Posts Categorized: Featured

Five Steps to Helping a Parent Move to Assisted Living

Moving Your Loved One into an Assisted Living Facility in Portland, Maine Moving elderly parents to an assisted living facility can be a scary step for everyone involved. Our five-step checklist is easy to follow, eases the transition to an assisted living community, and will put your whole family at ease. The steps for transitioning someone into a nursing home or assisted living facility are not as difficult as they seem. In fact, the hardest part is simply getting started. No one wants to share with aging parents that they no longer seem to be thriving in their home and many adult children struggle to express their concerns about health and safety with their loved ones. After all, our aging parents have always taken care of us. When we suggest a transition to assisted living, we start taking care of them. At The Cedars, we offer a full range of award-winning living options for elderly parents. We see every day how...

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Construction Update October 2020

We are getting there! The building is in place, sheet rock is up, and the living spaces are coming to form. The high ceilings, large windows, spacious apartments, and gathering spaces will be comfortable and cozy. We cannot wait to welcome our new residents to the Memory Care Assisted Living and Long-term, Skilled Nursing Care Households. For more information, contact June O’Neill, Household Representative at...

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Looking to Move into a Retirement Community Next Year? Four Things to Think About Today

Moving into a Retirement Community in Portland, Maine Our retirement community has been growing for over 90 years, and we love to welcome new members. Here is what you and your family need to know to make your best move. There are so many wonderful options for aging adults today. It can be hard to know what to look for in a retirement community and harder still to know how to choose an assisted living community. Will you have personal space? The social nature of a senior living community is one of its most attractive features. Imagine living your best life, safely and securely, surrounded by your best friends! Warm and welcoming common areas, gracious dining options, and beautiful grounds are all designed to encourage get-togethers and good times. You still want to feel at home, however. Personal space is important to maintain privacy, dignity, and choice in our lives, and the amount of personal space we...

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Your Dad Was Just Diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease. What Happens Now?

Learning Your Father Has Alzheimer's Over 25% of older adults will experience some form of memory loss by the time they are age 65 or older. While there is no cure for Alzheimer’s disease or dementia, there is great cause for hope. Today’s memory care options help older adults continue to live meaningful, comfortable, and productive lives. Start moving forward with these three quick Alzheimer’s caregiver tips from The Cedars. A diagnosis of dementia or Alzheimer’s disease can feel devastating at first. Learning that someone you love is losing their cognitive functioning—their personalized ways of navigating the world—can be both frightening and sad. But you should know that incredible advances have been made in the way we see, care for, and connect with people with dementia, and you and your loved ones have more choices for high-quality memory care than ever before. The Cedars provides multiple levels of memory care for older adults, from...

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The Cedars Brings Household Model to Maine

How do you celebrate 90 years of quality care, innovative programs, and dedicated leadership? By breaking new ground. Since opening as the Jewish Home for Aged in 1929, The Cedars has set the standard for non-profit, senior care. Today, we offer independent living, assisted living, rehabilitation, skilled care and community-based programs. We mark this milestone by constructing a true home for Maine’s older adults – The Sam L. Cohen Households. This new model of care will feature age-friendly design, with a warm, person-centered experience: two households of skilled nursing care, and one household offering a new level of care, Memory Care Assisted Living. Residents of the Sam L. Cohen Households will experience a living environment that offers a quality of life previously unimaginable outside of their own homes. The Person-Directed Life Your loved one chooses the rhythm of their individual life, the rituals and pleasures that are part of...

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Kathy Callnan Appointed to Maine Commission on Workforce Issues

Kathy-C In August, 2019, Troy D. Jackson, President of the Maine Senate appointed The Cedars President and CEO, Kathy Callnan to the Commission to Study Long-term Care Workforce Issues. Kathy will be serving the commission as a representative of a statewide association representing nonprofit housing and senior service programming. The Cedars has been focused on the workforce crisis, particularly as it applies to Maine’s older adults and their need to access care, for over ten years. With Maine have the oldest median age at 44 years, we have been working tirelessly to educate tomorrow’s workers on the opportunities in building a career in healthcare. With The Cedars Learning Community, our emphasis on person-centered care, and the upcoming Household Model of Care (construction begins September 2019), we have been forging partnerships to drive innovation at The Cedars. Our goal is to share our approaches to education, innovation, workforce development and the...

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Positive Approach to Care Champions at The Cedars

The Cedars would like to recognize and congratulate our first PAC (Positive Approach to Care) Champions. Pictured here are Jenna Perkins, Kelly Thumb, Tracy Fleck and Karen Cook. Each of these wonderful caregivers has completed The Cedars Positive Approach to Care Trainings – created by internationally regarded occupational therapist, Teepa Snow – and has demonstrated their new skills while working with our residents who are living with memory loss. Their care, patience, creativity, and positive attitudes all combine to make our residents’ daily lives more peaceful and connected. Working with each resident’s strengths, instead of focusing on their cognitive losses, translates to better days and more successful moments for people living with memory loss. As PAC Champions, each caregiver has signed an agreement to be a role model to their team in their Positive Approach to Care with our residents.   You can find each of these caregivers working...

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Sam L. Cohen Foundation’s Largest Gift Benefits The Cedars

In honor of Sam’s legacy, the Sam L. Cohen Foundation has made its largest gift ever—$1.5 million—to support building a brand-new Healthcare Center at The Cedars that will provide truly person-centered care. “Sam L. Cohen was, first and foremost, a people person. When the Foundation was first established, we researched the gifts Sam had made during his life,” explains Jeff Nathanson, President of the Sam L. Cohen Foundation. “Sam wasn’t here to tell us what he wanted and we hoped to discover what inspired his legendary, lifelong giving to guide us in our grant making. It quickly became very clear to us that Sam didn’t give to organizations or ideas. Sam gave to people.” SAM L. COHEN WAS THE LIFE OF the Jewish community of Biddeford, Maine. He was also its heart. More than ten years after his passing, his gregarious personality—and his generous philanthropy—remain legendary. The Sam L....

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The Cedars’ Angie Hunt Presents at Leading Age Missouri

Angie Hunt, Chief Operating Officer at The Cedars was recently invited by Leading Age Missouri to share her expertise on post-acute care and value-based purchasing. On Wednesday, May 8 at the Third Annual Summit for Acute and Post-Acute Care Providers: Insights and Perspectives on Care Coordination and Value-Based Payment, Angie spoke on a panel to discuss Care Collaboration and Value-Based Care. Moderator Margaret Donnelly, VP of Post-Acute Care Services at St. Lukes Health System explained that the adoption of value-based care models is expected to account for 59 percent of healthcare payments by 2020, as the healthcare industry uses value-based care to address the high-cost utilizers. Payer-provider collaboration, holistic healthcare approaches that address the social determinants of health, and the use of health IT tools will be among the most important drivers of value-based care. Angie spoke as a frontline provider from the perspective of skilled nursing or post-acute...

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Assisted Living at The Cedars: Our Dining Experience

Sitting down for a delicious meal is something we all look forward to, both to nourish our bodies as well as to gather with friends and families.  At The Osher Inn Assisted Living, our residents look forward to joining in our dining room that is elegant yet intimate and feels just like home in our small community of 30 apartments. For lunch or dinner, we often have family members join their loved ones to catch up on busy lives.  Breakfast time is an opportunity for our residents to plan their days and visit with friends over a lingering cup of coffee.  Our Dining Director, John Roy, prides himself on planning his menus around seasonality and variety. “Living in Maine gives us access to the best seafood, produce, and meats,” he explains. “And we don’t want even our most popular dishes to feel repetitive. In every way, we try to...

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