Concord-area elders will soon have more help coping with Alzheimer's disease and dementia.

This fall, memory-loss resource center will open on Pleasant Street, sponsored by RiverBend Community Mental Health, Concord Hospital and the family of Susan McLane, a former state senator and mental health advocate who died in 2005 after a long struggle with Alzheimer's. At the center, clients will find counselors and social workers trained to help them understand memory-loss and minimize its impact on their lives.

Called the Susan McLane Memory Wellness Center, the office will open in donated space at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Clinic next month. Its goal is to satisfy a growing demand for dementia-related services among the region's seniors. Carrie Hughes, director of RiverBend's elders program, expects most of the center's work to be driven by what clients require.

"How can people's needs be met so they can stay at home safely and so their caregivers don't burn out," Hughes said. "What is their functional need? What is their spiritual need, their cultural needs? What is their existing support system, and what's available in the community to augment that?"

For the last two years, a group of social service agencies in Manchester has operated a similar program, one that also bears McLane's name. The Concord and Manchester centers will share information and expertise, but they plan to tailor their offerings to the communities they serve.

Primary care physicians will refer clients to the Concord center, where they'll receive short-term counseling, family support and information about their illness. The staff might also suggest more detailed tests to rule out conditions like depression or malnutrition which can sometimes mimic dementia.

Hughes hopes elders visit the center soon after they're diagnosed because it's often easier - and less stressful - to make arrangements before the disease has progressed. Families, she said, might choose to tour adult day cares or interview home health agencies, or to update their wills and financial documents. Clients might also request referrals to support groups, counselors and doctors who care especially for seniors.

"People cope incredibly well, and then it's just a little thing just tips you over the edge," she said. "You go immediately into crisis mode."

The center will focus on the needs of family members as well. McLane's daughter, Ann McLane Kuster, describes caring for someone with Alzheimer's as "raising a child in reverse."

"It can get very exhausting," said McLane Kuster, a Concord attorney who co-wrote a book with her mother called The Last Dance: Facing Alzheimer's With Love and Laughter. "They're waking up at night, they're needing assistance with daily living, they're wandering. But all of these things don't happen at once. The changes come very slowly and different people need support at different times."

McLane Kuster often tours the state, offering copies of her book and tips to families coping with dementia. During those trips, she grew close to elder care providers in Manchester who later decided to name their memory-loss center after her mom. Concord social service providers were happy to continue the trend.

"We were hugely honored for her," McLane Kuster said. "She would have been really pleased."

The McLane family donated some of the roughly $25,000 needed to open the center. RiverBend used grants and money from its philanthropy fund to make up the rest, and Concord Hospital has chipped in with staff time and medical expertise. Once the center is open, it will bill insurance companies for many of the services it provides, although RiverBend plans to subsidize care for some low-income clients.

"It's starting small, but I have feeling it's going to grow," said RiverBend CEO Louis Josephson. "The demographics are such that families are really grappling with this." (next page »)