Our Care

The structure of care

We are a nurse-led organization. What exactly does that mean?

Nurses study from a deep body of medical knowledge and receive extensive clinical instruction, leading to expertise in clinical practice, decision-making, critical thinking, leadership, research, and resource management. As a result, they are able to make diagnoses and design interventions in rapidly changing situations. In the context of Alzheimer’s and other dementias, well-trained nurses have the appropriate skills to distinguish between emerging medical problems and evolving behavioural symptoms. This is critical to ensure appropriate interventions—because a complex situation must be properly assessed before it can be properly addressed.

Having worked with elders experiencing cognitive changes as long as we have, we know there is virtually no situation in which we can say a resident’s condition is stable, simple, or predictable. That is just not the nature of dementia. This is why we prioritize highly-skilled nurses and invest in their continuing professional development.

There is always at least one nurse on site at any given time in our homes so that our entire staff may benefit from their training and expertise as needs arise. Their experience matters.

The role of family

Family members are essential partners in care. There is simply no surrogate for shared history, shared experience, for the understanding shared by kindred spirits—or for true love. And we would not have it any other way.

But we know caregiving and care receiving can become all-encompassing for families, eclipsing other important aspects of identity and recasting roles. Relationships often reverse. Grief ebbs and flows. 

It is most often family that reaffirms and holds pieces of the “self” together for elders as they advance through their experience of dementia. Eventually, as our relationships with an elder and their family deepen, we are able to hold them as well. Care in our community is an ongoing collaboration.  

It’s about knowing you, trusting us, and walking together.

The end of life

This is the last home many of our elders will have. That is not something we take lightly.

From the very beginning, we have been committed to providing end of life care within our own walls—avoiding, wherever possible, the need for our residents to move to a hospital setting in their final days. Palliative care is therefore an integral part of our practice.  

This is another reason our nurses are so important. Clinical acumen helps them to discern behavioural fluctuations and moments of acute medical crisis from signs that an elder is preparing to pass. This, in turn, allows care teams and families to prepare and be present for life’s last, most profound experience.