What is Memory Care?

Memory care offers seniors with dementia and Alzheimer’s a wide range of services, from cognitive stimulation and emergency monitoring to support from specially trained staff. This can lead to numerous benefits, including a better quality of life, reduced use of antipsychotic medications and improved medical care for other health issues.

We’ll explain the most prominent benefits of memory care below.

• Care Coordination: The community’s team will work together, including your loved one as appropriate, to ensure comprehensive care.
• Staff Knowledge and Competency: The staff has the necessary skill set and receives ongoing training to prepare them to work with people with cognitive impairments.
• Ability-Based Activity Programming: Available activities suit your loved one’s cognitive ability, memory, attention span, language, reasoning ability and physical function.
• Behavior Management: Staff members manage behaviors associated with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia through non-pharmacological means, such as establishing structured routines and supervised access to the outdoors.
• Safe and Supportive Physical Environment: Living spaces typically feature intuitive layouts for easy navigation and calming environments to help reduce stress and overstimulation.

When searching for the right long-term care option, understanding the differences between different services becomes crucial. Each type of facility caters to specific needs and offers varying levels of care, staff training, safety measures and cognitive stimulation.

The following table breaks down the key features of three popular senior living options to help families make an informed decision for their loved one.

Memory Care Services

The services available in memory care communities help make life safer and more comfortable for those living with memory impairments. All residences provide basic daily assistance for residents, including:

• Assistance with activities of daily living, including bathing, dressing and toileting
• Meal preparation and serving
• Housekeeping and laundry service
• Interior and exterior maintenance tasks
• Round-the-clock access to nurses
• Transportation to doctor’s appointments and other outings

Memory care communities also offer activities such as arts and crafts, music and dancing, led by staff or volunteers with experience working with people who have Alzheimer’s disease. Research increasingly suggests that such activities are beneficial for people with cognitive impairments. Many communities also offer cognitive therapies and programs meant to keep the brain active.

Memory Care Amenities

Communities catering to seniors with memory loss often have design features not available in other types of senior living residences. Some of these features include:

• Safety precautions to prevent wandering, such as doors with alarms
• Keypad locks at all doors or other controlled entry and exit points
• Security cameras monitoring entry and exit points
• Use of personal security devices such as medical alert systems

In addition to these safety features, many communities also offer amenities for residents’ enjoyment. These amenities may include:

• Fitness center with guided group classes
• A secured outdoor or open-air courtyard
• Indoor or outdoor swimming pools
• Fine dining rooms
• Resident lounges
• Game rooms

To provide a safe environment for those with dementia, memory care communities must have a specially trained staff and enhanced security measures. Because of these special needs, this type of care tends to be more expensive than other options.

Generally, dementia care costs about 20-30% more than assisted living. Considering that U.S. median expenses for assisted living hover around $5,350 per month, seniors can expect to pay approximately $6,688 per month for memory care. Costs can vary significantly based on your location and the specific facility’s services and amenities, so be sure to ask communities for their pricing directly.

While paying out-of-pocket is always an option, the high cost of memory care leads many families to seek some form of financial assistance. Some of the most common ways to pay for memory care include:

Watching a loved one live with Alzheimer’s disease or any other cognitive impairment poses numerous challenges. Although many families attempt to provide care for their loved one on their own, seniors often eventually reach a point when professional memory care will greatly benefit them.

While making the decision to seek memory care is personal for every family, the signs below may indicate that it’s time to consider professional care for your loved one.

• Getting lost or disoriented while driving or walking on a familiar route
• Losing prescriptions, forgetting to take medication or taking the improper dose
• Personality changes such as increased aggression or withdrawal from loved ones
• Dangerous incidents at home, such as forgetting to turn off the stove or leaving the door or gate open
• A noticeable decline in grooming, such as an overgrown, unkempt beard or wearing clothes that appear to be unwashed
• Lack of cooperation with family caregivers

Each family has different priorities when it comes to selecting a memory care community, whether they’re looking for a certain staff-to-resident ratio or a specific music therapy program.

Below, we explain the key areas for families to focus on when considering a memory care community.

• Care Capabilities: Meet with facility staff to discuss whether the community can manage your loved one’s condition both now and in the future. If your loved one has other chronic conditions or medical problems, make sure that the community’s medical team can adequately manage them as well.
• Staff Attentiveness and Expertise: Make sure the community’s staff members have specialized dementia training on top of being good care providers. They should know how to manage combativeness, recognize signs of pain and be able to create solutions for the challenges often associated with eating, bathing or toileting in dementia patients.
• Safety: Rooms and bathrooms should have emergency call systems. For enhanced safety, many communities provide residents with personal medical alert systems. Staff should perform in-room checks regularly. To prevent wandering, the community should monitor all entry and exit points and provide access to enclosed outdoor areas.
• Activities and Social Engagement: Check not only the number of available activities but also how appropriate they are for your loved one’s cognitive abilities. Usually, dementia programming has time set aside for art projects or reminiscence, incorporates some basic exercising or mimics everyday activities, such as having a dementia-safe kitchen for cooking.

Ultimately, only you can determine if a community suits your loved one. However, if you’d like some assistance from an expert, contact a Caring.com Family Advisor.