Spring Arbor Living Blog

Our assisted living facilities have a wide range of staffing philosophies. The staff is determined by the makeup and size of the facility. Some of our assisted living community are connected to, or shares a campus with, a skilled nursing facility, and then those staff resources may be integrated and shared between both types of housing options. While other facilities are very small and may employ only a few people who perform a multitude of tasks. Smaller doesn’t necessarily mean of poorer quality, as a smaller facility may contract the necessary health care services if they do not provide them directly.

Each resident has different needs and will require different levels of care. For those seniors in good health that do not require much, if any, medical assistance, there might not be a need to have a skilled nurse available at the facility. For others, having accessible physical therapy might be a requirement. Since assisted living homes come in all shapes and sizes, the patient’s level of care should help determine the staffing that is required at the assisted living facility they choose.

As mentioned, listing the specific types of staff is almost impossible due to the wide range of sizes of licensed assisted living facilities. However, some general titles of staff that you might find at our assited living communities.

•   Administrator – the director of the facility
•   Medical Director – in charge of the overall healthcare strategy
•   Director of Nursing – responsible for overseeing all nursing activities
•   Admissions Coordinator – responsible for resident admissions
•   Housekeeping Coordinator – responsible for all housekeeping activities
•   Dining Coordinator – responsible for all dining activities
•   Nursing Staff – may include registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, clinical nursing assistants and personal care technicians
•   Housekeeping Staff
•   Custodial Staff
•   Dining Staff
•   Administrative Staff
•   Volunteers

Our assisted living facilities in all of our locations hire a professional and courteous staff and we make sure that we take special care in each of our patient’s needs. Contact us today for more information should you have any questions about our amenities or community.

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Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the leading progressive form of dementia in the United States thought to affect 50-70% of all known cases of dementia. The disease typically manifests after age 65 and has a typical course of early memory problems, spatial deficits; language disorder and eventual breakdown in one’s ability to remain organized and composed behaviorally. The disease causes significant financial and emotional tolls on families and society and projections are for a sharp increase in the number of cases of AD by the middle of this century.

Diagnostic testing has advanced faster than treatments.  There are only four FDA approved medications that treat symptoms of the disease. A fifth (Tacrine) was dropped due to side effects. Diagnostically a comprehensive dementia work-up that includes a physical examination to rule out reversible forms of dementia such as B-12 deficiency or thyroid conditions, neuropsychological assessment, social history, and functional exam can produce a high degree of accuracy for the presence of dementia and the cause such as AD. However, there are still errors made with diagnosis and too many false positives (diagnosing AD when it is not AD) and false negatives (not diagnosing AD when it is present) made. A good rule is to follow patients beyond one examination as it the degree of diagnosis difficulty lessons as the disease advances. It is critical to diagnose early in the disease process, however, so available treatments can begin sooner. It is also critical to know that while the medical community valiantly struggles to cure this dreaded disease, Spring Arbor delivers professional and certified Alzheimer's care  services a four care centers in North Carolina and Virginia.  Those locations are Spring Arbor Alzheimer's Care Cottage of Greenville (Grenville, NC), Spring Arbor Alzheimer's Care Cottage of Salisbury (Midlothian and Salisbury, Va), Spring Arbor Alzheimer's Care Cottage of Rocky Mount (Rocky Mount, NC) and Spring Arbor Alzheimer's Care Cottage of Wilmington (Wilmington, NC).

A recent study has demonstrated that a dye that can stick to the plaque and that can be seen using a radioactive tracer by PET (positron emission tomography) scanning technology. This is the first practical technique to see plaque in a living person’s brain. It offers a significant advancement enabling accurate diagnose and to measure treatment efficacy as we can measure the response of plaque to certain treatments.  An earlier but little used dye (the Pittsburgh Compound B), developed two decades ago. Indeed, science remains unclear if the plaque is event the major factor in the cause of AD.

Nonetheless, the new dye and scanning technique can be a significant step towards a more sensitive and specific approach to diagnosing AD and for measuring the effects of the many new treatments that will arrive to market in the next decade. With much advancement in technology we are one step closer every day to helping patients.

Until the medical community completely eradicates Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia, the burden rests with family and professional care providers who understand and can deliver upon the wide-ranging levels of care that the disease demands.  That is why Spring Arbor Living provides custom Alzheimer's care plans that step up and deliver for you and your loved ones.

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