Even with the inevitable decline brought on after her diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, Laura Creatura still knows how to “take care of business.”
A resident of The Grove memory support program at Plymouth Village in Redlands, Calif., Creatura ran a successful travel agency for more than 20 years before retiring. Her days were always full, balancing the needs of her business with community leadership and making decisions for her family.
Even now among her fellow residents at The Grove she has been known to run meetings in the common area, at one point actually “firing” one of her neighbors when she didn’t participate to Creatura’s satisfaction.
Clearly, she is a woman not interested in turning over control to others. So when the time came for Creatura’s daughter, Lynda Schauf, to take on the inevitable role of decision-maker for her mother, it wasn’t a responsibility Schauf assumed lightly. Fortunately, her mother’s decisiveness earlier in life had made the initial move to residential living at Plymouth Village an easy one.
Creatura had already gone through the arduous task of caring for her own mother, and Schauf says the experience took a significant toll. As a result, Creatura made it clear that under no circumstances should her two children attempt to do the same if her own health failed.
So after her husband died in 2000, Creatura moved to Plymouth Village, one of 10 continuing care retirement communities operated by ABHOW. That choice, made independently and prior to the onset of any memory problems, is one that Schauf cherishes. “I’ve told more than several dozen people that the greatest gift my mother gave us was moving to Plymouth Village, making this decision knowing full well what her opportunities were.”
Still, Schauf admits that the final decision she and her brother made to move their mother to The Grove was a difficult one fraught with denial and guilt. “But what I learned is that being in denial of it isn’t going to help anybody,” she says. “I knew that I was not going to be able to stay with her and take care of her, and that’s not even what she wanted.”
Now her mother is in a safe, enriching environment with creative activities and a loving staff who know Creatura’s life story. Indeed, they draw upon Creatura’s story to help her feel happy and relaxed and to live at her greatest potential.
“That’s what friends do. They know each other’s personality, family history, values, traditions, careers and spiritual beliefs – their life history – and this shared knowledge allows friends to feel comfortable together and communicate better,” says David Troxel, co-author of The Best Friends Approach to Alzheimer’s Care, a philosophy adopted by The Grove.
That person-centered approach earned The Grove national acclaim last year. ABHOW is the first multi-site organization in the U.S. to receive accreditation in dementia care. The Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities-Continuing Care Accreditation Commission (CARF-CCAC) awarded five-year accreditation to all 10 of ABHOW’s continuing care retirement communities, an honor earned by fewer than one-in-five of the nation’s CCRCs. The accrediting body also granted its coveted seal of approval to The Grove, which operates at four ABHOW CCRCs.
CARF-CCAC standards include the expectation that staff members are trained in gathering the life stories of residents. Employees learn these stories before residents even move to The Grove, and they use the stories to introduce residents to others, to improve activities, and to deepen one-on-one care.
Knowing Creatura’s story, staff members often come to her for advice and allow her to make many of her own decisions. “We still let her be in charge whenever possible,” notes Connie Garrett, director of The Grove.
Schauf, who now runs her mother’s travel agency, learned just how similar she and her mother are – even as their roles are reversed.
“She’s referred many times to how she now has to do what her daughter tells her to do,” Schauf says. “She’s taken it in some ways better than I had feared she might. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. It won’t be easy for me to watch everyone make decisions for me.”
