Pickering Manor has grown significantly in the past 59 years from a small nursing home of 47 residents to a newly expanded and renovated Life Plan Community offering the full continuum of care, and most recently adding a 21-bed Memory Care neighborhood.
Pickering Manor’s Memory Care was intuitively and mindfully designed for those who are living with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. Opening Memory Care to the community will be a monumental moment for Pickering as this is the first time in its history that a brand-new unit will be operating within the Pickering Manor Home since its birth in 1963.
Administrator Meri Luarasi will lead Pickering Manor’s Memory Care. Luarasi has 25 years of experience in Gerontology. She is a Certified Dementia Practitioner and Educator and holds the title Certified Dementia Care Manager. Additionally, Ms. Luarasi is Chair/Founder of Dementia Friendly Newtown, Volunteer with Alzheimer’s Association, and screener for Alzheimer’s Foundation of America.
“Live the Life you Love” is centered on memory care residents’ accomplishments, not their shortcomings, and is based on four principles: the power of normal, focus on retained abilities, the dignity of risk and advocacy. This philosophy is about allowing residents maximum autonomy rather than being confined to a schedule of set mealtimes and other restrictions.
It was vital that Pickering Manor residents were involved every step of the way. An example of this can be seen throughout the hallways in Memory Care – residents Elizabeth Kaczur and SaraJane Dallas exercised their interests, as former designers, and assisted in choosing the paint colors for the entire neighborhood based on the psychology of color and how the colors made them feel.
Visit and learn more about what our Memory Care Neighborhood has to offer. For more info, tours or donations please contact Pickering Manor at 215-486-3468 or by visiting www.pickeringmanor.org.
PHOTO CAP: Emma Lambert (Activities) and Elizabeth Kaczur (resident) sort through fabrics together Pickering Manor’s new Memory Care Neighborhood.