The shelves are inviting.
One section includes several musical activities. From a set of handbells that range in tone allow users to follow color coded sheets of music to create familiar tunes. Flash cards with musical notes help users review the location of the corresponding keys on small keyboard. Beautiful paintings are reproduced in miniature formats and are matched with recordings of famous classical pieces that can be played again and again.
Another shelf includes a number of fabrics. From scratchy netting to soft fleece, people who select this work can arrange and rearrange the brightly colored squares any way they want or sort the pieces by texture or by color. Baskets that include prethreaded needles and simple cross stitch patterns to allow for easy completion. At the far end of this fabric shelf, skeins and balls of yarn encourage simple crocheting and knitting tasks. One skein of yarn is even attached to a wooden spool that has been altered with five nail heads to be used for a weaving activity.
The most popular shelf, however, tends to be the one that features practical life skills like shoe polishing and vegetable cutting. Perfectly prepared tasks invite users to complete activities that are a part of every day life for many people.
Prepared environments that have been well thought out and are updated every day, these activities replicate many works that a student might find on Montessori classroom shelves around the country. This set of shelves, however, serves as an activity center for one of the most successful Alzheimer care homes in the area. Research has found that patients in Alzheimer care homes and other settings that serve patients with different types of dementia respond well to these Montessori based activities. Allowing residents to rely on memories of past daily tasks, these individual activities are both calming and reassuring. In a clouded world that can often seem confusing and frightening, residents in Alzheimer care homes truly relax when muscle memory seems to take over in a task like cross stitch or crocheting.
Both Alzheimer Care Facilities and Assisted Living Apartments Provide Options for Many Families
In a perfect world, no family would ever find itself looking for dementia long term care facilities. Instead, the perfect world would allow adult children to care for their aging parents in a home surrounded by other family members, including grandchildren. The reality of the world we live in, however, is far from a setting where aging elders are surrounded by younger relatives. In a family where both the husband and wife work, for instance, no one really has the time to stay with that aging parent. In addition, families struggle to find the best care for their aging parents and grandparents. Alzheimer care homes and other types of memory care facilities provide residents with a safe and respectful place to stay and allow adult children to continue at their jobs knowing that their parents are well cared for.
Consider some of these facts and figures about memory care needs in this country:
- Alzheimer’s disease is the only top 10 cause of death in America that cannot be prevented, slowed, or cured.
- 66% of Alzheimer’s patients in America are women.
- 33% of seniors pass away with Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia.
- 40% of assisted living residents received assistance with three or more activities of daily living. In most cases, bathing and dressing were the most common activities.
- 75% of assisted living residents have had at least two of the 10 most common chronic conditions. Of these, high blood pressure and Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias were the most common.
- 74% of assisted living residents are female.
- 26% of assisted living residents are male.
Aging can be a difficult process for many people. Every birthday that passes may be a family celebration, but many individuals live a life that includes extremely difficult conditions like Alzheimers and dementia. In spite of the their love and respect for their parents and grandparents, however, many families do not have an option for keeping their aging loved ones at home. For these families, finding a caring facility is of utmost importance. A facility that offers a safe and respectful setting.
