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Adult day care opening in Wilkes
Therapeutic garden, grooming services, crafts, checkers and card games are among the offerings
Journal Photo by Monte Mitchell
Executive director Kim Bridgeman (left) and Jenny Triplett, the health-care coodinator, work to get the Ruby Pardue Blackburn Adult Day Care ready to open.
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Published: September 3, 2008
NORTH WILKESBORO - Shelmer Blackburn Jr. already knows the stories of the people who will use a new adult day-care center in Wilkes County because they are his family's story as well.
The Ruby Pardue Blackburn Adult Day Care -- named for Blackburn's mother -- passed its certification inspection by the N.C. Division of Aging and Adult Services yesterday. There are about 20 people on a waiting list who are ready to start using the center when it opens today.
Ruby Pardue Blackburn was a vibrant woman, active on the family farm and in her own career in the health department. She was a beloved wife, mother, "nana" and the terror of her weekly bowling league.
But her last years were made difficult by tiny strokes that destroyed her memory, making her dependent on others. She was 79 when she died in 2005, cared for to the end by loving family and friends and an in-home caregiver.
The adult day-care center, which is also certified as an adult day health- care center with a nurse on staff, aims to provide a less expensive version of in-home care, offering a place to take an aging parent or anyone 18 or older who needs care.
"You hear this all the time -- people having to quit their jobs to take care of Mom and Dad," said Blackburn, who left his pharmaceutical company to return home to Wilkes County. He is the president of the board of the new adult day-care center.
"Our goal is to do whatever it takes," he said. "You know they're going to have the best of care and stimulation, worry-free."
The genesis of the adult day-care center was 10 years ago, when a community survey identified it as a need in Wilkes County. A task force worked on the project for a while. A board of directors formed in 2004, and the parent organization was incorporated as a private nonprofit group.
Volunteers have driven the effort.
The group teamed up with the Health Foundation for a $2 million fundraising campaign. Pledges and donations of about $1.9 million have been collected so far. Major donations included help from the Duke Endowment, the Golden Leaf Foundation, the Kulynych Family Foundation, Sisters of Mercy, and Lowe's Education and Charitable Foundation. The day-care center still needs money to finish work that includes a portico.
Construction began this past spring on renovating about 10,000 square feet of the west end of an existing building, which was then an unfinished shell used for storage.
Although meals will be catered from Wilkes Regional Medical Center, the space includes a large kitchen, where participants can cook with supervision, whether for program activities or just for fun. There are large day rooms, quiet rooms and a clinical room with hospital beds.
One of the rooms includes a high-tech tub that looks like a sleek space-travel pod. It has a wing-door for easy entry, and it's watertight once it closes. The tub pivots for a comfortable bath once someone is safely seated. A hair spa offers a hair-washing bowl that tilts to make it more comfortable for elderly people.
Such services as baths and grooming are among the difficult challenges that face people trying to care for the elderly.
"Anything we can think of that would be stressful for the caregiver to do, we try to do so their time together is more quality time," said Kim Bridgeman, the executive director. The center has a staff of five people.
Sandra Ellis is the program director, and is developing activities for cognitive, physical and social stimulation.
"There'll be something going on from the time the first person comes in until the last one goes out the door," Ellis said. They'll have card games, checkers, dominoes, crafts, watercolors and other activities.
One major feature is a therapeutic activity garden designed to be an extension of the inside space into a safe and enclosed outdoor room. The design includes paths wide enough for wheelchairs, two pergolas, and a careful mix of trees and flowers that are safe for people whose dementia or Alzheimer's may not allow them to recall warnings that plants can hurt people. The plants are nontoxic, and the roses are thornless.
Carolyn Bell, a board member who moved back to Wilkes County to help care for her aging parents, noted the work of a nationally recognized landscape architect and local garden designers who had struggled with caring for their own aging parents. "We've got people on every level who are tapped into the elderly, aging part of this," she said. "That's been the magic."
The center will be open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays at 1915 W. Park Drive. That is on the back, western end of West Park Medical Park, the old Sky City shopping area that houses a variety of doctors' offices and clinical programs and is about a quarter-mile from Wilkes Regional Medical Center.
Cost will vary, depending on the level of service a patient needs, but will typically be about half of the price of in-home care. The daily cost is $59 at the state's 101 certified adult day-care centers, adult health-care centers or combined centers.
■ Monte Mitchell can be reached in Wilkesboro at 336-667-5691 or at mmitchell@wsjournal.com.
■ For more information, call the Ruby Pardue Blackburn Adult Day Care at 336-667-2541.
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