long-term care – The HPP Resource Center

Category: long-term care

Inside The Best Friends Staff, Second Edition

The second edition of the bestselling staff training tool from the Best Friends™ product suite is packed with resources to help staff in dementia care gain the required skills and confidence to deliver optimal care and succeed in this challenging caregiver role. Here, we break down the contents of the book so that you can see just how it can work for you! Part I discusses the foundations of effective training and provides an overview of the Best Friends approach. Reinvent and Energize Training Chapter 1 describes ways to reinvent and energize boring and ineffectual training programs. Currently, many providers…

How Can The Best Friends Staff Work for Me?

The Best Friends Staff: Learning to Deliver Exceptional Dementia Care focuses on the education and training for professionals learning to create an outstanding memory care program. The book is written for a wide audience of individuals working in long-term care settings, such as in-home services, adult day centers, assisted living, and skilled nursing care. The book will also be helpful for family care partners seeking to learn more about care services for their family members. If you work in memory care at any level, in any role, here is how this book can benefit you. Program administrators will learn how…

Intergenerational Activities: Using the Best Friends Approach with Children

With the Best Friends™ approach, activities are more than just what’s on the calendar. Using Best Friends, almost everything can become an extended, interesting opportunity for engagement. A simple handshake can lead to a discussion about fingernail polish, gloves, work done by hand, “lifelines,” rings on fingers, promise rings, weddings, and more. A teapot can be enjoyed for its beauty, and discussions can follow about making tea, reading tea leaves, the different flavors of tea, and the Boston Tea Party. Because the bottom line of the Best Friends approach is to focus on the person rather than the task. In…

Leading Change in Memory Care: Commitment to Ongoing Education

I like to point out to people working in senior living that change will not only benefit their residents but also their bottom line. I work with families who are beginning their search for a life-affirming environment for a loved one. On a recent call with a man who had toured four nearby places with his father, he could not answer my question about which one he preferred. “Honestly, I can’t tell them apart. They all promise wonderful things, but I didn’t see [evidence of them] as we toured.” If you can tell the stories of the people’s lives you…

Behind Locked Doors: Segregation in Memory Care

Memory care is the fastest-growing area of senior living. It is now standard for assisted living communities and nursing homes to designate an area for a secure unit, usually with a coded keypad on the door. This is where the residents living with dementia will live, segregated from the rest of the residents. Often these secured units, with their extra charges, are the most expensive areas to live. I have worked as a registered nurse long enough to remember when it was also standard to tie people in their chairs or beds “for their own good.” None of us would…

Montessori and Meaningful Engagement: Reclaiming Previous Roles

An elder or person with dementia still has the same needs as everyone else. The person wants to socialize, express desires, participate in hobbies, interact with family, be included in activities, teach and learn, and be asked for advice. The person has the same desires to contribute to the household or the community. The need to have purpose in one’s life and to be productive does not end once someone reaches a certain age, moves into a long-term care community, or receives a diagnosis of dementia. Think of all the roles you have in your everyday life. You are a…

Getting Started with Montessori Materials in Elder Care

Dr. Montessori designed an array of hands-on materials for every area of the curriculum: Practical Life, Sensorial, Language, Math, Science, Geography, Culture, Art, and Music. Some of these materials can be used—or adapted for use—with elders. Whether using traditional materials or creating your own, these manipulatives share common characteristics: progression from the concrete to the abstract, a control of error, and isolation of difficulty. Characteristics of Montessori Materials Concrete to Abstract, Simple to Complex In the classroom, Montessori materials provide concrete representations of abstract concepts. For example, the decimal system is made physical with golden beads, parts of speech are…

Leadership: Institutional vs. Person-Centered

What is person-centered leadership? Author Nancy Fox argues that it is the exact opposite of the outdated and harmful institutional leadership model. Here’s why. This post was adapted from Lessons in Leadership for Person-Centered Elder Care by Nancy Fox. Copyright © 2017 by Health Professions Press, Inc. All rights reserved. Have you ever been at a party and had someone leave the table to “toilet” themselves? Have you ever heard someone refer to their grandmother as “the feeder?” These are examples of horrendous language the institutional model in long-term care has given us. Indeed, there is much…

A Lesson in Leadership in Person-Centered Elder Care

Author and Nursing Home Administrator, Nancy Fox, shares the moment she realized the reason many older adults fear nursing homes, and the two elders who showed her why. Nancy Fox is a Nursing Home Administrator, former executive director of The Eden Alternative, and Chief Innovation Officer for Vivage Senior Living. She is also the author of Lessons in Leadership for Person-Centered Elder Care. Here, she shares a leadership lesson she learned while vacationing on Sanibel Island, after years spent transforming her organization into a person-centered care environment. “She fell and can’t get up…” In…

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