At Mature Resources, we offer a variety of services to support our community. From counseling and mentorship programs to educational workshops and outreach initiatives, we are dedicated to making a positive impact in the lives of those we serve.
Our Impact
The Meals on Wheels and More
program delivered 80,628
hot meals and 10,922 frozen meals
The Agency registered
1,771 new consumers
this fiscal year
26,565 meals were
provided at
Centers for Active
Living
278 Health and Wellness Programs delivered
This Month's News
We finally know enough about how the brain breaks to focus on fixing it, experts say
By Jon Hamilton
Scientists who've spent decades learning how the brain works say they're now ready to start fixing it when it breaks.
That's the premise of the Brain Health accelerator, a collaborative effort launched by the Allen Institute in Seattle, which has become a major player in brain research.
The $400 million initiative includes plans to develop new genetic therapies — a term that includes gene editing as well as traditional gene therapy — for diseases including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, ALS, Lewy body dementia and Huntington's.
"The latest genetic treatments allow scientists to control the activity of particular genes," says Ed Lein, who directs the institute's brain health programs. "That opens up the possibility for very specific precision therapies for brain disorders."
The accelerator is an outgrowth of the BRAIN Initiative, an ambitious research program unveiled by President Barack Obama in 2013. The goal of this public-private partnership was to create tools that would allow scientists to see the brain's inner workings and, eventually, to develop treatments.
This behavior can be a turning point for families caring for a dementia patient
By Ashley Milne-Tyte
Dr. Marc Rothman visits a lot of patients with dementia and their families. He is a geriatrician who makes house calls in New York City and its suburbs."Families are often slowly tiptoeing into crisis," he says, gradually engulfed by the demands of caregiving and the vagaries of the health care system.He says caring for a loved one at home can work well for years, but when the dementia becomes advanced, that means "essentially creating a nursing home for one — it is incredibly complicated," says Rothman, who is also the CEO of a tech company called Lizzy Care, which helps families navigate the world of dementia. "You need to take care of the care. You need to take care of the diet, the meds, the recreation. You need to deal with rehab and appointments, and you've got to somehow care for yourself at the same time."
In addition to general overwhelm, specific things can prompt family caregivers to move their loved one to a nursing home or other facility. A major one is incontinence, Rothman says. Other triggers include an uptick in increased paranoia, aggressive outbursts, and the tendency some people have to up and leave wherever they are, then get lost.
This behavior is often referred to as "wandering," though not all dementia experts use the term. Elizabeth Edgerly is senior director for community programs and services for the Alzheimer's Association. "At the most basic level, wandering means that someone walks away and has trouble finding their way back," she says. But she says the person with dementia often has good reason for taking that action in the moment — one reason why the term "wandering" feels inaccurate to some.
"It may be they want to go home, even though they're already in their home, but the home that they're in now doesn't feel right," Edgerly says. "Sometimes people leave because they gotta get to work, in that job that they retired from 30 years ago, or they need to pick the kids up — the kids who are all grown."
"Elopement" is another term used by people in the caregiving field, particularly when the person with dementia leaves a secure area such as their home and may then get into danger.
