Embrace, Memory Care at Home

A husband whose wife has dementia sits at the dining room table and fumbles through his notepad reviewing all the entries he has made describing his wife’s daily behaviors and actions but can make little or no sense out of them wondering where the situation will go next.

A wife struggles to maintain her own health as she attempts to do virtually everything for her husband who has a long-standing diagnosis of Alzheimer’s and is beginning to move into a more severe stage of the disease. She wonders how much longer she can keep it up without more assistance.

These two scenarios are among the many that we encounter at Open Arms Solutions as we work to assist those families who have a loved one with memory impairment of some kind. After several years of recognition that more can be done for individuals and families like those characterized above, Open Arms has just launched a new memory care at home program called Embrace.

While Open Arms developed an earlier version of Embrace a few years ago, the program was discontinued after a time but with valuable lessons learned. The wisdom gained from that first venture is now being incorporated into our new version of Embrace. Open Arms recognizes the value of for example:

• The hands-on and day-to-day involvement of a Memory Care Program Director who oversees the program and can work directly with clients and family members as needed
• The role of advanced training in dementia for not just our caregivers but a large portion of our Open Arms staff as well
• The importance of family education and support services available to our client’s loved ones
• The value of looking at the whole client when structuring a day so that needed tasks (such as bathing, grooming, and dressing) are a relatively small portion of the activities and engagements that our clients experience daily
• Enabling clients to continue to be involved with what has brought them purpose and joy in their lives but delivered now in a way that has been modified for their success relative to their cognitive impairment

Open Arms understands how difficult and challenging it can be to take care of loved ones with dementia and finding good quality dementia care to support your efforts is a crucial element of Embrace. We would like the opportunity to discuss the program in more detail with you so please reach out to me directly here at Open Arms at scott.tolan@openarmssolutions.com or by telephone at 847-612-9105.