The number of people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease continues to grow, but many Florida families are still unaware of the special kind of care offered by an assisted living memory care community. Add to that the fact that there are more long-term care options than ever before and the process of selecting the best care for your loved one can be downright overwhelming.

Even with groundbreaking new treatments available, there’s still much we don’t understand about Alzheimer’s disease progression. The symptoms are constantly changing and entirely unique in every individual, contributing to the confusion. For this reason, many families have more questions than answers when it comes to Alzheimer’s disease stages and care options.

At Serenades Memory Care, we’re often asked which Alzheimer’s stages we care for in our communities. Not only do we care for older adults at all stages of the disease, but we also personalize care to the individual based on where they fall in the disease progression. It is one of many features that make a memory care community unique! In fact, most people affected by dementia will benefit from a memory care community in the earliest stages of the disease.

Signs Your Loved One Will Benefit From A Memory Care Community

Moving to a memory care community at any stage of Alzheimer’s disease can provide the support you and your loved one need to thrive with memory loss. Memory care communities provide 24-hour supervision, help with activities of daily living such as bathing, eating and medication management, and a special form of care that is more personalized than other types of senior care communities.

If your loved one is experiencing any of the following symptoms, they are likely to benefit from the services of a Serenades Memory Care community:

• Confusion or cognitive impairment that may create safety concerns
• Memory loss or forgetfulness such as leaving the stove on or failing to take medication
• Mobility limitations that may lead to a fall
• Weight loss caused by Alzheimer’s disease
• Lack of hygiene
• Wandering or disorientation
• Language problems or difficulty communicating
• Cognitive and mobility decline due to degenerative disorders such as Parkinson’s disease

Remember, cognitive impairment, memory loss, disorientation and confusion can all create unsafe conditions in the home, particularly among older adults who may live alone. These symptoms and others can be experienced at any stage of the disease progression.

Find out more about how memory care differs from assisted living in these questions and answers about memory care.

Purpose-Built For All Stages of Alzheimer’s

The features of Serenades Memory Care communities are purpose-built for older adults with memory impairment. All aspects of our specialized memory care communities are designed to minimize the unwanted symptoms and behaviors of Alzheimer’s and dementia.

The small neighborhoods, open floor plans, family-style dining and living rooms at Serenades help residents feel more at home and at ease. This design helps reduce anxiety and confusion caused by memory loss and gives residents more freedom to safely navigate their environment with confidence.

To this we add innovative programming and person-directed care while safeguarding personal security. It really is a memory care community built for all stages of Alzheimer’s disease.

Personalized Programming For Early Stages

Programming at Serenades focuses on a person’s retained abilities rather than what has been lost to dementia. This key insight is the driving force behind Serenades’ award-winning approach to memory care and is significant in the earlier stages of the disease.

Emphasis on retained abilities encourages residents with dementia to maintain independence longer, even as the disease progresses and symptoms worsen.  When activities are personalized based on an individual’s abilities, the person tends to be more engaged in the activity. Guided by a personal profile, daily activities such as those offered at Montessori Mornings at Serenades help residents achieve higher levels of independence and emotional well-being.

Serenades Memory Care also honors freedom of choice in daily care. The person with progressively worsening symptoms is often aware of changes taking place in the brain. This sense of awareness in the early stages can impact a person’s self-esteem, leading to depression, anxiety and other unwanted symptoms.  Reassuring those with Alzheimer’s and dementia that they’re respected as individuals and allowing them to make decisions about their daily routine is vital to their sense of confidence, self-esteem, and happiness.

Learn more about the building blocks of person-directed care at Serenades Memory Care.

Dining Services For Middle Stages

While the personalized programming at Serenades is equally beneficial in the middle stages of disease progression, the specialized dining program is especially helpful for preventing unwanted weight loss often experienced by those with Alzheimer’s disease.

People with memory challenges struggle to get enough nutrients in their diet. Diet is especially important in those with Alzheimer’s and dementia, but managing the causes of weight loss associated with memory are challenging. That’s because the signs that signal to healthy people that it’s time to eat, i.e. a growling stomach, do not register the same way in the person with dementia. Brain cells do not make the connection between hunger and food as well as they once did. In the later stages of the disease, dementia can even affect the ability to hold utensils, chew and swallow, creating more challenges.

Caregivers at Serenades Memory Care understand the importance of nutrition in those with Alzheimer’s disease and apply a technique known as the Dementia Diet. They know how to manage nutritional challenges and can help prevent the spiraling cycle of weight loss that is often associated with the disease in the middle and late stages.

Dementia caregivers at Serenades adapt food choices and eating strategies to meet a resident’s changing needs, preferences and abilities, and offer a variety of food choices to help them maintain a healthy weight.

Whether it is providing easy access to snacks and finger foods, leveraging the aroma of food through scented towels, or creating more contrast on the plate, use of innovative dementia diet techniques in a memory care community ensures proper nutrition in those with Alzheimer’s and dementia.

Advanced Caregiver Training For Late Stages

Caregivers in assisted living communities are trained to provide assistance with bathing, toileting, feeding, and dressing those who need assistance with daily living activities, but caregivers who work at Serenades Memory Care communities go above and beyond what is required with dementia care training. That’s because older adults with memory challenges often require more assistance using specialized techniques to address their unique symptoms and behaviors.

At Serenades Memory Care for example, caregivers are trained to recognize an individual’s abilities based on where they are in the disease progression and adjust their expectations and care approach accordingly. This empowers caregivers to better meet the needs of that individual at all stages.

Most assisted living memory care communities require the minimum state-mandated training of their staff, but Serenades Memory Care provides intensive, ongoing instruction using nationally recognized, research-based care practices. This enhanced training uses new and innovative research techniques based on the science behind brain disease. Training includes topics ranging from behavior management to engagement strategies to improve quality of life in those with Alzheimer’s and dementia, even in the late stages of the disease.

Memory Care Community For All Stages of Alzheimer’s

Deciding when to seek memory care support can be a difficult decision. You may even wonder if your loved one will qualify for memory care. But as Alzheimer’s disease progresses, caregiver stress can become overwhelming and eventually impact your own health.

Most families simply want their loved ones to have the highest quality of life possible and the best possible care at all stages of the disease. Serenades Memory Care in West Orange, The Villages and Longwood makes that possible.

To learn more about memory care at Serenades, schedule a visit to a community near you.

You are far more likely to hear the word Montessori mentioned in a PTA meeting than an assisted living community like Sonata, but one innovative Serenades Memory Care community has discovered a new purpose for the Montessori method.

The Montessori method of teaching is far from a new idea, dating back to the early 1900s when Dr. Maria Montessori first traveled to the U.S. from Italy to share her groundbreaking work. According to the American Montessori Society, Dr. Montessori believed engaging in work such as farming would help children develop real-world skills, faster. She believed children would learn resilience by nurturing their individual abilities and feeding their curiosity, free from excessive oversight or intervention from parents and teachers.

It only took 100 more years to discover the key principles of a Montessori education have applications beyond the classroom, and that the concepts of freedom, independence, and work—each foundational to Montessori, have relevance to older adults on the opposite end of the age continuum.

As children, we eagerly look for ways to be independent and self-sufficient human beings. Later in life, and especially among seniors living with memory loss – we look for ways to hold on to it. In other words, Montessori is just as useful to seniors struggling to retain independence as it is to their grandchildren trying to find it.

The bottom line? Independence, freedom, and work, as it turns out, go hand-in-hand with well-being no matter how old you are.

Montessori and The Memory Care Community

In practice, a Montessori education is rooted on the belief that each child is a unique individual, therefore teaching should be tailored to those unique needs to tap into their true potential.

Coincidentally, many of these same tenants are applicable in a long-term care setting, particularly memory care communities. That’s because Alzheimer’s disease progresses differently in everyone. No two people will experience dementia in the same way. For this reason, a more personal, or person-directed approach to care, is often regarded as more effective and beneficial than a one-size-fits-all approach.

The Montessori method encourages children to learn at their own pace. Learning is achieved naturally through repetition, self-realization, and feelings of success. This approach is useful in long-term care settings, too, but for slightly different reasons.

Since the progression of Alzheimer’s disease and GEM states vary from person to person, people with Alzheimer’s also benefit from activities tailored to their preferences and customized for their abilities. In other words, the same activity offered to all residents in a memory care community doesn’t work as well as providing individualized activities and tasks.

Montessori Mornings at Serenades

Serenades at West Orange recognized the universal advantages of Montessori methods in both the classroom and long-term care setting and discovered an opportunity to develop a program that offers more individualized support to its residents with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.

A natural extension of the traditional Montessori approach, Montessori Mornings at Serenades West Orange embraces the concepts of Montessori in an entirely new and unique setting: an assisted living memory care community.

Freedom of Choice and Abilities

Whether classroom or senior care community, the building blocks of Montessori have stood the test of time by embracing three key concepts. These include an environment that fully supports and promotes freedom, independence, and work.

• Freedom to make choices and learn at one’s own pace
• Independence to nurture and maintain the essential “sense of self”
• Work to retain one’s attention and stay motivated

According to the Montessori method, learning should be self-directed. The Montessori approach allows children to make more decisions and choices than they would in a traditional educational setting. More autonomy is permitted to allow children to discover their own potential. Teachers guide children to engage in self-directed activities in hopes it will motivate them more.

Similarly, freedom is emphasized at Montessori Mornings at Serenades. Caregivers provide the tools necessary for residents to engage in various tasks every morning, but do not do the tasks for them. It’s the act of “doing with,” rather than “doing for,” that is important.

Allowing residents the freedom to make decisions helps those with cognitive decline hang on to the very human need to make choices and stay in control of one’s life, even as Alzheimer’s disease progresses. It’s also proven to reduce the unwanted symptoms and behaviors of dementia such as anxiety and agitation.

Independence and Self-Esteem

Another tenant central to Montessori is the belief that children should be given space to learn independently without excessive oversight from teachers. The approach is meant to nurture a child’s natural passion for exploration, curiosity, and self-discovery.

Montessori methods nurture independence in children, which means learning is individualized and unique for each child. For example, “self-correcting” toys such as cylinders and puzzles allow children to learn through trial and error rather than parent or teacher correction, which may harm self-esteem.

Maintaining dignity and self-esteem through independent tasks is vitally important to those with Alzheimer’s and dementia, too. Montessori Mornings at Serenades, for example, assigns morning tasks to residents as a means to prolong independence in the individual while helping them maintain the essential “sense of self” that builds confidence.

Work and Well-Being

According to Montessori, work brings gratification by instilling purpose. This belief aligns perfectly with the programming goals of a memory care community, which aims to improve well-being and quality of life in people with Alzheimer’s and dementia. Ultimately, activities give residents with memory challenges more purpose, which enhances well-being.

In short, happiness is derived in part by staying busy doing something you love.

Rather than the traditional definition of “work,” in a Montessori Center, work reflects self-directed activities that children can perform independently. The belief is that when children choose the work they want to do, they are more likely to pay attention and stay motivated. Similarly, work-like tasks that memory care residents can perform independently are central to the Montessori Mornings program at Serenades.

“Our goal is to continuously help keep our minds busy to promote slowing cognitive decline,” said Kristin Collazo, LPN, CDP and Executive Director of Serenades West Orange.  Activities are also driven by individual resident preferences. A former homemaker might find joy in folding laundry or arranging flowers while others may enjoy building with LEGO bricks or painting a flowerpot.”

Montessori Mornings guides residents with memory challenges to engage in various tasks based on their unique abilities while providing the appropriate level of support. Whether it be assisting with setting the table for dinner, folding napkins, or clearing dishes, the usefulness of the tasks and activities give residents a sense of purpose and improve self-confidence.

Managing Alzheimer’s Symptoms with Montessori

The unwanted symptoms and behaviors associated with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia are also improved through the Montessori Mornings program at Serenades.

“When a resident is agitated, it helps them relax and stay clam by staying busy with a task and preventing boredom,” said Kristin.

Personalized care at Serenades Memory Care treats the individual, not the disease, because the disease is never the same in two people. For example, new residents at Serenades are given a Life Story box and families are asked to fill them with personal items that are meaningful to the person with dementia. Families love providing items for the box and collaborating with caregivers at Serenades. This helps caregivers and activity directors know what types of tasks are best suited to the individual on Montessori Mornings.

Whether in an academic or care setting, a developing child or a senior with dementia, the benefits of treating the individual based on where they are in the learning stages or disease stages are universally shared.

To learn more about person-directed care at Serenades, schedule a visit to a community near you.