Welcome to a magic blend of health club and rec centre – with wander loop – for those with Alzheimer’s and dementia.
Ever since she was a teenager, Ashley Kwong knew she wanted to open her own seniors’ home.
Now, almost two decades later, her dream is finally becoming a reality.
Kwong is launching Memory & Company next spring — and she’s touting the Markham facility as Canada’s first private Alzheimer’s program.
“We’re taking what a lot of the upscale retirement homes offer and offering it as a day program,” says Kwong, who studied gerontology at both McMaster University and George Brown College.
Kwong says Memory & Company will have a spa-like feel, with:
- well-lit rooms
- secured outdoor spaces
- programming such as music therapy, gardening and yoga
- five-to-one staffing ratio
- on-site nurse
Costs, which range from $100 per day for basic care to $150 for those with more advanced Alzheimer’s, are on a par with many long-term care facilities and retirement homes.
While more expensive than many day programs, Memory & Company will offer a different type of experience, catered specifically to the needs of people with Alzheimer’s and dementia, Kwong says.
Clients will be free to roam the health club’s 11,000-square-foot space with a circular design to decrease their dementia-related agitation while wandering through the rooms.
Clients will also have access to a salon, gym, dance studio and hydrotherapy spa, alongside outside services like massages and physiotherapy.
(Virtual tours, here.)
In other words, the atmosphere will be less clinical, more country club.
“We’re also using iPad technology to provide more individualized care, instead of planning the whole program for the month and not caring what people are in the building,” Kwong says. “It’s a different approach than the assembly style of day programs right now.”
Plus, there is Roxy, the club house dog. NEXT