An Alternative To Assisted Living
Christine Fischmans's 76 year old husband had home healthcare nurses coming to take care of him since February when complications from a broken shoulder, combined with other degenerative conditions, limited how much he could take care of himself while she went to work.
Fischman, realizing that her husband was just sitting around all day watching television, went looking for something for him to do that.
The new Dayscape adult daycare center in Coconut Creek is one of several private facilities in Broward County that offers an alternative to what Fischman feared would be a bunch of bored, old people sitting around in wheelchairs - as was the case at some places she had been to.
"in adult daycare, it's relaxed and loose and lets patients feel comfortable" said Jean Merget, director of the North Broward Memory Disorder Clinic.
The daycare concept she said is especially important for aging people with memory issues because of the specialized help they can get from activity centers, she said.
The range of services available, from non-secured facilities like the county-run Focal Points throughout Broward County, offer daycare though private ones such as Dayscape can offer secure services.
While it's not a replacement for assisted living facilities, because that is a full-time home, daycare allows for specific activities which occupy and stimulate patients.
"They have a structure routine there," Merget said. "A person who has a memory problem, they need structure to function. If they're home, they are like a loose cannon - they don't know what to do. And a care-giver can't be on all the time to think of things to do with a patient."
Carmela Liberatoire's 80-year-old Mother has lived with Parkinson's Disease and been in a wheelchair for most of the last two decades. As her father gets older, he can take less and less care of her.
Liberatoire said the daycare activities allow her mother to go do things on her own - the daycare actually picks her up once a week, takes her to the center for a full eight-hour day, and then brings her home.
Dayscape offers games and standard activities, but also weaves in new things like Skype and email - in groups - said the daycare's founder and owner, Susan Eichler.
She said the activities, especially the computer based communications ones, allow for more activity they might not do on their own. And rekindling relationships is something that works out especially well for other family members, if not always for the patients, depending on their conditions.
The idea, she said, is to keep aging people from hibernating - which is why she located her Star-bucks-looking facility in a shopping center
"It's just different,"Eichler said of the difference between hers and other daycare centers. "It's newer, it's fresh...It's another approach to activities for aging. I guess a lot of my ideas are based on it being the kind of place that I would want to go to."
The other upside of the location of a place like Dayscape, which is doors down from a Duffy's restaurant, is that people like Liberatoire can discover it on their way somewhere else.
Aside from allowing her take care of things with her father, who is also 80 and has vertigo, Liberatoire is going on vacation with her family for the first time in years
While her father can largely take care of himself, Liberatoire's mother has enoyed going to Dayscape and spending her days interacting and doing things there.
"I just thought it was a wonderful idea to get her out of the house," she said. "But I had no idea there were places like this, and I'm more relaxed knowing that she's in good hands."