A New York Times article reports on the difficulty some assisted living providers have in caring for dementia residents, even in memory care segments. NCAL Associate Vice President of Workforce and Quality Improvement Lindsay Schwartz is quoted explaining that “Dementia is a difficult disease. Freedom of movement is incredibly important for overall health, mind, body and spirit. You can’t keep people in isolation.”

NCAL has prepared talking points, a sample letter to families, and social media posts you can use to respond to inquiries about the story. 

Key messages

• Assisted living’s primary focus in caring for those living with Alzheimer’s or other dementias is to honor the individual.
• Too often regulations run counter to person-centered care, as they may not fully appreciate the disease process. We should be cautious about additional regulations that would limit residents’ independence and autonomy as well as the ability to customize care for the individual.
• Citations do not always indicate that a resident is in immediate jeopardy, and traditionally, are resolved quickly by each community submitting a plan of correction to the state.
• Ensuring secured dementia care units are working effectively is a constant balance between adhering to what families want, what life safety code requires, and the ability to maximize residents’ autonomy.
• While elopements are rare, we encourage communities to have policies and procedures in place for when elopements occur, which includes constantly assessing their system for improvements.
• Resident-on-resident altercations are unfortunate, but usually, they are minor and indicative of the dementia disease process. We encourage caregivers to prevent altercations through consistent staff assignment—if staff know each resident well, they can often anticipate their needs and prevent aggression.
• We encourage specialized dementia care training, but each community should determine how much training is necessary based on their specific resident population. Similarly, as each resident is unique, providers should assess how much staff should be assigned to each resident based on their individual needs and practice consistent staff assignment.

Additional Resources

• Template letter for family members from providers – You can customize this letter to your specific practices and share it with your families.
• Sample social media posts – You are welcome to use these sample posts. We encourage you to share ways they are offering innovative memory care and ensuring safety and security. Please also check out AHCA/NCAL’s Twitter account for how we’re engaging.