Originally published June 22 2005
Dementia care facility designed to stimulate, soothe Alzheimer's patients
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
The Lowell Sun reports on a new senior center created with the needs of Alzheimer's patients in mind.
Not long ago Maria Maskaluk stood amid the fresh-plaster walls, two-by-fours and sawdust.
It's where her office will be when the new home of The Community Family's Lowell Alzheimer's Adult Day Health Center for sufferers of dementia opens next month on Broadway Street.
It's an upbeat time for the program.
But she noticed a detail, as people who work around Alzheimer's patients are wont to do.
In her office-to-be, tall rectangular holes were cut out for big interior windows.
At Alzheimer's centers, she noted, privacy takes on added significance when visiting family members visit.
The new Community Family, which has been in Lowell 16 years, will feature 6,000 square feet, roughly three times the space at the Pawtucket Street site.
That allows the program to increase the maximum number of clients from 24 to 55.
The wood clapboard structure, on the old city garage yard, is intriguing on many levels.
It marks yet another successful effort by Lowell developer Nicholas Sarris to convert dilapidated properties in his native Acre neighborhood into gems.
He turned old stables into a gleaming new senior center.
Now we're looking for Lowell businesses to contribute," Marchetta said.
"We would love to be able, in a year, to retire the loan because then the operating money generated would go further toward client care."
Most spaces will be bathed in earth tones, broken up by a few "accent walls" with bright colors that purport to help clients identify their location.
He heard about a patient at another facility who became confrontational when too much sunlight streamed in.
The building lies within a historic district, so the Lowell Historic Board in consultation with the Lowell National Historical Park, helped select the historically accurate hue.
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