With the number of people diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease continuing to rise, a new assisted-living community is under construction in Orange City.
CERTUS Premier Memory Care Living is expected to open in September at 675 Veterans Memorial Parkway.
"Usually independent- or assisted-living facilities offer a limited number of apartments within their buildings and the memory care residents are not afforded the same programming or amenities that the other population receives," Kim Smith, vice president of sales and marketing at CERTUS, said. "We feel that our residents should still be afforded those luxuries and the ability to find purpose in their day."
The building will be about 43,000 square feet, with 64 private bedroom suites and a staff with an approach to care that focuses on the whole person, not just the diagnosis.
"We know through our research that if we can provide meaning and purpose, our residents have a greater opportunity for success," Smith said.
The community also is going to have a town center that will include an entertainment area, gym and post office, said Joshua Freitas, vice president of program development at CERTUS.
Freitas, a gerontologist and aging neuroscientist, studies how environmental design impacts the aging process and incorporates his findings into CERTUS residential memory care communities.
CERTUS will implement the right sights and sounds to help residents navigate their residential community and engage with others on their own, Smith said.
Freitas, who spoke at a recent Deltona City Commission meeting, said the company is also working with cities, businesses and first responders on how to better understand the needs of a person with dementia and how the person may respond differently to something that doesn't seem unusual to the average person.
For example, a person with dementia may enter a store and think the plain black mat in the entryway is a black hole into which they could fall, Freitas said.
The company's first residence is set to open this summer in Mount Dora.
"We believe through awareness, education and sharing proactive measures we can not only decrease the fears associated with dementia," Smith said. "Someone who has been diagnosed can still learn, they still have a desire to find purpose. We put our research into action in order to provide the programming that will provide that to them."
Smith said the executive team is especially excited about their forthcoming location in Orange City where a few members of the team began their careers in the senior-living industry over 20 years ago.
Glen Powlowski, the founder/CEO, founded CERTUS Development and CERTUS Management in 1999. In 2007, he accepted an unsolicited offer to purchase the company's independent- and assisted-living facilities was made.
Powlowski then researched what people most needed, and in 2015 he pulled members of the executive team back together and began developing CERTUS Premier Memory Care Living.
Smith said the firm's goal is to open 15 residential facilities in Florida before expanding outside the state.