Dementia Care in Assisted Living Facilities: Five Things You Need to Know
More than 50 million people around the world are suffering from dementia and 10 million new cases are diagnosed each year. The debilitating condition that causes deterioration in thinking, memory, and behavior affects mostly the elderly. This is why it’s very important to send them to memory care assisted living where they can get the assistance they need for doing activities of daily living and ensure that they are safe and in good care all the time. But what exactly does dementia care in assisted living facilities mean?
Memory Care Assisted Living
Currently, there are more than 30,000 assisted living facilities operating in the United States, a lot of which specialize in memory care assisted living to care for patients suffering from dementia or Alzheimer’s disease.
These facilities offer round-the-clock supervised care to ensure that residents are in a safe environment where they cannot wander out of the building and put themselves in potential danger.
Environment
Memory care assisted living facilities to give residents the opportunity to express themselves in a healthier way to satisfy their needs. Since these patients tend to revert back to their younger years, these facilities provide them with the environment to fill up a need to prevent them from being agitated.
For instance, if an elderly man wants to feel that he’s still working in an office, the facility will provide him with a desk where he can go through the motions that he’s used to.
Independence
These specialized assisted living facilities understand the need for patients to feel that they are free even when they’re indoors. Some assisted living facilities even try to recreate the resident’s home just to make him feel more safe and secure.
Since separation anxiety is one of the biggest challenges for elderly people who are moving to memory care assisted living facilities, it’s very important to make them feel as comfortable and familiar with their surroundings as possible.
The Best Staff
If you’re looking for the right assisted living facility for a loved one, you have to look for three important things: proper staff training, and organized patient-centered program, and engaging activities for patients with dementia.
The Alzheimer’s Association released a Dementia Care Practice Recommendations document in 2018 to ensure that all memory care assisted living facilities to follow the best practices for residents with dementia.
It’s also very important for facilities to be accessible to a healthcare team that can help address the health conditions of residents.
The Right Approach
One of the most important components of any good assisted living facility for dementia patients is in its approach to care. A facility should make the effort to understand each patient’s condition carefully because residents have different needs even if they are all living with dementia.
This will help the team create a personalized care plan to ensure that the patient is given the best care possible.
With the elderly population growing more than ever in the coming years, it’s very important for memory care assisted living facilities to make sure that they follow the best practices in caring for patients living with dementia.
Fallbrook Assisted Living is proud to offer its services to Fremont, NE, and surrounding areas and cities: Arlington, Cedar Bluffs, Ames Nickerson, Fontanelle, Arlington, Leshara, Colon, and Hooper
