The Neighborhood memory care facility serves those suffering from dementia differently

INDIANAPOLIS — One local assisted living facility in Indianapolis is serving those suffering from dementia differently.

The Neighborhood, which is inside the Altenheim Family-First Senior Living Center, has been open for a little over a year. But the facility does things differently by making the residents feel at home.

"It really looks like an apartment community and for our residents,” Lisa Peasley the Residential Service Director at The Neighborhood said. “We like to call them neighbors once they move into the neighborhood; it has the immediate built-in friends. "

Brother and sister Dennis Hanshew and Penny Hoagland say those friends have made their mother much happier. Her moods are better because of the environment she lives in.

"She has met so many friends like it's family you know,” Penny Hoagland said. “They are all just really nice. I talk to them all the time to they are just all so sweet.”

"She gets a little more care too,” Dennis Hanshew said. “They are always every time I come in. I usually come in around dinner lunch or whatever but there are always activities going on."

Those activities are open to the residents, and they can choose what type of activities they want to take part in. Plus, each person has their own individual apartment, allowing for a smoother transition when the neighbors are coming from home.

"Their transition and their ability to adapt to a new environment is so much smoothers and quicker in this community here at the Altenheim then other communities I have worked at because it looks like an apartment environment," Peasley said.

Along with that the nursing staff is just as much a part of the community as the neighbors which they say set the neighborhood apart from other memory care facilities.

"We like to treat it like home. Not an institution,” Shelby Cooper, an LPN at The Neighborhood said. “So, we will get in there we play games with them not just well we need to you to do this we need you to do that. We get in there we play ball with them we color with them we play bingo with them we join in. "

The Neighborhood is secured so those suffering from dementia aren't able to wander off.

In some cases, the spouses of those who have a dementia diagnosis can live at the facility as well even if they don't have a dementia diagnosis. For more information about The Neighborhood click here.