Maybe they can’t remember their name, or have trouble performing daily activities, but many people with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia are put at ease in familiar environments.
That’s the primary goal of a planned research facility in Yuma, which will use a “village” environment to create a sense of comfort for up to 350 people with the neurological afflictions.
Richard Neault, chief executive officer with MMG Medical Management Group, one of the project’s developers, told the Yuma Sun that the village concept will be the first of its kind in the U.S. on such a scale.
Construction on the indoor, climate-controlled facility, which will be maintained at a year-round 78 degrees and will span more than 200,000 square feet, is set to begin in January 2017 and will take approximately 14 months to complete.
The Veterans Neurological Research Center (VNRC), as it is known, will be located at 2375 W. 32nd St., the former site of Kmart, which has been vacant for more than a decade and is owned by the Cocopah Indian Tribe, whose Cocopah Enterprises LLC has partnered with Medical Management Group LLC on the project.
Plans for the facility include indoor parks, bandstands and storefronts like Woolworth’s, See’s Candies and five and dime shops — mostly architecture from the past. There will be a barber shop, a tailor and even a train depot complete with a dining car that will pull up for evening meals.
A general store where residents can get their items scanned at a cash register, interacting with “cashiers” despite not having to pay anything, will be included, too.
All of these provide a sense of normalcy.
There will be an indoor sky concept that is also aimed at putting the patients at ease.
“What we’re doing is similar to what some of the hotels in Las Vegas are doing,” Neault said. “We’re creating a sky (because) one of the problems is that a lot of dementia patients deal with what is called sundown syndrome, so we’ll be able to make the daylight go to nighttime at 7 o’clock at night.”
Neault discussed the differences between VNRC and traditional Alzheimer’s care facilities.
“Usually what happens is that everyone who comes in is a caregiver and they say ‘How are you feeling,’ ‘Here’s your medication’ (and) ‘Let me take your blood pressure.’
“There’s no real stimulation for this person,” Neault said, “and that’s what we’re trying to create.”
Like a traditional facility, caregivers will be assigned to patients, but unlike standard facilities, the caregivers will also take on the roles of gardener or postman, Neault said.
Medical staff and caregivers will be able to keep track of patients through a tracking system.
“When people get dementia, they get lost,” he said. “They go out wandering around and then they can’t find their way back. Here, everyone will be wearing a bracelet and that bracelet will identify on the caregiver’s computer where their patient is at all times.”
The facility will include automatic-locking doors that will be triggered by the bracelets so patients can’t wander outside, Neault said.
There will be 175 semi-private rooms for as many as 350 Alzheimer’s patients and those with other forms of dementia.
But what makes VNRC a research facility is its 150 extended stay units for military veterans returning from deployment with traumatic brain injury (TBI), as well as their families.
Neault said researchers, who will be brought in from around the world, will be able to try to figure out the correlation between TBI and the development of dementia.
He said they will research what is happening to veterans neurologically that causes strokes and early dementia.
“The studies that we’re going to be doing are on young veterans who are developing problems … to see what changes are occurring in their entire system,” Neault said. “We hope that the results from that will be something that we can then use for the elderly patients with Alzheimer’s and dementia.”
One in nine people in the United States age 65 and older has Alzheimer’s disease, according to the Alzheimer’s Association, and one in three seniors dies with Alzheimer’s or another dementia.
The association says the amount of people who have Alzheimer’s today — 5.4 million in the U.S. — is projected to nearly triple by 2050, “barring the development of medical breakthroughs to prevent or cure the disease.”
The 150 extended stay units at the Yuma facility for young families dealing with TBI will be located in a separate village with modern living spaces, classrooms and recreation areas.
“While they’re going through their therapy,” Neault said, “we’re going to be offering them job training in the facility and an education program.
“What we will be doing is treating the family as a unit rather than the individual,” he continued. “We will be offering the veteran and the spouse the opportunity to job train and actually work in the facility.”
The program will include a job placement upon completion.
Post-traumatic stress disorder therapy will also be provided on an outpatient basis, Neault said.
Additionally, the facility will have 60 single rooms open to any veteran who can’t find work and could benefit from the education and job training programs.
There are also plans for 20 two-bedroom units for veterans with military sexual trauma who have a child and limited career skills. Neault said VNRC will provide therapy, child care and job training for those individuals.
The goal for all of the job trainees, Neault said, is to get them on a career path with a good job upon completion of the up to six-month-long program.
“The VA has programs available to train, but there are no facilities that are doing it (in Yuma),” Neault said.
The Arizona Long Term Care System, under the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, and Social Security would usually qualify those with dementia for a bed in the facility, Neault said.
Additionally, he said, most veterans would qualify for the job training — which will include various state and federal programs.
Along with the many trainees who will be working, the facility will employ more than 400 people when it’s fully staffed — from healthcare workers and researchers to food handlers, therapists, maintenance workers and activity coordinators, among others.
Neault said that since Yuma is considered a rural community, many government programs “can help people to reduce their student loans if they sign a contract to stay here for a certain amount of time,” incentivizing recent medical school graduates from around the country.
“It’s going to draw a lot more neurology into the area,” he said.
Funding for the project, slated to cost more than $50 million to build, will come from Industrial Development Authority-backed municipal bonds to be sold on Wall Street.
Nicklaus Engineering/Architecture West of Yuma is the project’s designer, while Reno Contracting of San Diego will build the complex, and plans to employ 240 construction workers during the process.
Cocopah Tribal Chairwoman Sherry Cordova said in a statement that the tribe purchased the property in 2008 before the economic crash. It has been vacant since 2003.
She continued, “While the economy went south, we held on to the property knowing it was meant to be used for great things for our community. … We are confident that this is the right decision after all these years, and proud to be associated with such an important needed project.”
Yuma Mayor Doug Nicholls and City Administrator Greg Wilkinson both cited not only the uniqueness of the project, but its ability to draw in more medical researchers and opportunities for more related facilities in the future.
“This is a game-changer on a lot of different levels,” Nicholls said. “It’s a different way to approach mental health issues in our modern day.”
He added that it’s an example of “not taking status quo and just repeating that.”
“There’s only one facility of this type in the world,” said Wilkinson, adding that the complex will “bring a significant amount of jobs” to Yuma.
The only other large-scale Alzheimer’s facility that employs the same village concept is called Hogewey, commonly referred to as “Dementia Village.” Opened in 2009, the village is located just outside of Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
Gary Magrino, director of business development at the Cocopah Indian Tribe, said there had been offers for the old Kmart site in the past, but there was never a good fit.
This project, he said, is a great one. Selecting it to be the “fit” was an easy decision.
“It was such a good project, not only for the local community in establishing a brand new industry in the area,” Magrino said, “but it was good for the people of Yuma and it was good for the nation as a whole.”
http://www.yumasun.com/news/new-neurological-research-facility-in-yuma-will-be-the-first/article_670753b0-40a6-11e6-82ac-4391d0598a35.html
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