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Friday, Mar 29, 2024

DAY CARE–Silverado Aims at Booming Niche in Senior Day Care

An increasing number of upscale baby boomers, charged with caring for their infirm parents, are unable to handle them during the day. And that’s prompting a growth in senior day-care programs throughout the San Fernando Valley. The latest entry is Silverado Senior Living, operator of a chain of assisted-living centers that just recently launched an adult day-care program at its Calabasas facility. The program is geared specifically to people with Alzheimer’s and dementia. Silverado is targeting a geographic area stretching from Ventura County to Woodland Hills and as far away as West L.A., said the center’s director, Jack Peters. “Most people’s goal is to keep a loved one in their natural environment for as long as possible,” Peters said. “Day care allows people to be cared for at home for a longer time.” For its day-care program, Silverado plans to use some of the same facilities and amenities offered in its assisted-living program, including a beauty salon, ’50s-style cafeteria, swimming pool for water therapy and a crafts room. The aim is to care for people afflicted with Alzheimer’s and dementia, while freeing up their children to go to work. “We provide respite care for the caregiver,” said Bonnie Shoemaker, director of the Silverado Adult program. “A good percentage of (the caregivers) work outside the home.” And the number of baby boomers whose parents have been stricken with Alzheimer’s and dementia is growing. “The demand for Alzheimer’s-specific day-care services is pretty great,” said Rachelle Bloch, regional director of the Alzheimer’s Center at Cal State Northridge. “(Yet Alzheimer-specific day care) is not common. It’s very difficult to care for that population, and it’s very expensive.” While the Calabasas facility is the Silverado’s fifth assisted-living operation, it is the first to offer adult day care because it has space readily available for that program. The Calabasas location is housed in a former psychiatric hospital. Silverado has thus far only filled four of the 30 available slots in its new day-care program, but it expects the program to fill up within six to eight months, because of the lack of such facilities in the surrounding area. Silverado is the sixth facility in the Valley to offer adult day care. But the lion’s share of the demand has been for medical day-care facilities, which are licensed by the state Agency on Aging. In the last month, 50 medical day-care facility applications have been submitted to operate in Los Angeles County. But Silverado plans to operate its program as a “social” day-care center, meaning it is not licensed to give out medicine and patients can’t pay use Medicare or Medi-Cal to pay for it. In the San Fernando Valley, there are five facilities that offer social day-care services, but most of them also offer a medical day-care program. Meanwhile, few of the social day-care programs are filled, said Teresa Salinas, licensing programming analyst with the Woodland Hills division of the state Community Services and Development Department.

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