In this issue:
- Creating Culture Takes Humanity
- High Tech Senior Fitness
- Parker at Monroe Adult Day Center
- New Therapy Suite
- Millenials: A Great Fit for Parker
- Parker’s 2nd Annual Survey of Aging in America
- “Selfish” Volunteering
- How to Help Your Parents Move
Parker, a full-continuum provider based in Piscataway, NJ, has been involved in many research projects, but has taken the unusual step of funding outside research into one of its innovations—a new “small house” model of care in a nursing home.
Parker at Monroe opened in 2014. Its 6 small homes house 16 people each, and are internally connected to a community center offering enriching programs, rehabilitation services, dining and more. Two of the 6 homes are for residents with early- to mid-stage dementias, 3 serve residents with moderate to severe dementias, and one serves residents with complex physical issues who do not require memory care.
More than 110 years ago, Parker was founded as a place where people could age in a home-like setting. Parker’s goal was to provide individualized attention, purpose and meaning for those who needed long-term nursing care.
Some years ago as a non-profit with just two nursing homes, Parker saw it needed to grow in multiple directions due to the demand for quality, diversified aging services.
It seems to make sense intuitively that creating a smaller, more home-like atmosphere would foster improvements in nursing home residents’ psychosocial outlook.
But, there’s been little hard data to support the time and effort needed to implement culture change in institutional care. Most efforts have come from qualitative research. However, qualitative results from a 2017 study confirm that widespread adoption of a person-centered care approach makes a difference.
In partnership with the Friends of the Senior Center and Parker at Monroe, Monroe Township’s Senior Center hosted “An Afternoon with Abe” on July 13.
The full article is no longer available.
Culture change has been shown to improve nursing home residents' depressive symptoms and dining experience, according to a recently released study by the LeadingAge LTSS Center @UMASS Boston.
Only 13% of U.S. nursing homes have comprehensively adopted culture change, compared to 74% of homes that have partially implemented the approach of “person-centered” care, researchers said.
A skilled nursing facility can bolster resident quality of life by focusing on its dining, a study from the LeadingAge LTSS Center @UMass Boston suggests. That’s according to Natasha Bryant, senior research associate at the LTSS Center, who worked on a study that examined the impact of a person-centered care approach and household model on resident life in a nursing home.
“Where we really saw the benefits was in the dining area,” she explained. “So if someone didn’t want to make that level of investment of doing the entire nursing home, maybe in focusing on that dining area, they could see some improved interactions and quality of life.”
Parker, a non-profit, aging services organization, is investing in technology to redefine senior fitness with their newly renovated Wellness Center. Open to residents and community members, the renovations incorporate progressive technology to make fitness more fun and accessible than ever before for adults of all ages and ability levels. Parker, President and CEO Roberto Muñiz says this is one way the company is using technology to better serve residents and community members and to stay true to its vision, which is to make aging part of life.
(Piscataway, NJ) – For the second year in a row, Parker conducted a national survey to gauge changing perceptions around aging in America. The results reveal that Americans have an overall positive outlook on aging.
Seven in ten Americans do not consider people in their 50s and 60s to be “old,” while 73% of those surveyed do not fear or worry about aging very much or at all.