10 Tips on Developing Senior Housing for Behavioral Alzheimer’s

Date

Apr 14th, 2009 9:42am

Author

Eric Schubert

Category

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Developing Senior Housing for Behavioral Alzheimer’s

Approximately 5.2 million people in the United States live with Alzheimer’s, and 10 million baby boomers are anticipated to develop Alzheimer’s in their lifetime. But there’s more that today’s health care, senior housing professionals and communities need to plan for …

Janelle Meyers

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Debbie Manthey

<!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]-->Increasingly, senior housing professionals are seeing a subset of Alzheimer’s: when the affected person develops substantial and challenging behaviors, including screaming, biting, throwing things, or exhibiting aggressive sexual behavior.

Though they occur in a relatively small percentage of people, these behaviors can be devastating to their families, hurtful to those around them, and frustrating to senior housing professionals who care for them.

Many senior housing providers are forced to keep these residents heavily medicated or discharge them to a mental health hospital unit. There’s a better way.

Download in our Successful Aging Library Debbie Manthey’s and Janelle Meyer’s 10 insights on developing senior housing for behavioral Alzheimer’s and dementia. These Ecumen leaders share their tips from the work they did in developing Ecumen’s Summit House in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota to serve people living with the extreme challenges of behavioral Alzheimer’s and dementia.

This is a must-read for health care and senior services organizations seeking to serve people with behavioral Alzheimer’s. This is not easy work, but Debbie and Janelle share how incredibly rewarding it is to find a better way.