Vantage Point Unveils New Standards, Training In Alzheimer’s Association Partnership

Pennslyvania-based senior living provider Vantage Point Retirement Living has partnered with the Alzheimer’s Association to review and improve the company’s memory care standards in dementia training.

The effort is focused on using evidenced-based practices in dementia care, and developing a training platform for staff across all departments. Earlier this year, Vantage Point Retirement Living completed a curriculum review and made changes through the Alzheimer’s Assoication’s Dementia Care Practice Reccomendations.

The updated training span multiple forms of dementia, and covers a broad range of topics, including: person-centered care, health assessments and clinical care planning, activities of daily living, managing behaviors and communication.

Exton, Pennsylvania-based Vantage Point Retirement Living operates five communities in two states.

“What we wanted to look at the ways we could improve the program, we don’t just want a trademark,” said COO Kate Sammler.

Those changes include phrasing changes to be more nuanced, with added terminology, phrasing and refinement overall, Sammler said.

Prior to the Alzheimer’s Association training and care evaluation, Vantage Point Retirmeent Living made physical plant changes to create more effective and safer environment for older adults in memory care. Renovations on communities started as far back as 2009, designing memory care spaces to be connected by a loop-style design that allows residents to walk around the space without losing visual queues.

In 2013, Vantage Point Retirement Living partnered with the Hearthstone Instititute, an education and consulting platform by senior living provider Abe’s Garden, to evolve its memory care program that uses research-based, non-pharmacological interventions to treat adverse behaviors in those experiencing cognitive change.

“It all started by us refining the physical spaces,” said COO Kate Sammler. “We always like where we do have the physical space to be able to create environments where somebody can make kind of walk in a continuous loop, so they don’t have to go to a dead end of a hallway.”

Through the updated training, Vantage Point Retirement Living staff from all departments are given dementia competency education, spanning culinary workers to clinical staff, through Montessori-style principles to give caregivers confidence to work in memory care settings, Sammler noted.

This is in preparing rising acuity among memory care residents, and an influx of younger older adults entering memory care with cognitive change. Across the company’s communities, the average age of memory care residents is lower than the average age of assisted living residents.

Today, Vantage Pointe Retirement Living and other operators are incorporating more programming and lifestyle events in memory care, along with a shift towards fitness and wellness, Sammler said.

“That’s been the biggest shift for us, and we’re shifting more towards a wellness-focused model,” Sammler added.

Intergenerational events have helped inject life and flair into memory care events, including family picnis and scrapbooking, Sammler added. Technology like virtual reality (VR) headsets are also used by memory care residents to “travel” to experience new cultures.

“Anything that helps to bring a technology to residents providers a level of experience that is important to us and not something we had access to in the past,” Sammler said.

Sammler said Vantage Point Retirement Living is paying attention to higher acuity trends in memory care, along with finding ways to incorporate new events and lifestyle activities for older adults living with dementia.

The post Vantage Point Unveils New Standards, Training in Alzheimer’s Association Partnership appeared first on Senior Housing News.