Memory care operators are revamping dining for their residents, pivoting away from a clinical approach and toward restaurant-style experiences.
In the past, memory care dining was less resident-centered with fewer choices. Today, a growing number of operators have changed to provide a more restaurant-quality experience including new menus and service tactics geared toward wellness and dignity.
Providers are now pacing meal service times to create smoother transitions between engagement activities and events, while also personalizing the experience through intake assessments to understand resident preferences and interests from family caregivers.
The end result has had powerful impacts on community life, with Frontier Senior Living CEO Greg Roderick telling Senior Housing News memory care culinary operations is “no longer viewed as a nutritional function: it’s a therapeutic experience.”
Providers including Frontier, Agemark Senior Living, Senior Resource Group, Anthem Memory Care and The Sage Oak have taken these changes to heart—the memory care dining space is being redesigned as a place where residents can thrive.
Restaurant-quality food in memory care
Memory care dining is evolving through changes in how meals are served, adjusting the flow of servers and adjusting when residents are brought in to dine from activities.
For example, at Anthem Memory Care communities, the West Linn, Oregon-based operator changed from a “stop the presses” approach to dining where all residents were brought in from engagement activities to eat to now keeping programming running until dining staff are ready to accept residents, according to Anthem Vice President of Programs and Engagement Michael Zywicki. This has reduced downtime and crowding that correlated with adverse resident behaviors or falls.
“This small change is something that’s had a sweeping impact for us and it’s shifted the flow of dining to be more in line with a restaurant experience, something that is calm and gradual and not a rush,” Zywicki said.
Frontier also adjusted its meal service pacing to more align with dementia-related cognitive changes that residents experience in the perception of food, time and surroundings. This revamped intake process now revolves around a sense of routine and comfort for memory care residents, Roderick noted.
Comfort is an important throughline in memory care meal service, and SRG memory care dining staff account for noise, room temperature and table service that focuses on small details like having a condiment already on the table for residents to help them remain comfortable and present as they eat, SRG Vice President of Memory Care Melissa Dillon told SHN.
“That said, staffing, service quality, and menu design also directly influence a resident’s feelings and experience at the moment,” Dillon said.
By building in more flexible meal times with late-day breakfast options, operators can create more “dignity-supporting” moments for memory care residents, helping to normalize dining where other parts of the senior living care continuum allow for around-the-clock meal or snack options, according to Agemark Vice President of Hospitality Daniel Spicer.
Due to the small footprint of Sage Oak’s properties, the assisted living and memory care provider has chefs prepare and deliver food to residents in an intimate setting that puts resident satisfaction and feedback at the center of each community’s daily routine, CEO Loe Hornbuckle said.
“You’re nose-to-nose with people eating your food so we’ve eliminated any lag in feedback we might receive because we see the results after meal times if we’ve succeeded that day or not,” Hornbuckle said.
More choices, maintaining safety and equity in dining
Memory care providers are moving away from blanket, community-wide restrictions in menus and are shifting toward greater choice. But those choices come with guardrails as dining staff and care teams work closely together to maintain individual dietary restrictions.
For example, if independent living and assisted living residents are served steak and lobster at SRG communities, the operator will serve the same meal to memory care residents, but with modifications such as removing shells, Dillon said. Anthem communities keep a dietary fact sheet on residents to offer individualized choices. In recent years, Anthem now offers “elevated purees” for residents on the most restrictive diets that mimic plated meals, Zywicki said.
These slight changes maintain dignity and move away from the old memory care dining experience that had fewer choices, lower-quality options and an institutional presentation. By reducing the number of restrictions in memory care dining, Frontier memory care dining teams offer “guided choices” and consistent routines that support independence, Roderick said.
Within Agemark memory care settings, residents were previously denied access to things like a steak knives. Instead of taking them away today, dining teams make sure residents are given steak knives with rounded tips while also assessing resident risks, Spicer said.
For those with chewing or swallowing difficulties, meal presentation can be an important part of maintaining resident dignity while on more restrictive diets, The Sage Oak Executive Chef Larry Atwater added.
“We want to focus on more comfort foods and finding ways to make those mechanical chopped plates more beautiful and inviting,” Atwater said.
Memory care dining operations evolve further
Operators that spoke with SHN describe how memory care dining operations are now more aligned with broader community operations, removing the sense that memory care is separate from daily community life. New memory care dining plans focus on engagement with residents and work more closely with care staff than in the past.
By keeping things like dietary restrictions and steps to ensure a resident’s safety behind-the-scenes, Anthem communities are able to maintain resident dignity rather than feel like they are being managed,” Zywicki said.
To maintain quality, SRG leaders conduct audits and site visits periodically to ensure dining service quality in memory care while also standardizing dietary cards for residents and offering staff expanded dementia training, Dillon added.
This element of training is important for dining staff that often engage with residents multiple times each day, requiring them to have increased dementia competency, according to Roderick.
Going forward, memory care dining will require increased dementia training for culinary staff as dining staff play an important role in alerting care teams of resident acuity changes. Alongside involvement of staff across departments, creating clear standards that can be repeated across a portfolio can help create clear expectations and improve memory care dining overall, Zywicki said.
“This is an identity thing for us. We’re pushing forward and creating standards that can actually create accountability,” Zywicki added.
Standardizing dementia-specific dining practices is important, just as important is designing memory care dining spaces that create a sense of comfort, Roderick said, with Frontier redesigning menus, pacing and service styles to close dementia training gaps.
