When a loved one is diagnosed with dementia or Alzheimer’s, you want them to receive the best care from the best caregivers. Mount Pleasant Gardens, voted the Best Memory Care Facility by the readers of HealthLinks, provides that and more.
Mount Pleasant Gardens emphasizes a homelike environment for its residents. Administrator Kristen Dollason explained: “The essence of the homelike environment is our wonderful staff, who go above and beyond to find out what each resident likes and what their life was like before having dementia. This starts with our sales director, who finds out as much about the resident as possible during the initial visit with the family and during the move-in process. Our activities department finds out what interests each resident has and tries to incorporate as much of these interests as possible into our activities program. Our personal care staff finds out things like what snacks a resident may like, when they like having their hair washed and what their favorite outfit is.”
Along with providing exceptional attention to the needs of the residents, the staff is always keeping up-to-date with innovative approaches to care for people with Alzheimer’s or dementia. They follow Teepa Snow’s Positive Approach to Care, which focuses on enhancing the life and relationships of those living with brain change by fostering an inclusive global community.
“The program not only teaches us positive ways to provide care and companionship to all of our residents, but it also provides intuitive in-depth training to help us put ourselves in our residents’ shoes at different stages of the disease,” Dollason said.
Dollason credits her team for its Best in Health recognition. “I couldn’t be more proud of my team and what they do for the residents and their families every day. Having been in senior living for 15 years, this is the most caring team I have ever had the pleasure of working with. Each person genuinely cares about every resident as an individual. That is so important to me, having had several family members suffer from this disease and ultimately pass away from it.”
By Theresa Stratford
