Living Well 60+ May – June 2016 | Page 26

26 Liberty Ridge M AY / J U N E 2 0 1 6 SENIOR LIVING COMMUNITY ‘KEEPING RESIDENTS COMFORTABLE AND HAPPY IN A FAITH-BASED ENVIRONMENT’ by Tanya J. Tyler, Editor/Staff Writer Liberty Ridge Senior Living Community is proud to be a ministry of Eastland Church of God. Located right next door to the church at 701 Liberty Ridge Lane, the community was established in 1999 to help meet Lexington’s growing need for high-quality, affordable housing senior housing. It offers a variety of lifestyle options, including independent living homes, assisted living apartments and a memory care neighborhood. Liberty Ridge is managed by SeniorLife Solutions, Inc., a professional management company with over 18 years of experience in operating housing for the elderly, and is governed by a church board. “In the next three decades, we’re going to see an explosion of people that are graduating into that senior demographic,” said Barry Brinegar, Sales and Marketing Director. “So we’re going to come up on a time where there’s going to be so much more demand for senior services.” Liberty Ridge’s assisted living section opened in 2000 with 45 apartments. Twenty more apartments were added in 2003. Liberty Ridge is one of only three facilities in Lexington that is certified by the Commonwealth of Kentucky to provide assisted living services to residents. Included in assisted living are assistance with all activities of daily living, three meals a day, basic cable, weekly housekeeping and daily trash removal. The apartments have safety-equipped bathrooms with low-barrier walk-in showers and kitchenettes with small refrigerators and microwave ovens. Each apartment has an emergency response system to alert on-site staff any time, day or night, if the resident has an emergency. Small pets are welcome as long as they are housebroken, well-behaved and leashed when outside of the apartments. Because of the increased demand for care for people with memory disorders, Liberty Ridge recently converted a second section of the assisted living community into a secured memory care neighborhood with 12 additional memory care apartments for a total of 19 apartments dedicated for those who need dementia care. “The folks that live in this secure neighborhood get a lot of personalized care and attention and are engaged with purposeful activities in the community room,” Brinegar said. “It’s a community model, so everyone eats together. And we use the Best Friends approach to Alzheimer’s care.” “The biggest thing in the memory care unit is it’s a much smaller staffto-resident ratio, so we have one staff member for every four residents,” said Alexis Waugh, who works in sales and marketing at Liberty Ridge. “That way there’s a lot less frustration. The oneon-one attention really helps a lot.”