Adult Development and Aging 2 -- Maple Crest's Activities

Maple Crest Manor is a stylish, modern facility designed for those requiring extra care in their twilight years and beyond.  This facility has been providing exceptional care with a skilled nursing staff since 1976.  Maple Crest Manor provides quality physical care in the form of 24-hour nursing staff and visiting physicians.  This community also places a heavy focus on keeping the residents involved and actively engaged.  By providing a life enrichment program featuring dozens of activities and a wellness program that runs six days a week, residents are kept entertained and cognitively engaged through a variety of activities and events.  Maple Crest Manor's extensive calendar of activities greatly impacts the consumers that reside here.  Maple Crest also helps residents celebrate holidays such as Valentine's Day and Easter by providing unique activities such as Valentine's bingo and royalty and Easter egg coloring.

            While it is easily seen when the body begins to decline on the exterior, we do not always consider how the body is deteriorating on the inside.  It is equally important to train and maintain the mind as it is the body.  Maple Crest provides activities that aid in keeping the brain active.  While it can be difficult to cater activities to the different cognition levels of residents, the facility does an excellent job of providing events for everyone, no matter the level.  All individuals have the opportunity to go for walks, converse with staff and community members and attend sing-a-longs.  Residents can also choose to participate in Wii game shows, wheel of fortune, bingo, crosswords, spelling bees, Yahtze, and card games which all are meant to keep the mind active and entertain at the same time.  Many clients enjoy playing card games because it gives them a chance to interact with others as well as exercise their competitive side.  Bingo also is a popular activity for the same reasons.  On top of the activities on site, staff take residents out to eat and to other events such as Upper Iowa basketball games in order to get them out for awhile and involved with the community.

  The residents often get the chance to play with volunteers from the community including the 4-H council, the West Central 3rd graders, the Upper Iowa basketball and tennis teams, and the EYE sorority girls.  Besides the games, the facility also hosts several social hours, meditation, storytelling and prayer, and reminiscing sessions.  These allow the residents to keep their communication skills intact and exercise both their short and long term memory.

            Compared with other facilities of this nature in northeast Iowa, Maple Crest Manor offers several similar activities including trips to restaurants, space for aerobics, balloon volleyball and games, and a spa that offers nail and hair care to all residents.  Being such a small community, the whole area seems more close knit and residents benefit from students from the university and surrounding areas coming in to participate in activities with them.  Residents even have the opportunity to hand out candy to kids who come in costume during Halloween. 

  Adding to this, there are several guests and reverends that come in to interact with the clients multiple times per week  Maple Crest Manor also utilizes technology by playing games on the Wii, which is unique compared to many similar nursing homes and assisted living communities.  On top of staying cognitively active, residents have access to and the chance to experience this newer technology.

            Overall, Maple Crest Manor is a quality assisted living center and nursing home situated in a small, tight knit community that offers a wide range of activities and events to the clients.  By keeping residents engaged physically and cognitively as well as providing activities that stimulate conversation and exercise the long and short term memory, this facility keeps clients sufficiently entertained while keeping their minds and bodies engaged.

Adult Development and Aging 1 -- Course Concepts

This week in our Psychology of Aging class we have covered two different chapters. In the first chapter, we covered adult and development and aging. One concept that we went over was the four factors of the life span perspective. The first of these is multidirectionality (Cavanaugh & Blanchard-Fields, 2010). This is the idea that people will grow and decline throughout development. People can gain in one area but then lose in another; it is not a one way street.  Maple Crest offers a variety of activities for older adults to partake in, giving them the chance to grow a new skill that they never knew and they may learn to enjoy. The second of these concepts is plasticity (Cavanaugh & Blanchard-Fields). Plasticity refers to someone's capacity to learn. People can continue to improve skills and learn new ones throughout their whole life.  Learning and honing skills does not have to end in youth or middle adulthood.  Older adults are just as capable of learning new skills. The third of these is historical context, which is how each person develops in their own time in history and culture and varies by cohort (Cavanaugh & Blanchard-Fields). For example, the majority of people at Maple Crest were born in the 20th century and more than likely have much different historical context than those of us in our 20’s or 30’s. The fourth and last of these is multiple causation, which says that our development is shaped by different factors in our lives: biological, psychological, sociocultural, and life cycle forces (Cavanaugh & Blanchard-Fields).

            Another topic we covered in our class was demographics of the United States. Studies have shown that that the age of the population will consist of more older adults in the future, which will greatly change how our society operates, especially when it comes to economics.  This will increase the number of individuals Maple Crest and other facilities serve in order to cater to that population (Cavanaugh & Blanchard-Fields, 2010).  This will affect the cost that families of the elderly have to pay to house aging relatives and may alter what types of activities are in the budget. With the added influx in the future, more activities may also have to be added to help meet the demands as our population as a whole ages. Included in this dynamic is the growth of different minority groups. One group in particular that is predicted to grow is Hispanic Americans, which is predicted to increase 800% by 2050 (Cavanaugh & Blanchard-Fields, 2010).   Maple Crest could account for this potential increase in members of a different culture by possibly adding more culturally diverse activities and celebrating other holidays that are important with other cultures.

            The other chapter we have covered recently is neuroscience as a basis for adult development and aging. The main focus of this chapter is neuropsychology; this theory compares healthy brain functioning compared to those with mental illness or cognitive deterioration (Cavanaugh & Blanchard-Fields, 2010). This could have implications within Maple Crest and the activities they offer. For example, someone who has Alzheimer's disease might have to partake in different activities than someone who is fully mentally capable. On the other hand, each activity could be altered to make accommodations for every kind of individual, no matter their level of cognitive functioning.  This would all depend on what sort of approach the facility wants to take. Volume shrinkage occurs in the brain as we age which also hinders cognitive functions. Both of these factors need to be taken into heavy consideration by both Maple Crest and other facilities like it.

             The activities offered by Maple Crest help keep the older adults cognitively sharp and help reduce the volume shrinkage that can occur with aging. Residents can partake in cards, bingo, crosswords, and most interestingly they make use of technology by incorporating the Wii game system, which appears to be rather unique to this facility compared to others in the area. Physical activities are also vital to keeping the mind and body fit. Maple Crest offers a variety of ways to stay physically fit, such as aerobics and balloon volleyball, which allows residents to add another way to stay cognitively fit by thinking about the movements they are making and what they must do next, as well as potentially having to cooperate with other residents for these activities Aerobic fitness has been related to improved brain health in older adults (Cavanaugh & Blanchard-Fields, 2010).   All of these physical and mental activities offered make Maple Crest an excellent place if potential clients want to remain physically and cognitively in shape as they age

 

Cavanaugh, J. C. & Blanchard-Fields, F. (2010). Adult development and aging. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Maple Crest Manor is a skilled nursing care center, located in the scenic small town of Fayette, Iowa.   Locally owned since 1976, we have been committed to providing an exceptional level of service to our residents and their families.  We are a dedicated staff within a progressive facility, serving our community with quality care and an active life style in our family atmosphere. 

Maple Crest Manor is Medicare/Medicaid approved and State of Iowa licensed.  We are a member of the Iowa Health Care Association and the American Health Care Association. 

We offer private deluxe, private and semi-private accommodations.  Each room is furnished with a bed, bedside dresser and a closet for each resident.  There is no locked storage space in the rooms.  We encourage all of our residents to personalize their rooms with pictures, mementos and other items to make for a home-like atmosphere.

Our compassionate team of nursing staff ensures that residents receive 24-hour clinical support and care. Residents and families can have peace of mind knowing every room is linked to an emergency call system.

Our environmental staff provides profession cleaning services and laundering of personal clothing.

Our Culinary department offers wonderful meals three times a day with choices of food for each meal for residents to choose from.  Snacks are also offered in between meals.

Our life enrichment department fills our resident’s days with lots of fun things to do if they choose.  Crafts, music events, dining out, church services and more, are offered. There are several things to do each day.

We treat our residents with respect, dignity and understanding, giving to each resident the love and kindness we would hope to receive!

We are extremely excited to work with Upper Iowa University we feel that together we can have a positive impact on not only each others facilities but also on the community of Fayette!

Angelique Vagts

Maple Crest Manor & The Maples

Admissions Coordinator and Community Relations

Upper Iowa University Students Partner with Maple Crest

I'm excited to announce that students enrolled in the Psychology of Aging course at Upper Iowa will be partnering with Maple Crest to create a blog promoting positive views of aging.  Angie and I are excited to take on this new adventure together.  We hope to build additional partnerships between Maple Crest and UIU students in the future.

Beginning in January, students enrolled in my Psychology of Aging class will be working on a post related to course content (e.g., based on that week's course content) as well as a post directly related to Maple Crest. The purpose of this partnership is to 1) give students experience working with a community partner 2) promote positive aging and 3) connect Maple Crest with the broader community. Stay tuned for future announcements!

Melinda Heinz, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Psychology

Upper Iowa University