Suzanne talks with Julie Wilkins, Ignacio Lopez, and Rebecca Martin to talk about MorningStar Senior Living's Lavender Sky program. Rebecca Martin is VP of Memory Care, Julie Wilkins is Vice President of Clinical Resources at EmpowerMe Wellness, and Ignacio Lopez is a dementia resident expert at MorningStar at West Valley. 

This segment focuses on where we go in the future with breakthroughs in Alzheimer's and dementia therapies, and how they plan for the future with Lavender Sky, the communities' holistic approach to Alzheimer's and Dementia memory care. 

Rebecca says, “We're constantly reevaluating our current programs, just looking at our new clientele, and unfortunately, we do see an increase in earlier onset Alzheimer's and dementia. So how does programming change for somebody that is 55 or 60 versus our our previous clientele that was in the older ages of 80 and 90. So we've looked at a lot of different holistic modalities and the benefits in implementing them into our program offerings, and just see so much success from that. So that's I think really where we're going is furthering the development of our activity offerings.” 

Julie says, “There's just a ton of research being done. Things come out every month. We are constantly updating our program. One of the more interesting things of late has been the connection between music and improved memory, improved depression, agitation, and the areas that are stimulated in the brain by music. But the other piece of that is the individualized component. We strongly associate music of certain types with emotions and experiences, so we always want to make sure that we're pairing, you know, something that has a positive impact on the individual, or a type of music that they've always enjoyed, or something that has always made them feel uplifted or calmed in something. 

Ignacio says, “We're looking at things to include like cognitive stimulation therapy as well, and new things that are always up and coming. We want layer those into our Lavender Sky program as well. What we know about cognitive stimulation therapy is that it can really help people in the earlier stages of dementia to maintain their independence, longer, have better word-finding skills, better emotional control, and really just overall better quality of life. It's a therapy that's been around for several years, but we're seeing more studies that show excellent success in even reducing the need for dementia medications. And if we can do that just by engaging our residence in these creative ways, in additional holistic modalities and therapies, then that's our goal, quality of life, 100 percent.” 

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