Home-based dementia day center launches in Springfield

A pair of Springfield women with over two decades of combined health care experience have teamed to start a business centered around aiding people with dementia.

Tammy Autrey and Cindy Holmes launched Beacon of Light Dementia Day Center LLC on Oct. 1. It is a home-based venture at the women’s 545 S. Lafontaine Ave. residence. The goal of the center is to provide meaningful activities and engagement for those with dementia by meeting social, spiritual and emotional needs, along with exercising the mind, according to the owners. Based on client needs and direction from caregivers, Holmes said activities can include crafting, cooking and gardening.

“It’s everyday needs that they need to have in their lives to give them a purpose,” she said. “The thought process behind all this was for us to do it in a homelike atmosphere instead of a building where to them it’s more confined.”

Autrey said she and Holmes both exited Cedarhurst of Springfield, where they worked together for the past six years in the memory care area of the assisted living facility, to focus full time on Beacon of Light. She said the idea was conceived over a year ago when the women became roommates. The two befriended one another when they met while working at Magnolia Square Nursing and Rehab around eight years ago.

“There’s such a need for day care for dementia only,” Holmes said, noting both she and Autrey are state-certified dementia practitioners. “We have seen families struggle and not have any help and (they) didn’t have anybody to turn to.”

Autrey said she received her certification from the state around nine years ago and became nationally certified two years ago through Washington, D.C.-based National Certification Council for Activity Professionals. For the past three years, she’s also been a facilitator of an Alzheimer’s support group through the Alzheimer’s Association.

“It gives them the chance to be able to talk with each other,” Holmes said of the support group for caregivers, which meets monthly at their residence. “It kind of helps them build not only a friendship, but it also helps them to build better connections with their loved one that has dementia.”

Beacon of Light is limited to no more than five clients in the home at one time, Autrey said, adding the cost is $25 an hour. The business hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday. She said most of the roughly $8,000 in startup costs was connected to required renovations for the home, which included a new furnace.

“Our biggest thing is to focus on that person and not the disease itself, and to be able to keep them home longer if they had a place to go versus going into a facility or assisted living community,” Autrey said.