Local News

Local center gets new programs for Alzheimer's patients
BY JUANA M. GYEK, SUN STAFF WRITER
--See Image(s) Below--

Published on: August 27, 2006

Shay Crowne has learned how to calm her female Alzheimer’s patients at a local care center — with life-like baby dolls.

"It’s brought a lot of comfort to the residents. They really enjoy these life-like baby dolls," said Crowne, the activities director at Palm View Rehabilitation and Care Center. "It’s just done wonders. We’ve just seen remarkable results with the babies."

Alzheimer’s patients become more distressed than usual at certain times of the day, Crowne explained, and the life-like baby dolls are a new method of providing a diversional activity in which residents show their dolls to other residents and become calmed.

Crowne said the dolls are part of new features and programs to help Alzheimer’s disease patients at Palm View.

Starting this fall, patients will also be folding clothes, gardening, cooking, and planting flowers and vegetables.

It is important for residents with Alzheimer’s disease to work with familiar and repetitive activities, Crowne said. These new activities offer simple familiar activities they can accomplish and that were once part of their past.

"It’s just important to provide activities that reflect the past interests of each resident," Crowne said.

Crowne said that with these physical and familiar activities, residents are kept occupied and away from feelings like sadness or the need to wander.

Palm View has two specialized units for its residents who now have specified activities geared for them, Crowne said.

Each of the units has code locks on each of the doors to prevent patients from wandering out and to keep them safe from injuries, she said.

A new addition to the facility is a satellite radio in each of the units’ common areas that provides calm, soothing music as well as music and programming from the ’40s and ’50s, Crowne said.

People who have Alzheimer’s disease lose their short-term memory, but their long-term memory is intact, she explained. So by listening to music from an era residents can remember, they are comforted and have "good memories of their past."

"It gives them a lot of enjoyment," Crowne said.

Palm View is also remodeling a previous storage room into a living room where residents will be able to watch TV and movies, like nature videos, Crowne said.

This room will also be the home for "Blue Boy," the bird that currently stays in the common area.

The goal is to make the residence "as homelike as possible," Crowne said.

The units were recently painted, and the place is being decorated to make it feel like a home, she said. Family members also are encouraged to bring items from their home so that incoming residents can better adjust to living in the facility.

"It’s just a joy to walk on to the units and see everybody smiling and laughing ... and see people happy and occupied. It’s fun," Crowne said.

Juana M. Gyek can be reached at jgyek@yumasun.com or 539-6872.

SHAY CROWNE, Palm View Rehabilitation Center activities director, talks with Vernon Langanger as they look at a bird that lives in the advanced Alzheimer's wing. PHOTO BY ALFRED J. HERNANDEZ/THE SUN

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