Alzheimer’s Disease and CarePartners Cottages, with Jill Martinez

*The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

The following podcast is provided by care partners living and answers for elders radio, and welcome back everyone to answers for elders radio. And again I am here with Jill Martinez, who is the director of community relations for Care Partners Living, and we are talking today about springtime, talking about the fact that there’s a lot of things opening up, there’s a lot of new opportunities and new challenges and obviously for each one of us, we hope that you’re paying attention to your loved one and certainly so many of our loved one, senior loved ones, have been isolated for so long, and you may be noticing at this time that I know I’m getting a lot of phone calls from our listeners. Of You know I’m concerned about my mom. You know the supper. It’s been very depressing. She’s I’ve seen her go downhill quite a bit and it’s probably time to make a change. And you know, it’s when, when that time comes, I think families will all kind of come to that consensus and certainly in the meantime, you know, we’re really glad that care partners is around to take care of our loved ones and when that time comes and what I’m really excited about. We’ve talked about this on the show before, but I really am. But I’m glad to talk about it directly with you, Jill, because you guys have this amazing concept called the cottages and it’s very different than any other place really that is around which you know there’s everybody has their own twist. But what I love about the cottages is kind of your concept of it’s kind of a hybrid between a really private home and having full time sociability staff and things like that in a professional setting. So it’s kind of a nice hybrid way to care for your loved one because you can go outside, you can go do things. So anyway, Jill, it’s what a might did I say everything right? Did I MISS ANYTHING ABOUT YOU’VE GOT TO DIS CONQUEST? Know that. That was great. That was great. Yeah, so we have the cottages in Marysville and then we also have the cottages and Mill Creek and then we have what’s called cottage lane at Vineyard Park Melt Lake terrasts, which is on the fourth floor of that community. So the cottages of Mill Creek in Marysville are very unique. It’s it’s describing it as a hybrid. That’s that’s a good way to say it, because it does have an adult family home feel and that you’re going to have only ten to twelve residents per cottage now and both I kind of describe the cottages like pods, and so you’ll have, you know, the caregivers taking care of those ten to twelve residents. But if they want to go outside, especially during this time of year, because residents with dementia, a lot of them really like to walk. I mean that’s what they love to do. Want Her yes, they wander, they want to walk and have that feel like they’re not confined, and that’s what’s so nice about the cottages is they can come out of which cottage they reside in, be in the center courtyard, mingle with the other residents in that courtyard or if they develop a friendship in another cottage, just like they would in their home and develop a friendship with their neighbor down the street, they can go into that other cottage and with that neighbor. So it really is a neighborhood feel and having that center courtyard has been a real blessing, especially for those residents that really need to get out and walk sure, and I think to the fact that they can walk outside. I know that there’s so many amazing things that communities do around here, but one of the things I think that really makes you guys unique is the ability to go outside and, you know, maybe they can go visit the next cottage. So they feel like they’re in a community, they’re in a little town there, in a little area and they have that ability to connect when they want to and also to just be out in the yard or walk around and and be in an area where they’re supervised and safe, and I think that’s really been, I think, what I love about the concept of the cottages. Now it’s far as the lifestyle in the cottages though, tell me a little bit about that. So, of course, you know we have a centralized kitchen where most of their meals come out of, but breakfast is prepared and each cottage residents are able to say they want to help bake some cookies or help wash some dishes, you know, if that’s something that they were used to doing at home. We really do try to individualize what they like to do. For activities. We have a gentleman that moved into the cottages Mill Creek. That was an avid painter who didn’t really have anybody else in the cottages that painted, but we sure made sure everything got set up for him so he could continue to do that painting. So we really try to individualize things based on what they were familiar with. And of course, probably just like other memory care communities, we have a lot of music takes place because music is seems like they cannot remember anything else, but you still see their foot tapping the music, I mean, or singing or or finger tapping. So of course we incorporate a lot of musical kinds of things. We have it set up where they can even help with her own hand if they want to do that. And then, of course we have structured activities throughout the day that residents could ease your eager choose to participate in or on. So inside a lot of reminiscing activity oriented things, but then, now that the weather is getting better outside, of course they’re going to have some barbecues and entertainment coming in. So that’s something to look forward to well. And I think to that you know, given that my my mother had vascular dementia, but she still was pretty much out of it towards the end of her life and you know it’s I always tell the story. I’ve told the story before. The first five years of her life she spoke because their parents were both immigrants from Sweden. She boke, spoke nothing but Swedish for the first five years of her life and until a kid made fun of her school for Speaking Swedish, she swears she would never speak it again and through all of her adult life she completely forgot the language until the dementia started to progress and by the end of her life she was speaking about half Swedish half think. So it’s interesting how the mind works right and understand that whole process of you know, why are certain types of stimulus and certain things so unique? It has to do with a lot of the foundation of you know your loved one and having an organization lifecare partners that can pay attention to those little things. You know, I love the fact that the staff that she where she lived, they asked me how do I say good morning and in Swedish how do I say you know, I love you norma in Swedish. She so I help them a little bit with some of the Swedish you know phrases so that they would say things back to her. And this is this is like amazing because here I am, there most of the crew are. You know, the care drivers that she had were from Indonesia, in the Filip and here they were speaking Swedish and it was so sweet. But my mom loved it, and that’s the thing. I think that it’s so important that, you know, when you have a professional staff that can pick up on things like that, you know you as a family member, can be part of the team. They’re part of your team and certainly they’re part of the team to help you, as you know, as the adult child, to be able to, you know, to process and give the best quality of life for a loved one. Certainly. And now you have obviously you have cottages, and then you also, Jilly, you have assisted living and independent living communities. Is that correct? Threat and where are they located? We have been your Park Mount Lake Terris us, which has independent and assisted living, and then we also have memory care the cottage lane bump up on the fourth floor, and then we also have vineyard park in Bostel landing, which is strictly independent and assisted living, and we also have Everett clause assisted living located downtown Everett. Right, right, and you handle pretty much mostly those properties. So how do you do you work? You go like from property to property to to meet families. How did not work as far as when you meet with yeah, so usually how I try to look at it is because I work it out of all five of the northern communities. I like to hear what is going on with the family and the potential resident. You know, what are their care needs, you know where were they at financially or they need memory care or assisted living? What level of care, because that then allows me to kind of guide them in which community I think is best for them. Yeah, we have multiple options, so it’s not just one building. You know, if it’s a couple that they want to, you know, try to stay together, than of course I’m an encourage vineyard park Mount Lake terras because we have a lot of the bond of pairs were couples can stay together and utilize memory care as an adult day program. Kind of decads on what’s going on with their situation and their finances. So they’ve had a place and wherever seens most suitable. Right. Well, I am you know, again, it’s such a blessing to have you guys be a part of this community and to be there far seniors. And there’s some other unique ways in which care partners helps families and one of the ways, I know that they truly are a resource for you and certainly if you pick up the phone, are good Scot to the website and and check out all the different types of ways in which care partners will be there for your loved one. And you can see all the communities, because you guys have what communities all the way down as far south as lacy correct and then you also have spoken and several in Pierce County, and you know they’re all over the place right. So check it out and make sure that you know if you’re looking for a resourcer. Even if it’s a little early, I think it’s really important that you pick up the phone and call and say, you know, I still want to just go take a tour to see what it’s like, because I think this is something that I think holds a lot of us back from thinking that, you know, I don’t want to even think about it yet. But you know what, I guarantee you, once you’ve seen these properties and you see how beautiful they are, in the lifestyle and the smiles on their faces. A lot that’s here and will go away and certainly you are going to be able to have much more of a clear mind of when is it the right time to, you know, to have your loved one moved dead to a new community, and that that will be. You know it’s going to be when it’s going to be and we certainly are not going to hurry anybody on that, on the decision. So in the meantime, Jill, how do we reach you? You can reach me. This is my email, Jill at care partners livingcom and my cell phone, which I have it next to me all the time, is to zero six eight hundred and five, zero four, five, one one, and I’m happy to answer questions any time. I love that and you know we’re going to be right back, because many talk about how do you finance and how do you put together a plan to move into assisted living, and obviously health care costs are high different types of things or high. So we’re going to explore a little bit of ways of how that works and how you can make it work in your family right after this. The preceding podcast was provided by care partners living. And answers for elders radio. To contact care partners living, go to care partners livingcom