Alzheimer’s care takes a loving touch

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When Dr. Michael Carrick’s father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, the family looked at skilled nursing facilities to care for the ailing former senior marketing manager for Bristol-Myers.

“It was pretty bad watching him go down,” he said.

But the family could not find anything that would meet the needs of Alzheimer’s patients.

"There had to be a better way,” he said. “I knew there was a better place they could be.”

He traveled to several different places. Working with an architect and a designer, Carrick began to plan a place for Alzheimer’s disease patients.

Carrick’s father died at the family’s home when the first Somerford Place was being built, but he remains his inspiration.

“There’s a mission field here if we just open our eyes to it,” he said. “I feel we make a difference and are not just another nursing home.”

Somerford Place is not just for Alzheimer’s patients, but also for the families of individuals with the disease, said Carrick.

There are support groups and educational meetings. Spouses can spend the night with their loved ones at any time. The electronic doors ensure that residents will not leave the facility and get lost. Skylights illuminate the halls of each of the buildings’ “neighborhoods.” Each of the four neighborhood hallways are circular, so the meandering Alzheimer’s patients will always end up at their starting points.

By each door there are small signs with the name, age and a short biography of the person in the room. And outside each room are small, lit shelves enclosed by glass. Each shelf contains items meant to trigger memories and help each person to remember which room is theirs. Each one is a window to the past, with photographs and names labeling each picture. In one room was a pastor, in another, a psychologist and another a superior court judge.

Placing a loved one in an assisted living-facility is often a difficult decision for families.

But patients do much better in a community where they are with people like themselves, said Cathy Megert, administrator for Rose Garden in Mentone.

“They don’t have to meet expectations. Other residents won’t question them,” she said. “In the community they thrive because they don’t have to answer anyone.”

And there is a comfortable feel to Rose Garden’s 52-bed apartment-style facility.

The living quarters complete with a living room, dining room and a faux kitchen are designed for those in the earlier and middle stages of the disease.

More than an acre of walking space provides residents a place to exercise and to have time outside of their apartments. Residents can walk through several gates to give them the feeling of control.

“Enough has been taken from them without taking their independence from them,” said Megert.

There is a period of time when people want to go home.

“But home for them is 50 years ago,” Megert said.

Rose Garden accepts all levels of the disease and has a full hospice waiver.

“Even if on hospice, they still bring them in to activities,” said Megert. “We don’t like isolating anybody.”

But the cost of the disease is horrendous for families, said Megert.

Somerford Place and Rose Garden are both residential care facilities.

“It costs more to send to skilled nursing facilities than a place like this, but the insurance won’t cover it,” said Megert.

Braswell’s Ivy Retreat is a skilled nursing facility insurances will cover.

The facility has residents in the later stages of the disease and those with behavioral problems, said Medical Director Victoria Rains.

“Our mission is to care for Alzheimer’s patients with behavioral problems,” she said.

The staff is trained how to love the people with the disease and gently redirect them, she said.

Rains advises families to visit places they may place a loved one.

“You want to look for love,” she said. “You are looking for that connection, that love and support.”

The residents have much to offer to the people who take care of them.

“If you take the time, you can learn more from these people and their lives than you can from a textbook,” said Carrick.

There is a bond that forms with each of the people for whom they care.

“They can make you laugh and they can make you want to cry,” said Megert. “You become an extended family; you see them more than you see your own family. When they hurt, you hurt.”

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