Here's How Azura Memory Care Is Transforming The Culture Of Memory Loss

Azura Memory Care is a family-owned company that provides innovative services and programs for those with memory loss. With a positive attitude and a resident-centered focus, Azura is transforming the culture of memory care. So what distinguishes it from other assisted-living memory-care options? It has created a 90-hour dementia training program called MOSAIC to ensure that its team of professionals has all the tools and skills needed to enhance the quality of life for people living with memory loss.

Patch caught up with Denise Jurecki, director of community relations at Azura Memory Care, to learn about the opening of its new location in Oak Creek and how the company's holistic approach encourages residents to communicate, engage and live, not simply exist.

Patch: How long have you been doing business in town?

Jurecki: Azura Memory Care is excited to have recently opened its doors to help those with memory loss in the Oak Creek Community. However, our Oak Creek home is just the newest addition to the Azura Memory Care family, which is a family-owned, Wisconsin-based company that serves numerous other communities throughout the state – Beloit, Clinton, Eau Claire, Kenosha, Manitowoc, Monroe, Oconomowoc, Oshkosh, Sheboygan, Stoughton and Wausau.

Patch: What attracted you to the business you’re in, and how did you get started?

Jurecki: Our founder, Josh McClellan, grew up helping in the nursing home that his grandparents owned and has over 35 years of experience in the long-term health care field. He recognized a need to transform the culture of memory care to one that takes the time to understand the disease and how to weave a "MOSAIC" (also the name of the company's dementia training and engagement program) of love and personalized support to engage that individual to live the highest quality of life possible. Knowing that Azura has this personal approach to business and to the care of our residents is what drew me to work here, but seeing it in action is even more amazing!

Patch: If you had to sum up your vision to a stranger in five words, what would those words be?

Jurecki: Transforming the Culture of Memory Care – it’s our mission and at the heart of everything we do at Azura. How can we stop housing people and instead transform the culture to embrace making a home for those with memory loss that supports their needs, progresses with them through the disease process and engages them to experience personalized moments of joy every day?

Patch: What’s the biggest challenge or most difficult moment you’ve faced in your job?

Jurecki: In Wisconsin, we are seeing an influx of assisted-living homes being built that indicate they care for those with dementia, but they provide little training to their employees on dementia or how to care for those living with this disease. Often families don’t realize this, and as a result many people with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia are being placed in homes that are not truly equipped to care for them. They then are quickly displaced or not given the services and support they need to live a life of quality. At Azura Memory Care we invest in the education of our team and have developed an advanced 90-hour dementia training and engagement program called MOSAIC that equips our team with an enhanced understanding of the disease, its processes and symptoms of Alzheimer’s and other related dementias. In addition, it provides them hands-on techniques and tools to use to properly approach, communicate and engage our residents to live, not just exist.

Patch: What’s the most satisfying part of your job?

Jurecki: Seeing the smiles of our residents, families and team when a MOSAIC Moment or personalized moment of joy happens! It is the greatest form of RECOVERY and one of our Five Core Values at Azura Memory Care!

Patch: How do you distinguish yourself from others in your field?

Jurecki: Azura Memory Care is known as "Wisconsin Dementia Care Experts" due to the enhanced MOSAIC training program that we offer but also because we believe in using a holistic approach that looks at every part of the individual. We then find ways to reach our residents where they are, tapping into their remaining abilities and memories that haven’t yet been affected by memory loss. Through the use of music, touch therapy or our MOSAIC Dreams program, we are always using innovative ways to engage our residents in smiles, conversations and MOSAIC moments of joy!

Patch: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given when it comes to success?

Jurecki: Come from a place of “yes!” This is kind of an internal motto at Azura that we use when working with our residents, families and team. We try very hard to come from a place of “yes” and work to make that a reality in all that we do. Due to our advanced training and the enhanced care and services that we offer at Azura Memory Care we are sometimes asked to help those with memory loss that others have said “no” to or given up on. We know that no one asks for this disease, and our MOSAIC training helps us understand that, in essence, the person’s brain is dying. They don’t have control over how they communicate, act or react to things around them. The person who does have this control is us, and as their caregiver we are the only people who can change, so we try to come from a place of “yes” to help this person and make their journey through this disease as joyful as possible.

Patch: What would you say are a few secrets to your success?

Jurecki: Having a truly resident-centered focus and ensuring that every part of our care and our environment is geared to help those with memory loss be as successful as possible. When you visit Azura Memory Care you will see that from our paint colors to our floor coverings to our name tags, everything is dementia specific and works to build an atmosphere that feels safe, welcoming and as close to home as possible.

Patch: What is your favorite thing about Patch?

Jurecki: We love Patch because it helps us stay connected with what is going on in the community and will be a great resource to us as we plan our Azura Memory Care residents' outing into the community!

Patch: Do you have any events coming up in your community? If so, tell us about them.

Jurecki: Azura Memory Care is excited to announce they will be hosting a Virtual Dementia Tour event on Tuesday, Oct. 10 at their home located at 8774 S. Mayhew Drive in Oak Creek. The Virtual Dementia Tour is an internationally recognized sensitivity training that enables those without memory loss to experience how it sounds, looks and feels to have dementia. Created by P.K. Beville, a specialist in geriatrics, and under patent with Second Wind Dreams the Virtual Dementia Tour is just one tool used by Azura’s MOSAIC training and engagement program that helps our Team walk in the shoes of those for whom they care. Azura is able to offer this experience to the Oak Creek community thanks to Paula Gibson, Regional Director of Communications and Engagement being on of a select few in the World that is a Certified Trainer of the Virtual Dementia Tour. We are still determining the time frame for this free event, but hope to have it run most of the day.

Patch: How can Patch readers learn more about your work and business?

Jurecki: If you would like to learn more about Azura Memory Care, please feel free to contact Denise Jurecki, Director of Community Relations, at 262-220- 3574 for a personalized visit. In addition, you can go to our website or check us out on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube or LinkedIn.

Image Credit: Azura Memory Care

This Patch article is sponsored by Azura Memory Care.