CEO Message
When Steve Winner, Jim Smith and I founded Silverado in October of 1996, our purpose was to change the world for individuals living with memory impairment; by providing them with a social living environment designed around their needs, rich in choices and freedom, where they could feel good about themselves and be supported by a clinical team that comprehensively addressed their care needs as they aged in place. Our inspiration came from years of personal and professional experience showing that it was possible to significantly improve the quality of life for people living with dementia by providing them with unconditional love, respect, and restoring their purpose and sense of self-worth. The result has been to redefine expectations of what is possible in memory care.
We were committed to the belief that with the right support, life did not need to end with a dementia diagnosis. Steve, with our Silverado team, successfully combined a series of cutting-edge concepts and developed an entirely new model of care for the memory impaired. Our approach included treating people with dignity, helping our residents find a purpose for living, and providing an opportunity to enjoy life again.
Shortly after we opened our first Silverado community in Escondido, California, we began to see success as our new approach to dementia care was implemented. It was a very exciting time. By reducing medications and increasing participation in age-appropriate activities, we began to see an increase in our residents’ quality of life. A quality of life that was significant and measurable. We witnessed first-hand everything from positive mood and behavior changes to residents’ regaining their ability to walk again, dine without assistance and more!
From our first day, we have never stopped evolving our model of care, incorporating the latest information from both outside experts and our own internally-tracked clinical outcomes and observations. In the two-plus decades Silverado has been providing care, our reputation as an innovator and thought leader has only grown.
Nexus at Silverado is one such success story. The revolutionary Nexus program is comprised of a carefully planned set of activities shown by research to benefit cognition and memory function for individuals in the earlier stages of living with dementia. We had high expectations when we launched Nexus, and in fact, the results have surpassed those initial expectations. Academic research has validated that participants in Nexus at Silverado showed a statistically significant 60% improvement in cognition when compared to those without such treatment.
Nexus has proved so promising that Mette Andresen, PhD, Professor, University College Absalon, Denmark, and National Expert on Dementia research, piloted the innovative program, duplicating our results and is now implementing a brain-health program based on the pillars of Nexus in Danish long-term care facilities. Silverado’s innovations are helping people living with memory impairments on the other side of the world.
As we move forward we are encouraged about how care will continue to evolve fueled by our increased body of knowledge. Since the beginning, we committed to partnering with world-class research universities to help contribute to the quest of a world without dementia. When the day comes that there is no need for memory care services we will celebrate and find another use for our communities. But until then, we remain dedicated to making sure people living with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia have the option to live their best lives possible, continuously innovating, supported by a skilled, compassionate staff striving to deliver the best care in the world to you and your loved ones.
