A life plan community in Texas is expanding certain memory care services in order to help residents who are living with cognitive decline elsewhere on the operator’s campus.
The community, Dallas-based CC Young, has launched a new concept known as Personal Assistance Toward Health and Wellness As You Succeed (PATHWAYS). The PATHWAYS program offers additional structure and assistance for senior living residents with mild cognitive decline who may not need the full suite of services offered in memory support.
With occupancy nearly full, CC Young CEO Russell Crews told Senior Housing News that the PATHWAYS program is aimed at improving the transition of residents from assisted living to memory care, and sometimes from independent living to memory care.
“When you go from completely independent living to moving into a secured memory support area, that is an abrupt change for residents, and they don’t all adjust equally in the same timeframe,” Crews told SHN. “Our goal was to come up with a transitional level of care.”
A total of seven new apartments will be used for the PATHWAYS program, and that number could increase “fairly soon” depending on demand from incoming residents.
“Part of our strategic planning will now be to incorporate this new care level into our long-term care plans,” Crews said.
Those in the PATHWAYS program will live on the same floor as other residents in The Hillsdale, one of CC Young’s assisted living communities that is equipped with a certified nursing assistant and a life enrichment director.
The new program is based on the seven pillars of wellness, including physical, intellectual, emotional, social, spiritual, vocational, and environmental wellness. It also features low resident-to-staff ratios, and the program was launched in part due to strong demand for memory care and other higher acuity offerings.
Due to strong demographic trends that favor senior living providers, Crews said he remains “bullish” on the industry’s prospects of serving those with cognitive decline. While many Baby Boomers have yet to enter communities, Crews said CC Young needed to be prepared to adequately capture future demand.
“While the [Boomers] are not here en masse, they’re coming like a freight train, and we’re going to see demand across all levels. Virtually every apartment in our community is occupied, so I don’t think this is a temporary demographic shift,” Crews said. “We’ve been trying to anticipate that changing consumer dynamic for some time, and a lot of it revolves around options, engagement, and more active involvement.”
CC Young and many other providers in the industry have taken steps to prepare for the next generation of senior living customers entering their communities, from expanding a life-long learning partnership with the University of North Texas to adjusting programming and dining menus.
With wages stabilizing and staffing challenges beginning to moderate, Crews sees operations “getting back to normal” in terms of fighting for margin and census growth with a “more normal” operating environment ahead.
In considering the future of memory care, Crews said senior living operators must evolve levels of care to assist higher-acuity residents in living purpose-driven lives. This can be achieved through higher staff-to-resident ratios.
CC Young Senior Living is located on a 20-acre campus in Dallas, Texas. The community is also planning independent living growth through the addition of The Terraces to the campus.
