Sagora senior Living Invests In memory Care Training to Boost empathy, Care Coordination

Sagora Senior Living is investing in new training for staff within its Pathways memory care program in an effort to better educate staff, families and the public about dementia and cognitive change.

The operator launched the “Dementia Live” program last month. It uses immersive experiences in training modules that are built to create empathy and improve care coordination for older adults living with dementia in memory care communities.

The company is training new team members on a weekly basis. The company also is holding training and educational events for families of senior living residents and the general public on topics including business and being a first responder. With these events, the operator aims to extend awareness of dementia and educate people what older adults living with dementia deal with on a daily basis, according to Brenda Abbott-Shultz, Sagora’s vice president of resident services. 

Sagora leadership tailored the program to address the growing need for memory care services as the number of older adults living with dementia continues to climb. According to the Alzheimer’s Association, there are an estimated 7.4 million older adults living with Alzheimer’s dementia in the U.S. and that figure could grow to 13.8 million by 2060. Columbia University researchers in 2022 found almost 10% of U.S. adults ages 65 and older have dementia while another 22% have mild cognitive change.

“We want to not only educate our team members for that impact but also really educate everyone that may or may not be able to afford what we do or isn’t ready just yet for senior living,” Abbott-Shultz said. “We want people to be safe in their homes and want to raise public awareness to create a more dementia-friendly society.”

To that end, Abbott-Shultz said Sagora memory care communities can extend these educational sessions to outside groups including banks and grocery stores, creating more awareness of dementia risk and the impact cognitive change can have on a person’s life. Equipping groups like first responders with more insight into the warning signs of dementia could help identify older adults at risk sooner and prevent severe medical incidents in the future, she added.

“We can’t just be resident-first; we need to be senior-focused for all seniors, so that’s our plan going forward to ensure that early triggers and early warning signs can be recognized,” Abbott-Shultz said. “This gives us an opportunity to educate those who may be on the front lines of figuring out how to de-escalate or redirect to get someone into the right setting.”

This training program is the next evolution for Sagora, taking its dementia and memory care expertise and creating a platform for not only staff but the public to have access to trusted information about cognitive change, according to Christal Hoffman, who serves as Sagora’s vice president of corporate operations. With a history of caring for older adults living with dementia, Hoffman said the time was right for spreading supportive information to help the public understand dementia risk and the daily lives of older adults living with cognitive change. 

“Developing empathy is difficult without personal experience. When you share someone’s struggle, you realize they aren’t being stubborn or acting out of spite,” Hoffman said. “It really helps put you at the center of it all and in someone’s shoes about what living with dementia is like.” 

A Dementia Live coach facilitates the training for all memory care communities with aprogram that includes immersive elements like tasks to complete with dexterity limitations along with having things like audio that simulates the disorientation that a person living with dementia can experience.

Those elements are meant to help build empathy and aid residents struggling in various ways. On a rolling basis, Sagora will also expand the training directly to first responder groups like paramedics, firefighters and police to bring it to them to create a real experience that resonates with those participating in the program, Abbott-Shultz said. 

“The program is designed to be mobile, so we can transport it anywhere for anyone who wants to experience this,” Abbott-Shultz added.

Feedback from staff on the new training program has been positive, the leaders said, creating emotional moments that will create lasting positive impacts on memory care staff in Sagora communities.

“The dementia coaches are excited because they see the impact it is making with the emotional piece of it and there are so many ‘aha’ moments that let staff connect past experiences with new things learned in the training,” Hoffman said. 

In 2024, Sagora required home office staff to become certified dementia practitioners, and the most recent training effort builds off of continued momentum in growing Sagora’s Pathways memory care program, Hoffman said. 

“Every member of our executive team has lived and worked in a community, giving them a firsthand understanding of the daily challenges residents and staff face,” Hoffman said. “We designed this training program by identifying the specific knowledge we wish we had possessed to perform our own roles even more effectively.” 

In the future, Abbott-Shultz sees memory care evolving to include more technology to help support residents and staff, giving providers better insight into how to improve the overall memory care experience. Hoffman sees opportunities to add elements of memory care training in broader operations across Sagora communities, including lifestyle elements with reminiscence or sensory elements in programming. 

“Dementia Live is the kickstart to really understanding the ‘why’ and education behind it, so that when we roll out new programs and initiatives, we have experts that understand it and I am excited for what is to come,” Hoffman said. 

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