The important thing to remember here is that Alzheimer’s patients have trouble identifying food from a plate, so either the food or the plate should be brightly coloured to keep things from merging together. When touring the facility, make a point of stopping by the dining area to get a sense of how residents are accommodated during mealtimes, as well as to check that the plates are colourful and the food is easily discernible.
Decor: When it comes to Alzheimer’s care and assisted living magnolia facilities, the design of a room is quite important. Some Alzheimer’s patients mistook the improper carpet pattern for hundreds of bugs crawling over the floor. With unique architecture and interiors that are designed to evoke the atmosphere of a home or hotel that residents may have visited at some point in their lives, The, Valiente Senior Living emphasises the feeling of home; the facility even boasts a lovely craftsman style and antique décor (4). Dramatic or busy carpets, draperies, and other upholstery should be avoided, and bright, warm lighting is suggested.
The rooms of the occupants should be immediately identifiable, whether by a nameplate or artwork. For example, outside each resident’s door at the Valiente Senior Living in Texas, a tiny curio cabinet can be filled with personal trinkets to assist in instantly identifying his or her room. Residents can tell it’s their own personal place because the room and bathroom doors are the same colour.
Activities: Alzheimer’s and dementia patients have been demonstrated to respond positively to scent and music therapy. Residents’ cognitive processes can be stimulated by asking them to recognise certain odours or sing along to classic songs. When touring an Alzheimer’s care facility, seek activities such as puzzles, games, gardening, reading, sorting, and organising.
Large groups don’t work the way they should, so small group activities are crucial. It’s critical that you observe an activity session in order to gain a sense of how caregivers interact with residents during group and one-on-one activities. Of course, the more carers, the better; make sure to consider the caregiver-to-resident ratio, since this will allow you to spend more time with your loved one.
Many smart goals for Alzheimer’s patient facilities now include a ‘Memory Lane,’ as I’ll call it. Antique antiques, furniture, clothing, and dolls, as well as other reminders of a bygone era, are put throughout a room to aid people in their memory-jogging activities. The main issue is that the majority of these communities do not make full use of these really beneficial retrospective spaces. In order to be practical, caregivers must involve residents in these small memory corners, to check to see if it is being used effectively.
Final Thoughts:
Residents in Alzheimer’s care facilities require a strict routine, as activities performed on the spur of the moment or changes in meal or bathing times might cause worry or confusion. Residents at outstanding assisted living homes with Alzheimer’s disease have well-organized, structured lives with round-the-clock personalised care.
