image: Dirtworks PC, photo by BBuck
The Life Enrichment Center is located in the foothills of the North Carolina Mountains. It is a sustainable community-based Adult Day Care facility, serving adults of all ages with a range of physical and mental disabilities and neurological conditions. The Center’s philosophy is to do “whatever it takes” to help families keep adult loved ones at home and engaged in their community.
Enriching and supporting a dignified quality of life is never more poignant than when that life involves degenerative disease. Complex neurological conditions, including Alzheimer’s disease, require concepts of treatment that incorporate both pharmacological as well as non-pharmacological approaches. Medications, the first and often last step in treatment, offer meager solace for people who live daily with these conditions. Like other chronic illnesses that require lifestyle changes such as diabetes, manic depression and AIDS, Alzheimer’s requires a paradigm of care beyond medication that emphasizes living with existing abilities. Key to realizing this necessity is understanding a recent finding in today’s neuroscience: that much remains active and vital in the brain of a person living with dementia and other neurological disorders.1