Companion Living Program

Are you looking for innovative and specialized care for your loved one with Alzheimer's or dementia?

The Aegis Companion-Living Program is a leading edge program that is specialized in proper roommate-pairing in combination with therapeutic activities.

According to the American Journal of Alzheimer's Disease and Other Dementias, "The proper roommate combined with the most appropriate therapeutic activity can result in a supportive, heart-warming, comforting, and nurturing environment. Anxiety reduction, depression relief, cognitive clarity, normalizations of experience, a coping perspective and setting goals can all be achieved. A withdrawn resident can truly become an interactive social person again."

Historically roommate-pairing was matching residents by their gender alone, without considering other variables. At Aegis we consider, personality, interests, culture, eating and sleeping habits, as well as other factors through using our specially designed pairing tool.

Aegis Companion-Living Program

Effects of roommate-paring in conjunction with meaningful activity:

• A remarkable difference in health, spirit, and energy in the resident's overall appearance
• A more active lifestyle capacity and compensation for residual disability
• Higher levels of psychological and physical well-being and functional ability through meaningful activity
• Helping residents maintain their independence in activities of daily living
• Promotion of "bonding" among the groups, especially "one-on-one"
• Maintenance of awareness and orientations
• Opportunity for social interaction and contact
• Helping the residents adjust to emotional changes
• The integrations of psychology and group process with creative specialty, such as dance, movement, music, or art
• A sense of community

Accredited by the National Health Career Association Researcher Barry B. Zeltzer, M.B.A. was once asked, "Can anything be done to make a difference in the lives of people with dementia?"He responded, "Room-mate-pairing can! Like any relationship, it takes time to work and will not happen overnight. This is not a cure for dementia, but a way of helping certain people with dementia have a more fulfilling and happier quality of life."

"Having close friends and staying in contact with family members offers a protective effect against the damaging effects of Alzheimer's disease according to research by physicians at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago."

Staying in touch with close friends reduces damaging effects of Alzheimer's disease. As the size of the social network increased, the same amount of pathology had less effect on cognitive test scores. In other words, for persons without much pathology, social network size had little effect on cognition. However, as the amount of pathology increased, the apparent protective effect on cognition also increased. Thus, social network size appears to have offered a protective reserve capacity despite the fact that their brains had the tangles and plaques indicative of Alzheimer's disease.

The effect was evident across different kinds of cognitive abilities, but was most evident for semantic memory, which is the repository of knowledge about the world and is fundamentally involved in unique human cognitive processes such as language. The results were unchanged after controlling for cognitive, physical, and social activities, depressive symptoms, or number of chronic diseases. "Identifying factors associated with the ability to tolerate the pathology of Alzheimer's disease has important implications for disease prevention," said Bennett. "Previous studies suggest one factor is education. Now we know that healthy and frequent interactions with friends and family have a positive impact as well." The researchers are extremely grateful for the remarkable dedication and altruism of the volunteers participating in the Rush Memory and Aging Project. The research was supported by grants from the National Institutes on Aging, which leads the Federal effort to support and conduct basic, clinical, and social and behavioral studies on aging and on Alzheimer's disease.

Here's how to get involved in the Aegis Companion-Living Program:

Contact us to find out more about the program and schedule a consultation with the AegisLiving Life's Neighborhood Director