By Chelsea Quackenbush

Janelle Hudgins knew something was wrong with her 88-year-old mother Leoda Newsome last summer when she lost her memory overnight last August.

Newsome was dehydrated and forgetting to take her medication. She says all she remembers of the ordeal is being really scared.

“I was lost all that time,” she said. “It seemed like it went on forever.”

Doctors at other facilities told Hudgins her mother had dementia. But she knew that was the wrong diagnosis. Finally, after getting Newsome into The Harbor (the memory care wing at Westminster Place), one nurse had the answer and it wasn’t dementia.

By the fifth day, Newsome improved dramatically. Most of the staff realized she wasn’t like the other memory care patients. She was helping take care of them.

Staff figured out the old medications prescribed by other doctors had a negative effect on Newsome. She also was severely dehydrated because she was forgetting to drink water.

So they altered her prescriptions and gave her numbered water bottles until she healed enough to count on her own.

After a few weeks, Newsome was moved into the assisted living wing, where she is frequently visited by her daughter and the rest of her family.

“I felt safe for the first time in a long time and I can sleep,” Newsome said. “I don’t have to worry about anything. I just like everything about Buckner.”

“I appreciate the way they listened to me,” Hudgins added. “I don’t have to worry about anything being done or given to her without my knowing. I had to go to the other facilities because I had to make sure she was OK. Now I can come see her because I want to.”

Westminster Place offers a spectrum of living situations to residents and is happy to meet them where they’re at. In addition to the memory care and assisted living facilities, Westminster Place has independent living facilities, wellness programs, a healthcare facility and a 24/7 “Greenhouse Home” facility.

“We have multiple levels of care to meet people where they’re at instead of having to be referred out,” Wes Wells said. “We ask, ‘What are things in the home we’ve taken away from them by putting them in a nursing facility?’ And we try to add that. We’re giving people their choice back.”

For more information about Buckner Retirement Services, please visit www.bucknerretirement.org.