Two Adult Day-Care Centers Planned

Cypress, which has been trying for five years to bring adult day-care services to town for its elderly, will have two centers opening within the next six months, the city’s senior citizens commissioner said Monday.

The city has approved plans for Community Care Resource Corp. to open a facility that will serve up to 100 seniors and provide buses to bring in elderly from surrounding areas, said the commissioner, Mary McIver.

McIver said the company’s Cypress Adult Day Health Care Center is expected to open by the end of the year.

In addition, Acacia Adult Day Services, which operates a day health-care center in Garden Grove, is negotiating with the Veterans of Foreign Wars to lease a VFW building, said June Lui, assistant to the city manager.

McIver said the Acacia center, which initially will serve 15 to 20 seniors, will open in about six months. It also will serve the elderly from La Palma, Los Alamitos and Rossmoor.

The need for adult day-care services is growing rapidly as medical advances have helped the elderly live healthier and longer lives, said Dr. Laura Mosqueda, head of UC Irvine’s geriatrics department.

By 2020, the number of county residents older than 55 is expected to hit 984,000, more than double the number in 1995. The fastest-growing segment will be those older than 85, and about half of them are expected to have some form of dementia, Mosqueda said.

Adult day health care provides recreational and medical services to seniors who have limited physical capacities or have Alzheimer’s disease or other types of dementia. Such services also provide stress relief for overburdened caregivers and prevents premature institutionalization of the elderly, Mosqueda said.

Altogether, there are 18 adult day-care centers in the county, 10 of which are licensed to provide limited medical care. The others provide social activities for frail and disabled elderly people, said Mallory Vega, Acacia’s executive director.