Friday, January 18, 2019
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Neighbors | Submitted.Rocking chairs, dolls and other items used at the new memory care facility, Journeys, at the Inn at Walker Mill were brought to the third floor of the building and made available to residents.
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Neighbors | Submitted.New furniture was loaded into the third floor of the Inn at Walker Mill in Boardman, which houses the new memory care facility, Journeys.
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Neighbors | Jessica Harker.The Briarfield Assisted Living Community the Inn at Walker Mill in Boardman opened their new memory care facility, Journeys, on Jan. 1.
By JESSICA HARKER
The Briarfield assisted living facility the Inn at Walker Mill opened a new memory care facility, Journeys, on Jan. 1.
Executive Director Amanda Rivera said that the facility has 16 apartments available for new residents who need specialized memory care.
“Our third floor its a secure memory care environment, which means that anyone can get up there but our residents can’t get off with out staff supervision just for their safety and security,” Rivera said.
She explained that Keley Ciavarella is the program director of the memory care floor.
“We have a dedicated programing director up there,” Rivera said. “She is focused with the staff on daily activities for the residents that are purposeful and meaningful.”
When a new resident plans to move to the memory care floor, Ciavarella along with a nurse do a clinical assessment and gather information on the residents social history.
Rivera said the clinical assessment is used to determine the physical abilities of the resident, while the social history helps the staff create a personalized experience for the resident.
“With dementia they progress back and begin to forget the identity that they currently have and a lot of them will see themselves as the 23-year-old who was a nurse, or a caregiver, or a mother,” Rivera said. “Kelly does a really good job working with the families to understand what they did in their life, and what big accomplishments that they had, so our staff can meet them where they’re at on their journey.”
The details help to determine what the resident is used to their day being like, according to Rivera, including details like when they usually woke up, what they ate for meals and also topics to avoid.
“So when a resident with dementia becomes frustrated or upset, knowing that their favorite thing in the world is a strawberry milk shake is important so that they don’t continue to demonstrate that behavior and they don’t continue to feel frustrated,” Rivera said.
Rivera and Ciavarella are both certified dementia practitioners, which Rivera said gave them both the background needed to think through every detail of this unit.
She said that the residents all have personalized mail boxes, with names that can change incase a resident begins to forget their current name. The name tags are also simple, red tags that say “help”, since red is the last color a person with dementia can see.
“At meal times we do aroma therapy about a half hour prior to the meal, and then we use citrus during the meal to stimulate appetite and lavender after the meal to stimulate relaxation,” Rivera said. “The plate color that we chose, burnt orange, stimulates appetite in someone with dementia. We have thought through everything.”
The facility also includes a spa, and other luxuries to make the lives of residents more enjoyable.
“I feel like this is unique, we have put a lot of thought behind it,” Rivera said.
Rivera said that the building will also have 234 hour nursing available starting on Jan. 14.
For interest in openings on the floor or to schedule a tour of the facility, call The Inn at Walker Way at 330-758-8855.
“We are very excited to have it opened finally, and we will probably have it filled very quickly,” Rivera said.