Health care rep gives Rotary Club an overview

Jerilyn Breaux, director of marketing at Franklin Health Care and Rehabilitation Center, spoke Tuesday to Franklin Rotarians concerning current events at FHCRC and the kind and manner of care they provide.
Breaux announced that Senior Olympics are set to take place May 30, Senior Health and Wellness Day, at the Bayou Vista Community Center.
FHCRC will be joining with sister-centers parishwide and St. Mary Council on Aging to host the event. The event is said to provide activities and games through which seniors who attend may participate and compete.
Breaux also trumpeted upcoming renovations to Franklin’s 112-resident facility which will expand their 20-bed, secured dementia unit.
“Our company is spending a lot of resources and time,” Breaux said, “to transition the facility to what is called, ‘memory care beyond compare.’
“A lot of things will be changing and will include work stations that will incorporate life-enhancing activities like: art, safety and gardening.”
Coupling with the new dementia unit, Breaux said FHCRC will be working to expand by the end of the month, the facility’s dementia training which is provided by “dementia experts.”
“We are always striving to expand our knowledge,” Breaux said, “and the nurses in our Butterfly neighborhood, (dementia unit) require more specialized training than regular staff. They get eight additional hours of online training and they also get additional hands-on training for caring for our individuals with dementia.”
She also touted the center’s being certified as a Music & Memory organization, a program which works in the renewal of cognitive and physical capabilities through the benefits of personal music playlists.
Breaux said there are not many M&M certified facilities in the state, and FHCRC is one of the two that she knows of.
The M&M program donated iPods to the facility upon their certification; and through personal interest assessments and the help of family members, FHCRC staff compiles individualized playlists for patients, providing them with music from their past, to evoke stimulation.
“You can see the immediate effects,” Breaux said. “When you put the iPod on, if it’s music that they like, they’ll start tapping and moving their feet.”
She went on to say that the center has a resident “Zydeco man” who, when participating in the program; and hearing Zydeco music played “his boogey shoes come on, and you almost have to take them off for him to stop.”
“We’ve really been having positive results,” she said. “We really want to use this as a positive intervention, rather than going immediately to medication, we want to use this intervention first.”
Breaux closed by stating that the FHCRC is always available for tours, if one were so inclined.