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A Changing Landscape for Memory Care

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There are many opportunities for specialized facilities offering memory care. The number of adults with cognitive impairments is increasing, but the number of caregivers is decreasing, which requires more innovative solutions. While some facilities are stand-alone solutions for memory care patients, others offer care integrated into existing assisted living or nursing home facilities.

Innovative Changes

Recent changes to memory care needs include inventive settings that are vastly different than existing dementia support floors and secure units. New care settings use the latest research and understanding of cognitive impairment to provide the best possible environment and services. There will be many more options to choose from in the near future. The small house model has become increasingly popular. It’s an intimate setting within existing nursing communities consisting of 10 enclosed, secure units designed for couples facing memory challenges. A small-scale affordable housing model, partially funded by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), is typically available to low-income seniors. Design elements include:

  • High visibility of features so patients can see the toilet from the bed, the kitchen from the living room, the activity space from the dining room, etc.
  • Discreet security measures like disguised doors to prevent exit-seeking behavior and decorative fencing to provide a secure environment.
  • Separate bedroom suites furnished with the patient’s own belongings.
  • Time-appropriate bright lighting during awake hours and dimmer lighting in the evening.
  • Accessible outdoor space to enjoy nature and walk and wander safely.

Those seniors who can afford private pay for their memory care can live in an assisted living facility designed like a neighborhood from an earlier time. Often, dementia patients readily recall memories from long ago, and these centers look like a community replete with porches, rocking chairs, carpet that mimics grass, and fiber optic ceilings that allows transitional lighting, creating a sense of the day and night sky. Other elements, like aromatherapy, calm residents or stimulate their appetite depending on the selection of oils integrated into the therapy. All these elements help reduce anger, anxiety, and depression, which are hallmarks of seniors who suffer from dementia illnesses.

Full Continuum Care with Geriatric Psychiatry

Memory care is improving to meet the increasing number of residents. Many facilities are tapping into the expertise of geriatric psychiatry. Geropsychiatry, psychogeriatrics, or psychiatry for older adults is a subspecialty of psychiatry dealing with the study, prevention, and treatment of mental disorders in seniors. This field of study can enhance a memory care facility and improve the problems of anger, depression, and anxiety with medical components that address dementia. The techniques use a person-centered approach that fosters autonomy, develops empathy with residents, and even focuses on humor to help alleviate stress and increase quality of life.

Certified Memory Care Professionals

Professional caregivers offer specialized care to patients with dementia. Formal memory care education will become a more commonplace accreditation as the number of patients increases. Rather than a certified nursing assistant (CNA), dementia patients will be tended to more frequently by certified dementia care nursing assistants (CDNAs). This change in credentialing is driven by rising consumer expectations and tighter regulations that govern memory care.

Slowing the Progression of Dementia

Dementia is more prevalent than ever before, and so is the understanding that the disease has a long preclinical phase. Intervention and healthy lifestyle modification can delay the clinical dementia phase. Physical activity, social engagement, and brain fitness through smart devices and computer applications are excellent cognitive compensation strategies that protect executive brain function, particularly in the preclinical phase of the disease. Cutting-edge technology can also help seniors compensate for memory loss, allowing them to remain at home longer. It also enables senior facility operators to refine their services with fewer staff.

Wearable cameras with artificial intelligence (AI) facial recognition capabilities can provide a patient with the name of the person approaching them. AI can also help a senior’s cognitive load, helping them stay informed regarding daily decisions. New software applications are making it easier for memory care patients to use video, audio, and sensory technologies that provide predictive analytics to caregivers to detect depression and receive alerts indicating a patient is having a bad day or at an increased risk of falling due to a change in gait.

Do you or your loved one have a plan in place in the event you become a memory care patient? Are you aware of the changing options available for living arrangements? Contact our Ruston, LA office by calling us at (318) 255-1760 today and schedule an appointment to discuss how we can help you with your planning.

The Top Trends for Senior Living

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As the silver tsunami of baby boomers continues to enter the senior living and care organizations markets, the general response has been uncertainty as to how to meet changing and varied senior needs while maintaining profitability.  Health Dimensions Group (HDG ) has released its list for 2020 entitled “Top Trends in Aging Services: Preparing for Historic Changes.” Owners and operators of senior living facilities must become responsive and make changes that are swift and diverse.

New Senior Housing Projects

Actuaries used to define senior housing construction projections and schedules are based on population data that are five or more years out. These metrics attempt to address occupancy and growth challenges as senior living occupancy rates fluctuated between the 86 – 88 percent mark for 2019 according to new data from the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care (NIC). The third quarter of 2019 set a record for the highest demand of net new senior housing units while the construction data indicates a slowdown is near. The population projections of 2015 are not in accord with the latest senior housing demand. More cost-effective construction options and the repurposing of existing real estate is becoming a necessity to offset occupancy pressures and saturated markets.

Alternative Living Care Options

For lower-income seniors, alternative living care models, including the Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE), integrate Medicare and Medicaid financing; provide a comprehensive service delivery system. This coordination of care is an effort to defer or avoid seniors moving into a long-term care fee-for-service facility. Implementing this program and other, less costly models of care can help to address lower-income senior housing issues. These models will continue to leverage technology to drive innovation and efficiencies, as well as address workforce shortages.

Middle-Income Seniors

The most challenging market segment for senior living is that of middle-income seniors. Those seniors without sufficient resources for long-term care but who are also not in a position to qualify for Medicaid seem to face some of the most significant issues as it relates to housing and healthcare costs. According to McKnight’s Senior Living, investors and operators focus on the upper end of income distribution as their preferred targeted residents while leaving state and local programs to provide for low-income seniors. This scenario leaves a large portion of middle-income seniors whose living needs are not adequately being addressed.

Technology for Seniors

Applied digital technologies are changing the senior living sector, and the race to seize substantial market share in the active adult and under-addressed middle-class needs has not gone unnoticed by tech behemoths like Apple and Amazon. Alexis Ohanian, the co-founder of Reddit, who runs a venture capital firm, is predicting that a significant change is imminent for senior living. New startups, heavy on innovation and technology, will bring major disruption to existing senior living models and facilities very soon.

Investments in Senior Living Facilities

Existing operators and investors of aging senior living facilities are increasing investment in a wide range of offerings and services to remain operationally sound and competitive. One service strategy is to partner with home health agencies that provide therapy under Medicare Part B while a senior resident ages in place. Another is to create more public spaces within facilities. The creation of roof-top restaurants and park spaces on the property can increase senior socialization alleviating depression, which is a contributing factor to downward health spirals for seniors. Smartwatch technology that acts as a smart key for residents as well as a movement and health monitor reduces the number of daily interactions with staff and provides a way for loved ones to monitor their spouse or parent remotely. Creating more job flexibility for staff and dramatically increasing wages for hourly positions is a necessity to recruit and retain competent staff in a tight labor force.

While many of the baby boomers are still below the average age of residents that live in traditional senior communities, demographics point to the fact that the senior living industry will soon be under more pressure than ever to provide for a diverse and increasingly particular population. Market sector opportunities in middle-income senior living will drive innovation as competition increases, and companies vie for market share. These opportunities to realize new solutions will positively affect the entire senior income spectrum for housing.

We help seniors come up with comprehensive plans to address the aging process and the challenges that come with it. We welcome the opportunity to talk with you about your particular needs.

Contact our office by calling us at (318) 255-1760 and schedule an appointment to discuss how we can help you.