Next Level Senior Living Eyes Memory Care Expansion After Sale Of 11 Communities

Senior living provider Next Level Senior Living has sold its 11 senior living properties in Minnesota with a goal of serving more assisted living and memory care residents in the future, according to Next Level CEO Michael Manuel.

Next Level after the sale now manages two senior living properties in Illinois and Minnesota, with plans to convert an existing assisted living community into a standalone memory care property next year.

“We were able to get to that successful sale and we’re really working and focusing on new growth right now for us,” Manuel told Memory Care Business. “We have some things in the pipeline for the first quarter of January and we should have 10 properties again by the end of the first quarter and we’re aggressively growing and looking for new opportunities.”

Manuel said senior living operators must heed recent developments in dementia-related pharmaceuticals, along with advancements in blood testing that could help identify early indicators of dementia previously not possible. He believes this could lead to residents seeking senior living services earlier if they are aware of potential biomarkers that could put them at risk of cognitive decline.

“Obviously, safety is still important in memory care but now we’re really looking at engagement and we want to change the whole dynamic to be able to care for someone through their entire disease process,” Manuel said.

What this could look like in practice is care coordination in assisted living using primary care health data to track a resident’s cognitive decline in assisted living and intervene with lifestyle changes or clinical interventions sooner in a resident’s dementia diagnosis, Manuel said.

In the future, Manuel sees the need for “deconstructing the traditional” memory care model and pivot towards lifestyle and engagement, removing as much as possible the clinical or institutional feel that can arise in assisted living and memory care.

“We have to get the staff to understand that we’re trying to do something different now,” Manuel said, who described the need for operators to bring “person-centered care” into memory care in an effort to remove the clinical, sterile feel.

Next Level’s memory care model is based in Montessori care philosophy and seeks to keep residents engaged and to retain as much personal independence as possible. Manuel also views the role of family and caregivers becoming more intertwined in the memory care process, from assessments to consistent updates to families regarding a resident’s activity level.

The biggest challenge in memory care today continues to be a staffing shortage of licensed care workers as turnover continues to impact an operator’s ability to provide consistent memory care services. This “reality” facing operators comes as memory care remains one of the most “emotionally and physically challenging” roles in senior living, with a need for improved training, Manuel said.

With the sale of the Minnesota properties, Manuel said this time of transition and charting future growth has allowed Next Level to “design a model” to support rapid growth.

“That means more engagement, better transparency,” Manuel added.

Looking ahead, Manuel said he believes the senior living industry must heed the rollout of the GUIDE model and prepare for future changes in assisted living, with Next Level designing its programming to “mimic” the GUIDE model for engagement and caregiver support that can be applied in assisted living.

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