The Lantern is a specialized program at Morning Pointe Assisted Living for persons suffering from Alzheimer’s or other dementia-related disorders. These special individuals have different needs that are ever changing from day to day.
Visit our specialized locations that offer The Lantern program.
Program Focus and Role of Staff
Our staff is here to nurture and help maintain our residents individuality and dignity through meaningful activities and needs-based programming.
Our Approach to Care
We believe that our Lantern residents are still functioning individuals who can maintain a high quality of life. It is our goal to create an environment that promotes independence as well as a feeling of security and safety.
Training and Support for Families and Community
Our families are an integral part of our dementia care team. We believe that they are the most important source of information for our care and service planning process for our residents. As part of our extended Lantern family, it is our goal to provide as much support and resources for our family members as possible to help them deal with the constant changes of their loved one. It is also our goal to be a support and resource for our surrounding outside community through different ways such as support groups and having an available resource library.
Happiness and Laughter
The Lantern is an environment to promote the highest quality of life for our resident. We believe that this can be promoted through the laughter, patience, flexibility and sensitivity of our staff.
Encouraging Individuality
Our residents’ needs are constantly changing as they go through the aging process. Their needs will be different day to day. We want to help maintain our residents’ independence, individuality and dignity as long as possible.
Lighting the Way with Compassion
At the Lantern, compassionate care goes beyond simple daily living – it encompasses living life with dignity. Residents are nurtured wholly in mind, body and spirit. We see ourselves as part of the solution that can enrich lives with comfort, security and positive support.
Activity-Focused Program
We believe that engaging our residents in a 24-hour activity-focused program will help them maintain a higher quality of life and independence. This is based on our philosophy that everything our resident does during the day is an activity. We follow the guideline of the Circle of Life activities for Alzheimer’s patients. This breaks down our activities into five categories: Cognitive, Sensory, Social/Recreational, Spiritual, Physical and Normalization Activities.
Needs-Based and Individualized Care
Our approach to care is based on the philosophy that our residents are functioning individuals at different levels. We develop a service plan for each resident based on their specific needs. Although they have different needs, they still have the same need to be loved, to laugh, to feel useful, and need to be treated with dignity and respect.
Trained and Caring Staff
Our staff is carefully selected for The Lantern program based on the traits they exhibit. These must include sense of humor, patience, dependability, flexibility, sensitivity, and compassion. All Lantern staff go through extensive training to ensure that they have the skills, knowledge and resources to work with our Lantern residents.
Elimination of Excess Disability
There are many factors that contribute to the behavior of our Lantern residents. These are not all caused by their cognitive dysfunction. Disruptive behavior can be caused by too much noise, medications, constipation, or a UTI. This is “excessive baggage” – meaning too much stimuli. We can eliminate this excessive baggage by being aware of our environment and any changes in our residents.
Reinforcement of Positive Qualities
Following the same philosophy that our residents are different individuals with varying needs and qualities, we want to constantly reinforce these qualities to promote our residents’ independence.
Natural Home Environment
It is important for our Lantern Residents to have a sense of belonging and familiarity in their surroundings. Through the careful design of The Lantern neighborhood, it is our goal to create an environment that will support our residents remaining abilities and have a positive impact on their lives.
