After making the decision to make a move to an Assisted living community, families often times ask, “How can we make this the best transition for our loved one?”. River Pointe of Moorhead and its employees recognize that this can be a difficult transition and we have compiled a few tips for making the transition most successful:
1.Make it feel like home: Hang photos or artwork on the walls, bring in a favorite piece of furniture, and decorate! This is going to be their new home and it is important that your loved one is surrounded by the things that make it seem more homelike. Residents love to show off photos of their family and friends or their favorite Holiday décor to others. It allows for the resident to connect with other individuals and reminisce.
2. Keep Routine: Human beings are creatures of habit and significant changes or disruption to that routine leads to individuals feeling vulnerable and uncomfortable. If your loved one is struggling with any cognitive impairment or memory loss, disruption in routine becomes an even bigger issue. If your loved one is used to reading the paper while eating breakfast, ensure that the newspaper subscription has been transferred to their new home.
3. Communication: Keep lines of communication open not only with your loved one, but also River Pointe staff. Encourage friends and family to continue to call or stop by and get that resident involved. Set a time of the day or week that you will call or stop by for a visit with your loved one. If you do visit during a time in which an activity is occurring at River Pointe, we encourage you to participate with us! This may be the extra push your loved one needs to see that there are a lot of fun activities to get engaged with. Also, we encourage residents and family members to ask questions; this is a big change for everyone and we want to ensure as smooth of a transition as possible.
4. Get Engaged: The biggest thing that we want to encourage for new residents would be to attend our frequent activities. We are always looking for new ideas as to how we can get people involved in activities. Grab a copy of the latest activities calendar to keep your loved one informed about activities they would find interesting. We find that residents who are engaged in our social events or even causal socialization during meal times are much more satisfied with their experience at River Pointe of Moorhead.
Our mission at River Pointe of Moorhead is not only to provide Health Care services to our residents, but we also seek to have them live enriched lives. Making new connections with new friends or nurturing a life long friendship, finding a new hobby or finally finding the time to enjoy a good book, our wish is to break the mold as to what people think when talking about aging. If you are interested in finding out more about life at River Pointe of Moorhead, give us a call and setup a tour.
Phone Number: 218.287.6900