New Facilities Meet Growing Alzhemier’s Care Demand

Lili Garcia, behavorial health technician at Mercy Hospital's Senior Behavioral Health Program, talks with a patient in her room Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2013 on the hospital's seventh floor. The Senior Behavioral Health Program is geared to helping patients 55 and older with psychiatric problems that interferes with their lives or is making them a danger to themselves or others.
Lili Garcia, behavorial health technician at Mercy Hospital's Senior Behavioral Health Program, talks with a patient in her room Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2013 on the hospital's seventh floor. The Senior Behavioral Health Program is geared to helping patients 55 and older with psychiatric problems that interferes with their lives or is making them a danger to themselves or others.

Joyce Ball made her family promise not to put her into a medical facility after learning she had Alzheimer’s in 2009. The promise is getting harder to honor as the disease progresses.

Natasha Ball acts as her mother’s daytime caregiver while her father is at work. The 31-year-old Rogers woman is married and the mother of three.

“Our plan tentatively was to look at moving her into a home when she got to a point where she doesn’t know who or where she is. Right now she still has, for the most part, her long-term memory,” she said. “Maybe we will look at it within a year or so.”

Web Watch

Alzheimer’s Association

• alz.org/alzokar

• 24/7 Helpline: 800-272-3900

• facebook.com/AlzheimersOKAR

• twitter.com/AlzheimersOKAR

• youtube.com/AlzheimersOKAR

• Early stage WikiPage: earlyonset.wikispaces.com


At A Glance

Alzheimer’s Numbers

The Alzheimer’s Association estimates that in 2012, 15.4 million caregivers provided an estimated 17.5 billion hours of unpaid care valued at more than $216 billion. Direct costs for caring for those with Alzheimer’s in 2013 will hit an estimated $203 billion.

Source: Alzheimer’s Association

The Balls are part of a growing number of families battling Alzheimer’s. One in every three seniors who dies this year has Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia.

The number of Arkansans who died from Alzheimer’s hit 955 in 2010, a 122 percent jump from 2000. The total is expected to exceed 3,000 by 2025.

Northwest Arkansas residents have a growing number of options for residential care. A pair of new Alzheimer’s units will add 123 beds for patients in the coming months and a new hospital program is helping seniors address more immediate, short-term needs.

“You want your loved one to get the best care possible,” said Denyce Willis, program coordinator of the local Alzheimer’s Association affiliate. “It is a disease that has no survivors.”

Alzheimer’s was the nation’s sixth leading cause of death in 2010 and the fifth leading cause of death for those aged 65 years and older, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. Alzheimer’s has no cure and is not preventable.

Dementia is an umbrella term describing a variety of disease and conditions that develop when nerve cells in the brain die or no longer function normally, causing changes in memory, behavior or the ability to think.

Alzheimer’s is the most common form on dementia, accounting for 60 to 80 percent of all cases. People with Alzheimer’s have changes in their brains that eventually impair their ability to carry out such basic bodily functions as walking and swallowing. People in late stages of the disease need around-the-clock care.

Making Choices

Brandi Schneider, social worker and coordinator of aging services at the Schmieding Center, said decisions on care for dementia patients often boil down to personal preference and finances.

“Some people have a goal to stay at home as long as possible no matter what,” she said. “Some know they will have to go somewhere else at some point. A lot of it depends on the stage of the disease.”

Assisted living facilities and nursing homes can provide dementia services, but the designation as a specialized memory care unit varies, said Kate Luck, public information coordinator for the Arkansas Department of Human Services.

Luck said state law states a long-term care facility has an Alzheimer’s special care unit if it advertises or otherwise has one or more special units for residents with a dementia diagnosis. If a facility makes the claim of having such a unit, the Office of Long-Term Care must certify it.

There are other memory care beds, but since they do not advertise, the state has no special regulatory steps.

All nursing homes have Alzheimer’s or related dementia residents and have medical staff who have been trained on treating and caring for those types of residents, Luck said.

Only two Northwest Arkansas assisted living facilities have certified Alzheimer’s special care units: Butterfield Trail Village in Fayetteville with 40 beds and Windcrest Health and Rehab in Springdale with 19 beds.

The Meadows, an independent and assisted living facility in Bentonville, also has 10 certified Alzheimer’s care beds.

“Assisted living can take people to a certain point, people who might not be quite right for a nursing home facility yet,” Schneider said. “With just two memory care assisted living facilities right now, there is a gap. If we don’t catch up we are going to really fall into a hole.”

Melinda Silva, director of marketing at Butterfield Trail Village, said her facility saw the need in 2004 and opened its Alzheimer’s center in August 2005. The Alzheimer’s unit is open to its independent living residents.

“We are one of the few facilities licensed in the state that provide that continuum of care,” she said. “We have our 24-hour skilled nursing facility that is attached to the unit.”

New Facilities

Clarity Pointe Fayetteville will open next spring with 59 beds to care for patients with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. The facility sits on 5 acres at 1967 W. Truckers Drive, behind Sam’s Club.

It will be a state-certified Alzheimer’s unit.

Doug Oliver, the facility’s executive director, said in a news release that a needs analysis determined Northwest Arkansas was under served for memory care. Clarity Pointe will be managed by CRSA, which also oversees Clarity Pointe Knoxville in Farragut, Tenn.

“Because Clarity Pointe focuses entirely on dementia and related conditions through innovative programming and neighborhood design, we believe the growing senior population and their families will be seeking this type of in-demand and socially accountable option,” according to the release.

Mitch Fall, administrator of Culpepper Place Assisted Living in Fayetteville, said it will break ground on a 64-bed memory care facility next to the assisted living facility at 4461 N. Crossover Road early next year. He anticipates construction to take 10 to 12 months.

“There is a need in Northwest Arkansas,” he said. “What we have now are nursing homes with wings or short-term places.”

The new facility will be a lock-down unit requiring a key card for access.

“It will be more in tune with people trained in Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia,” he said. “Everyone has to have special training from the aides up.”

Mercy’s new Senior Behavioral Health Program opened in June on the seventh floor of the Rogers hospital. The program is geared to help patients aged 55 years and older with psychiatric issues. The unit opened with a handful of beds and will eventually be able to accommodate 18 patients.

Beth Simpson, the program’s director, said it is not a dementia unit, but between 60 and 70 percent of the patients have some form of cognitive impairment. The average stay is seven or eight days.

Simpson said many problems senior patients experience can be traced to a medical issue such as trouble with medication or an infection. The stay in the unit addresses those issues.

“Because we are hospital-based, we are able to deal with more of the medical needs,” she said.

About half of the program’s patients still live at home, and Simpson said they travel to area nursing homes, assisted living campuses and other places seniors gather to perform mobile assessments.

“One thing you have to do when trying to make a diagnosis of cognitive impairment is rule out other things,” she said. “There are other things that could appear to be dementia that are easily treated such as thyroid problems or having their electrolytes out of balance.”

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