From friendship suites to the Tahoe room, take a look inside reimagined facility
Members of the Folsom community, city dignitaries and leaders from Choose Folsom and the Folsom Chamber of Commerce came together Wednesday evening to view and celebrate the unveiling of the recent renovation of one of the city’s well established senior living facilities.
Cogir Memory Care of Folsom, a premier assisted living community specializing in exceptional care for residents with cognitive impairment, recently completed their extensive and complete renovation of their Folsom facility at 1801 East Natoma Street in Folsom. The location has been home to senior care for many years, however, since becoming a Cogir owned and operated facility, it now boasts a look and feel like no other and offers countless amenities for its clients.
The Folsom facility accommodates both full-time memory care and short-stay respite care. Within a few moments of visiting with the management and staff of the company it is immediately apparent how much they pride themselves on offering a safe, warm atmosphere designed specifically to offer comfort and stimulation to residents with Alzheimer’s disease or other types of mild to advanced dementia. The company cites that its residents are gently guided toward daily success through secured perimeters, walking paths, way-finding cues, life stations and other interactive areas.
“We can’t wait to show the greater Sacramento area our beautiful, newly renovated community just up Highway 50 in Folsom, in neighboring El Dorado Hills,” said Davina Barker, Executive Director at Cogir of Folsom, prior to opening the doors to the community Wednesday. “It truly is a hidden gem.” In addition to touring the facility Wednesday during their community celebration and grand reopening, they are always ready to offer members of the community a tour of their facility.
The company earned a deficiency free survey last year halfway through the extended extensive renovation of the property. During the major project, they succesfully continued serving seniors simultaneously during all of the construction, which was so extensive many facilities would have likely closed down and relocated residents during, which is not in the best interest of those suffering with such illnesses.
“Our community business partners have been so supportive during the almost one-year renovation process,” Barker said. “This project, undertaken for the safety of our residents, was completed in 3 phases. It was exciting to see the transformation taking place while at the same time residents were able to continue to enjoy their home, and families were comforted in knowing that this community stayed open for continuity and quality of dementia care.”
When you walk into the newly renovated building, you can’t help but notice the bright open feeling it boasts with vibrant colors throughout the décor and a remarkable use of natural light throughout the different common areas of the center, the hallways and more. The spacious one-story community has two large outside gardens for residents to enjoy nature and ample room for residents to walk both indoors and outdoors. There are multiple community spaces for engaging in large and small group activities. ‘Safely You’ fall detection is installed in each resident suite.
“It wasn’t uncommon before for a response to a fall to take up to as much as 19 minutes in the past, now we can respond within seconds or mere minutes with Safely You,” explained Kristine Schrudder, Cogir’s Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing.
“Motion is detected and it records long enough for us to understand and know what happened during that fall so we know how to best escalate or care for the resident. A lot of times we are just reaching for something low and need a little bit of help up, but because our residents here have Alzheimer’s and Dementia related illness, many are not usually able to verbalize perfectly to our care staff so its been difficult to know whether or not they hit their head. or what happened so having Safely You has really been a game changer in the building. Our response rates and clinical outcomes from the program are phenomenal in our industry.”
The Safely You program is just one of many additions and improvements that have been made to Cogir’s Folsom facility in the recent renovation, which Shrudder shared was a 2 million dollar investment for the company to complete. Throughout the community areas of the facilities to the resident suites they offer, from the safety to the décor and of course all of the safety features the attention to detail throughout the entire remodel.
“Some of our residents prefer to have a friendship suite, so there’s somebody else that can kind of help them with their day and get oriented to that daily routine in that way,” said Shrudder. “They are beautifully appointed everything has been completely redone in the apartments just makes it feel like home and a beautiful serene environment.”
One area of particular interest that has been added is what is known as the Lake Tahoe Room. According to the company, because Lake Tahoe has been a vacation destination for so many people in the area year after year and generation after generation, the room was designed to be a full immersion experience, meant to create a reflection of happy and relaxing memories for residents and families. Residents are often drawn to the rockers that are positioned as if they are on the porch of a cabin as they gaze out to the views depicted of Lake Tahoe beyond. This unique, full sensory experience also incorporates the smell of fresh trees and a gentle breeze, as well as the sound of the water and crickets chirping. (See the Tahoe room in video above.)
“Tahoe is a very popular destination for our Folsom residents, many who grew up around here have enjoyed that as a summertime and winter time vacation spot so when residents are feeling agitated or a little bit anxious, the room is a great place for us to go and visit and relax,” Shrudder shared as she gave Folsom Times an full tour of the facility. “When you walk in there it looks and feels as if you are right in Lake Tahoe, you can almost feel those lake breezes.”
In addition to the impressive interior amenities, the Folsom facility offers outside features that can truly be decribed as being “resort like.” The courtyard design keeps residents safe within the facility where can enjoy the serenity of running fountains, lush lawns and garden areas, all of which are easily accessed on high quality ADA walkways throughout.
At Wednesday’s open house and grand reopening celebration, David Eskanazy, CEO of Cogir Management, and Terri Mundy, Vice President of Optimization for Cogir Management were on hand to great guests and share their remarks to the Folsom community along with representatives from the Folsom Chamber of Commerce, local media and others. Guest enjoyed a variety of sample bites and refreshments put together by the Cogir culinary team, who who prepares home-cooked meals tailored to individual residents’ dietary needs daily on site.
Cogir Folsom is located at 1801 East Natoma Street near the intersection of Golf Links in the heart of Folsom Ranch. Those that want to learn more about the facility can visit their website at www.cogir.com where they can not only find all of the information about the facility and care, but can also access all the needed contact information to speak to a company representative or schedule an in person tour.