Tips for the Holidays
by Doug Stark, December 2012
From the pioneering family of ComfortCare Homes®, we offer you a little wisdom for the holidays. The joys of the season can be complicated when caring for someone with Alzheimer's. We hope the information here offers insight, peace of mind and understanding.
[Read the full article here]
Evidence-based Design for Dementia
Findings From the Past Five Years
By Margaret P. Calkins, PHD, CAPS, EDAC, January 2011
There is growing evidence that the design of the built environment, by itself and in combination with organizational policies and procedures, has a direct and measurable impact on the physical and psychosocial functioning of residents with dementia, which may translate into higher quality of life. Traditionally, the physical environment has not been considered an active component of treatment. Fortunately, this is beginning to change.
[Read the full article here]
Aging: Small is Beautiful
The Newest Thing in End-of-life Care: Residences that Look--and Feel--Like the House You've Lived in All Your Life.
By Claudia Kalb and Vanessa Juarez With Nomi Morris, Newsweek, August 1, 2005
It seems so obvious: let people age the way they have lived. Today, finally, it's beginning to happen. From upscale residences in California to family-size nursing homes in Mississippi, living facilities for the elderly are undergoing an architectural and cultural makeover: big, sterile institutions are out, small, homey environments in. The need has never been greater. Today 35 million Americans are over the age of 65--by 2030, that number is expected to double. As baby boomers age into sixtysomethings, the demand for civilized living will only intensify. "We have to completely transform the system," says Rose Marie Fagan of the Pioneer Network, an umbrella group for innovative aging programs.
Small World. The Green House:
It Looks Like Home and Feels Like Home. It's a New Way of Living When You Need Long-Term Care.
By Beth Baker, AARP Bulletin, October 2005
At first glance, there's nothing unconventional about the house. A curbside mailbox on a cul-de-sac in a new Tupelo, Miss., development marks the single-story residence, painted cream with blue shutters. A tall picket fence encloses a tidy yard with a barbecue grill, wind chimes and beds of flowers and tomato plants.
It feels like home, a comfortable place to live, and this very ordinariness is precisely what makes the house exceptional. As part of the first wave of residences from the Green House Project, it's a reinvented nursing home-or more accurately, a new way of living for people who need long-term care.
Specialized Care Can Create Familiar Environment
By Laura Dove, Wichita Business Journal, January 1998
Alzheimer's - a progressive, degenerative disease of the brain - can be a daunting disorder.
This, the most common form of dementia, became part of the Stark family nearly 10 years ago when Charles and Reola began to care for Charles' parents.
It affected the whole family. Charles and Reola's children, Leigh Ann and Doug, also helped care for their ailing, aging grandparents. They witnessed the agitation and confusion that Alzheimer's can produce - and found that caring for a family member with dementia can be an exhausting and arduous job.
[Read the full article here]
Environment Critical for Alzheimer's Care
By Dennis Boggio, The Denver Business Journal, May 10, 1997
Designing special-care environments for Alzheimer's residents is both a physical and social undertaking that has to begin with an understanding of the social and psychological needs of the resident. Only through this understanding can we provide design solutions and support systems that enhance the quality of life for residents. Creating a home-like environment with rooms and furnishings modeled after the single-family home is an important design objective for a therapeutic environment. The design should reflect the premise that the special-care living environment is a home, not an institution. All aspects of the development should be residential in orientation.
ComfortCare Homes® Offer Personal Care for Alzheimer's in Residential Setting
Wichita Eagle, November 17, 1997
Parenting our parents is a reality that more and more families are facing. Alzhieimer's disease can be more devastating to the family trying to provide care than it is to the patient. "It was either send our Mother to a nursing home or try to take care of her ourselves. I thought at the time that surely there had to be a better way," says Charles Stark, founder of ComfortCare Homes. As a result, they came up with the concept of comprehensive nursing care in individual residences, to provide comfortable and familiar home environments for adults suffering from dementia.