By Lori Burling
The Associated Press

LOUISVILLE - Suzanne "Granny" McCord sat with a smile in the mall attached to her new living center that will house residents with Alzheimer's disease.

"Good morning, Ms. McCord," a staffer waved as he walked through the corridor Thursday morning.

McCord has lived in the Episcopal Church Home for nearly two years. Next week, she will move to the new $7.1 million Memory Care Center of Excellence, designed to care for dementia patients by providing a home-like community instead of a hospital-like environment.

It offers a beauty salon, a gift shop and a pet store where residents can check out animals like library books.

"I just love it here," McCord said Thursday during the grand opening of the center.

Called the Eden Alternative method, the program was developed by geriatric physician Dr. William Thomas. The concept is to surround the Alzheimer's patient with living things, such as plants and pets, and provide social opportunities and a sense of purpose. The facility - designed as eight separate communities equipped with bedrooms, living rooms and kitchens - is centered on the mall area, so residents can feel like they are in a community instead of a nursing home.

"It's more like living in a single dwelling than an institution," said Keith Knapp, CEO of Episcopal Church Home, which owns the center. "Just because you have Alzheimer's disease does not mean you should be disconnected with the community. We're encouraging residents to take responsibility of taking care of a pet or plant to give them the satisfaction of doing something meaningful to another living thing."

Knapp said the 52-room center is the first in the state that was built as a care center based solely on the Eden method. It's one of about 120 throughout the country according to Knapp. Facilities that use the program must also have specially trained staff.

No definitive numbers of these types of communities are available because the National Alzheimer's Association does not keep track of Eden Alternative facilities.

According to the Eden Alternative's Web site, many care facilities or nursing homes throughout the country have trained staff in Eden's approach. There is only one other center in Kentucky, but it is not solely devoted to dementia residents.

"In Jefferson County, there are nine nursing homes that have units for Alzheimer's care, but they are not all licensed for the same levels of care," said Alison Serey, president and CEO of the Alzheimer's Association of the Greater Kentucky and Southern Indiana Chapter.

The new center will also be used as a research and training facility for students and faculty at the University of Louisville and the University of Kentucky.

"We want to teach residents (graduate students) to be good physicians in caring for patients with memory loss," said Karen Robinson, a professor of U of L's School of Nursing.

Graham Rowles, an associate director of UK's Sanders-Brown Center on Aging who has done extensive research on Alzheimer's, said the facility will provide a new style of research.

"Faculty and students will be able to talk with people who are memory impaired and how this approach is helping them. Does having a flower shop or a pet store close make a difference?" Rowles said.

Charles Pierce, whose father lived with the disease for four years before his death in 1989, said the mall activities will certainly make a difference.

"They have a disease. They haven't gone crazy," said Pierce, of Boston, who wrote the book Hard To Forget: An Alzheimer's Story.

"This is the kind of facility I had hoped for for my dad."

Suzanne McCord's daughter-in-law, Susan McCord, said she has been anticipating an Eden facility for a long time.

Knapp said the program is simply designed to curb three things: loneliness, helplessness and boredom.

"It's a social magnet," he said. "It focuses more on what (residents) want to do, rather than something planned for them to do."