A generation ago, aging adults faced stark choices in their later years. They remained in their homes as long as they could hang on – often after that was the safest choice. From there, if they couldn’t move in with children, most faced the only alternative: the traditional nursing home.
“There weren’t places like this for our grandparents,” Roger Erickson says of Farmstead Care, the senior living center he opened 18 months ago at 3200 28th St. S. in Moorhead. “Now there’s a much greater range of choices. We tell them, ‘Stay in your house as long as it’s feasibly possible. Then find a new home where you can spend all the rest of your life.”
Some seniors, of course, do need the kind of skilled nursing care still available in full-scale nursing homes. “But most don’t,” Roger, a lifelong Moorhead native, points out. “Some need just a little help when they move into one of our assisted-living units. As they get older, they may very well need more support to live well. We make it possible to add just the services you need, just when you need them.”
Some residents of Farmstead Care’s 11,850-square-foot assisted-living apartments need hardly any assistance, Roger explains – just the convenience of regular homecooked meals, housekeeping and laundry, coordination of medical appointments and regular welfare checks. A nursing staff – including RNs, LPNs and CNAs – is on duty 24 hours a day. Higher-level help is available when and if they need it, including medication administration, diabetes monitoring and incontinence care to personal-care services like nail care, TED hose and toileting. Physical and occupational therapy is available on-site, along with a beauty salon. The staff also works with Hospice to offer end-of-life care to several residents.
Roger says it’s not unusual to see big improvements when new residents move in: “They perk up when they start getting their meds at the right time, eating three healthy meals a day, socializing or playing cards or whatever activities suit them. When their quality of life is more normal, we see them kind of rebound.”
That’s one side of Farmstead Care. The other – one which Roger believes sets his facility apart – is memory care. “That’s become our niche,” he says of the 18 suites reserved for those with greater needs. “We can offer our residents a true continuum of care, including a locked, secure setting that’s monitored 24 hours a day.” Memory-care residents have private 400-square-foot homes with separate sitting and sleeping areas. They open onto a comfortably furnished, sunlit commons area. Outside, a secure courtyard offers seating to soak up the sun and putter in the garden.
“Many different conditions bring people into dementia and memory care,” Roger notes. “It’s not just the many variations of Alzheimer’s. It could be brain injury, stroke, Parkinson’s disease, ALS or another neurological condition.
“We can take people with minimal needs today. If those needs continue to increase, we can handle most of them through the end of their lives. They can stay here much longer than in other facilities.”
Roger, a former banker whose real-estate developments go back to the 1980s, became interested in senior living arrangements more than 10 years ago, when his own parents, Ed and Miriam Erickson, began to consider the next stage of their lives.
“Dad had been in and out of nursing homes several times because of medical needs, and he was using home health services,” he recalls. “I took my mother around to look at the options, but there was some resistance there. She had something to say about everywhere we went: Too small. The patio wasn’t big enough. The kitchen would never work. No garage.”
That led him to his first development just across the street – Farmstead Estates. With its 48 independent-living apartments, it incorporated what he’d learned from listening to his mother. Each 1,200-square-foot apartment is infused with solutions to her objections … so much so that it inspired the marketing slogan that Farmstead still uses, “built with our parents in mind.”
Sadly, it didn’t work out as Roger had hoped for his family. Ed Erickson died in July 2009. Seventy-five days later, Miriam passed away unexpectedly – only weeks before she would have moved into the home designed with her in mind, which opened its doors that October.
But that doesn’t mean that residents of both Farmsteads, where Roger spends time daily, are quite the same as strangers. “Most of our people come from a 30-mile radius of Moorhead,” he reports. “I’ve known many of them most of my life – former teachers, old neighbors of my family, parents of people I went to school with. It keeps it all relevant.”
He expects to begin construction on a second phase of Farmstead Care – more assisted living, more memory care – in fall 2017. As residents and their families make new requests to him and his staff, new ideas are being built into plans for the expansion, which will connect with the existing building and expand to the north. “If we hear from people and it’s something we can do, we’ll incorporate it,” he says. “We’re moving slowly. There’s no rush. As the needs are there, we’ll put them in the new wing.” Among the possibilities are two-bedroom units, suites and therapy facilities. He estimates it will be ready for occupancy in 2018.
While many dread the changes that aging brings, Roger is philosophical about what lies ahead. “Getting old is not a disease. It’s a privilege, not a right.
“As they get older, people tend to overstay their house,” he adds. “If you’ve been thinking about the next step, then it just might be time to take it. It’s good to move into the next phase of your life while you can still make decisions and manage it as you’d like.
“You kind of know. Don’t miss that window.”
(For more information on Farmstead Care and its services, call Roger or operations manager Lisa Martin, 218-512-2020 to arrange a tour or visit farmstead-care.com.)