(Source: New York Times) - The patients were on the loose again, moving through the nursing home's shadowy halls, chattering and giggling like children sneaking out of camp.
It was after midnight. Nearly everyone in the Hebrew Home in Riverdale, NY, was fast asleep. The group past a large fish tank and rounded a corner, startling the security guard - seven women with lights glinting off their silvery hair. Then the guard noticed an employee pushing one of the women in a wheelchair, and relaxed. It was just the night-care group, out for a supervised stroll.
The seven women all have Alzheimer's or dementia, and are part of the home's ElderServe at Night, a dusk-to-dawn drop-off program intended to strengthen the participants' declining minds, while satisfying their thirst to be active after dark.
While there are countless day care programs for the nation's estimated 5.3 million Alzheimer's patients, it is believed that ElderServe at Night, which began a decade ago, is the only one of its kind in the country.
Vickie--I was just getting around to reading the NY Times from Sunday and read this article this a.m. It sounds like a great program! I can't believe it's the only one in the country--maybe this publicity will inspire others to start it. It seems to me it would be a moneymaker.
Probably the only one in the country - so far - cause much of society is still geared towards 9-5 mentality. Truth is our society is a 2/7 hour society now. So many businesses still are not with the times. Sounds like one has though and that is good.