A full memory support program with a growing waiting list prompted one continuing care retirement / life plan community to create a program that bridges the gap between assisted living and full memory support.
Dallas-based CC Young Senior Living launched its PATHWAYS — Personal Assistance Toward Health & Wellness As You Succeed — program for residents with declining cognition who “need a little extra assistance” along the way, according to Nena Paris, administrator for assisted living and memory support.
“Research has shown that a guided program like PATHWAYS can slow cognitive decline and help individuals maintain engagement and function,” CC Young President and CEO Russell Crews said in a press release. “Our PATHWAYS program fills a real need by providing these residents with personal interaction, and physical and emotional support to enhance their overall wellness and quality of life in a joyful, engaging environment.”
PATHWAYS residents live together on one floor in The Hillside, one of the CCRC’s assisted living buildings, with a dedicated certified nursing assistant and a life enrichment director. Together, those staff members create structured activities that are cognitively stimulating and draw on the International Council on Active Aging’s seven pillars of wellness: physical, social, spiritual, intellectual, emotional, vocational and environmental wellness.
Patty Sullivan, vice president of sales and marketing, called the seven pillars the “backbone” to CC Young’s life enrichment approach.
“We found that when we use the seven pillars as our roadmap, it’s beneficial to all, and it also gives families comfort knowing that we are approaching the care of their loved one or family member with a holistic approach,” Sullivan told McKnight’s Senior Living.
Paris said that PATHWAYS not only provides physical support; it also gives emotional support to combat the social isolation that can occur at the start of cognitive decline.
“It is a need for more activities, because these people tend to isolate,” she said. “We found that the more active you can keep these folks, the longer they can remain at a certain stage.”
The program has a dedicated 1:7 resident to staff ratio, with the ability to house up to 22 residents with additional staff members. Paris said that residents who are beginning to get lost or roam are candidates for the program, which launched July 1. Anyone who starts to roam outside of the building or tries to leave would advance to full memory care. Some PATHWAYS residents, she said, never may need full memory support.
Paris said that CC Young saw a big need for such an initiative after enrollment in its memory support program filled up and a waiting list started to get longer. The company’s memory support wing, which is a locked unit, can accommodate 32 residents, and it currently has five individuals on the waiting list. Paris said she noticed the number of individuals needing memory support beginning to “creep up” in the past two years.
Nationally, according to new estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 44% of assisted living residents have dementia diagnoses.
