As your loved one ages, you may be considering whether it’s time to find a residential community where they can get quality senior care. One option is a memory care facility. While some degree of forgetfulness is normal for seniors, memory care is meant to treat and assist with serious cases. Understanding what it entails can help you decide if your loved one needs it.

What Is Memory Care?

A memory care facility is specifically designed to manage common symptoms of dementia and provide additional personalized treatment from case to case. It features regular daily routines for eating, bathing, grooming, structured activities, leisure time, and bedtime. 

Such consistency helps seniors with dementia by requiring minimal effort to remember or adjust to new things from one day to the next, reducing their stress and anxiety. The facilities are secure to protect seniors from wandering off and becoming lost.

How Does It Differ From Assisted Living?

Assisted living facilities offer help with everyday tasks and medical needs for seniors who are mentally capable, but physically unable, to perform these tasks independently.

In addition to the aforementioned structure and routine, memory care may include many of the same services as an assisted living community since degenerative diseases like dementia can cause seniors to lose their cognitive abilities and fine motor skills. 

Additionally, residents are given bracelets that can help staff find them if they become lost or get too close to an exit. Since dementia also tends to cause certain behaviors and moods, like depression and irritability, staff are trained specifically to handle them. Due to the loss of fine motor skills, healthy meals may be served as finger foods.

How Can You Tell Memory Care Is Necessary?

If your loved one is diagnosed with dementia or a related disease, they may not need a memory care facility right away. However, you may need to arrange for them to move into one when you notice the following issues:

• Easily becomes confused, lost, or panicked
• Becomes a victim of scams
• Lets bills pile up because of forgetfulness
• Gets sick frequently and loses weight due to inability to make meals
• Forgets layout of the home, increasing the risk of falls
• Has poor hygiene due to forgetfulness and lack of dexterity
• Continuously buys certain items because they forgot they already have them
• Takes too much or too little medication because they don’t remember taking it earlier or forgot about it altogether

If you’re ready to find a safe and reliable memory care facility for your loved one, contact BeeHive Homes of Columbia Falls in Whitefish, MT. Established in 2008, this facility gives every senior a comfortable, home-like environment, staffed by compassionate caregivers who provide individualized dementia care and treatment 24/7. To schedule a tour, call them at (406) 270-0513 or message them online.