The Heartwood Blog
Holiday Visits: Setting Family Expectations
The holidays are a time of year chop full of family get-togethers. For most, family and holidays go together like milk and Christmas cookies; and while we like to focus on the joys of the season, these gatherings can also be very stressful. Hectic, chaotic days filled...
Reading & Memory Care
There are a number of different things we can do to care for our brains, to nurture the most valuable organ in our bodies, to show it love and attention; everything from our daily vitamin regimens and prescriptions to a good old-fashioned trip to the gym. However, one...
Celebrating the Holidays in a Memory Care Community
As the holidays approach, we all hold dear to our heart the special family traditions and gatherings that bring joy to the season! Typically that involves a multi-generational family get-together for the holidays. For residents in memory care communities, these...
Sleep Troubles and Memory Loss
Sleep is a wonderful thing when you can get it – just ask any parent of a newborn and they’ll tell you how much they miss it. It’s funny how many parallels there are between the very young and the very old, including the parallels in changes in sleep cycle. For our...
Picking Movies for Seniors with Memory Loss – Three Tips
Everybody needs to sit back and unwind from time to time. What better way to relax than to enjoy a classic from the silver screen. Movies are a wonderful form of entertainment that transport us all over the world and allow us to imagine ourselves in the roles of the...
I Wonder as I Wander
Wandering – it’s a common happening in patients with memory loss. In fact, six in every ten patients living with Alzheimer’s will exhibit signs of wandering. What is wandering though; is it dangerous, what’s causing it, what can I do to help? These are questions that...
Pet Therapy & Memory Loss
You may be a dog person or a cat person, but at the end of the day you are a human being with the need to connect and feel comfort. Pets play a huge role in our lives as members of our families or objects of affection. For seniors with memory loss, the attraction to...
Home is Where the Heartwood is
Our motto is ‘We put our Hearts into making you feel at Home’ Your parent or grandparent has lived in one place for decades. They have called that house or apartment their home for as long as you can remember. Losing the feeling of identifying a living space as “home”...
5 Signs It’s Time to Consider Assisted Living
It safe to say that one of the hardest decisions we will ever make during our lifetime will involve how we choose to care for our family members as they age. Often enough people are in denial that there’s a need for assisted living, both the future resident and their...