We often take for granted how much we value our neighbors, and the comfort of being part of a community. Making new neighbors feel welcome just comes naturally, yet this opportunity is often missing in residential care settings. The Montessori Inspired Lifestyle® model emphasizes true community values.

Imagine what it would be like to have all important decisions in your life made for you by someone else. Think how this would make you feel about yourself and those in control of your life. Montessori Inspired Lifestyle® is about giving control back to the individual and offering choice whenever possible.

Assisted by Montessori-structured participation methodologies, residents in our communities participate in decisions such as the locations of daily outings, the code of conduct for the community, their entertainment options, activities schedules, menus, visitor rules, charitable donation programs, how to commemorate the passing of their neighbors, and more.

When residents are active participants in their communities, they share a unique sense of ownership and pride, which greatly enhances the quality of their lives.

Isolation often is an unintended byproduct of residential care, and memory care in particular. Montessori Inspired Lifestyle® emphasizes the importance of connectedness to the broader community and the world. Maintaining cultural connections, rituals, customs and practices is an essential part of our lives, which must continue to be maintained and nurtured, regardless of our diagnoses or residential settings.

When visits involve engaging in activities together and sharing good moments, families and friends look forward to visiting. In Montessori Inspired Lifestyle® communities, visitors often are surprised by the abilities and skills demonstrated by their loved ones. Our goal is to raise expectations and create environments for living fully.

When our friends or neighbors become ill or pass away, it is our natural reaction to want to support them, to mourn their loss, or express our sympathy to their survivors. Montessori Inspired Lifestyle® emphasizes the importance of enabling all community members to maintain these uniquely human expressions.

Within every care community there is a wealth of experience, skill and knowledge that can be shared with younger generations. Montessori Inspired Lifestyle® communities encourage and inspire interaction between community members of all generations. This greatly enriches the lives of everyone involved.

Imagine having all decisions in your life made for you by someone else. Being a member of a household or community means having a voice in all matters that affect us. Montessori Inspired Lifestyle® encourages and supports involvement of all stakeholders in community decision-making.

Over-prescription of medication is a common problem in care settings, especially when individuals have difficulty communicating the sources of their distress or pain. Often, these medications come with serious side effects. Montessori Inspired Lifestyle® encourages and empowers care staff to follow an effective process of discovering potential sources of behaviors, and including non-pharmacologic interventions in all plans of care.

Montessori Inspired Lifestyle® emphasizes Respect, Dignity and Equality for staff as well as residents. Work duties for staff in all departments include spending time getting to know residents and interacting with them. This makes the community a better place to live and work.

Family members find Montessori Inspired Lifestyle® Communities to be vibrant places to engage with their loved ones and see them succeeding at their highest levels possible. The focus is on strengths, not deficits. Likewise, staff experience much less job-related stress in normalizing environments that enabled residents to maintain independence as long as possible.

Montessori Inspired Lifestyle® emphasizes the importance of maintaining independence, maximizing and utilizing abilities, and being actively engaged in a variety of activities throughout the day. This creates environments in which residents’ level of functioning can be maintained, and the need for greater levels of care can be delayed.

Montessori Inspired Lifestyle® is a model of care in increasing demand. In a competitive market that often emphasizes luxury over living, the choice is clear. More and more, families are choosing living environments in which loved ones are treated as members of the community instead of as patients or paying customers. Where would you want to live?

We use the word “responsive” to describe behaviors sometimes exhibited by persons with dementia, instead of “challenging” or “disruptive”, etc. Such behaviors are neither random nor “part of the disease.” They occur in response to unmet needs. In Montessori Inspired Lifestyle® communities, staff are trained to discover reasons why responsive behaviors occur. More importantly, however, the environment enables individuals to successfully engage in a variety of meaningful activities throughout the day. Under these circumstances, responsive behaviors become the exception and not the norm.