The large community of Ramsey County, Minnesota has nearly 550,000 residents, a little over 14 percent of whom are aged 65 and over. According to data published by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 12 percent of Medicare beneficiaries aged 65 and over have Alzheimer's disease or dementia.
In Ramsey County, as in all of Minnesota, the official term for memory care facilities is “special care units." In many cases, SCUs are located within assisted living facilities. These facilities, which the state also refers to as housing with services establishments, are required to register annually with the Department of Health. Ramsey County families have eight memory care facilities to choose from, all of which are in the city of Saint Paul.