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Architect Belmont Freeman, Molly Michels, Council Member Robert
Jackson, Riverstone Senior Life Services Executive Director Rebecca Carel and Assembly
Member Adriano Espaillat at the opening of Riverstone's new Memory Center .
The difference between sanity and insanity. That’s how Dorothy Pitts described the help she and her husband, John, received at Riverstone Senior Life Services. For three years, John would spend part of his day in the dementia program at the senior center, located at 99 Ft. Washington Avenue.
During that time John would get to be around peers, going through the same struggle as him, and Dorothy would get a break to run errands, or get her hair done.
As many as 5 to 8 percent of adults over the age of 65 suffer from dementia, a condition that can be brought on by many factors, but is most commonly associated with Alzheimer’s Disease.
“I went through it for eight years with my husband,” Dorothy said. She joined a support group of caregivers, and continued with it even after John passed away.
“They’re like family,” Dorothy said.
Now a member of the center’s board of directors, Dorothy was on hand for the May 20 ribbon cutting for the new Riverstone Memory Center, a $2.6 million renovation of the largely unused 600-square-foot second floor above the senior center. The unveiling of the center coincided with the 25-year anniversary of Riverstone, which started its life out as Fort Washington Houses Services for the Elderly in 1985.
“It’s just wonderful. We can accommodate so many people [now],” Dorothy said, while touring the new space.
The center replaces the small offices on the ground floor that used to house the bilingual dementia program.
The layout of the center is simple, by design. It’s round, with a large room in the center, and offices and smaller meeting rooms around the perimeter.
“You can’t get lost – its one of the big points,” said architect Belmont Freeman.
“The idea is circular,” said co-architect Licia Berlinck, who specializes in designs for Alzheimer’s patients.
“They are wanderers,” she said, and the design should keep them from getting lost or trapped.
Each room has a large circular window for wandering patients to look into, and prominently at one end is a large fish tank – a calming source of entertainment. It’s empty now, with a donation box propped next to it that will pay for the fish, as are most of the offices.
Rebecca Carel, executive director of Riverstone, has worked for 10 years for the funding to renovate the floor.
“Money is a problem,” she said, noting that now that the center is built, it has to be equipped. “It’s a constant battle.”
The seed money for the center came from City Council Member Stanley Michels in 2000, and on hand for the cutting were his wife, Molly, and two State Assembly Members, Adriano Espaillat and Herman “Denny” Farrell, Jr., Michel’s successor, Robert Jackson, and former District 10 Council Member Guillermo Linares. All had appropriated funds over the past decade for the center.
Money is a problem, too, for those who need the services.
It costs $70 per day to attend the program, much of that is for a served lunch and transportation to the center.
“Medicaid pays for some of it,” Carel said, but not all. “We’ve had to discontinue people who couldn’t pay.”
The Memory Center is staff-intensive. Downstairs, in the senior center, the ratios of employees to seniors can be as few as one for every 50 people; upstairs it's one employee for every five attendees.
People with dementia need to be engaged, Carel said, and are, with programs like the Memory Club, a writing group and movement therapy.
For Dorothy Pitts, it’s a necessity for those suffering with dementia.
“We need this,” said Mrs. Pitts. “We are one of the few types of organizations that offer things like this.”
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