Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.

Want to connect across generations? Join us:

Purpose Prize

Marc Freedman Portrait

The Latest from CoGenerate

Join the fight to save AmeriCorps

Join the fight to save AmeriCorps

AmeriCorps is in jeopardy.  Like so many other critical programs and services, AmeriCorps is at risk of being dismantled by DOGE, with programs shuttered and 85% of agency staff now on administrative leave.  As a result, nearly 40,000 communities across the nation may...

Can Intergenerational Connection Heal Us?

Can Intergenerational Connection Heal Us?

The problems of social isolation and loneliness have been well documented.  We know that too many Americans, particularly young adults and older ones, feel lonely too much of the time. We know how we got here – the decline in membership groups, civic and community...

*

Judy Berry

Lakeview Ranch Inc.
Purpose Prize Fellow 2011

Berry offers holistic and humane care to people with dementia, especially those who exhibit aggressive behavior.

For seven years, Judy Berry watched her mother endure 12 hospitalizations for dementia-related behavior. However, Berry thought her mother didn’t fare well during treatment – she was often overmedicated (with what Berry later learned were inappropriate psychotropic drugs), strapped into a chair and left to wither away.

Her mother passed away without receiving the kind of care Berry had envisioned for her. It was simply too expensive. Three years later, in 1999, Berry quit her job as a regional sales manager at Lloyd’s Barbeque Co. and poured her life savings into the creation of Lakeview Ranch Specialized Dementia Care.

With two rural, residential homes in Minnesota and a highly skilled staff of 85, Lakeview offers holistic and humane care to people with dementia, especially those who exhibit aggressive behavior, as her mother had. The goal is to tend to not only their physical needs, but emotional and spiritual needs as well.

“When they receive compassionate, specialized care that helps them maintain their dignity, they’re much more likely to be cooperative – and at peace,” says Berry.

With services that range from animal therapy to end-of-life palliative care, Berry’s approach reduces expensive hospitalizations and the overuse of psychotic drugs, according to a 2011 analysis by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. In addition, Berry founded the Dementia Care Foundation in order to help low-income seniors gain access to person-centered health care. One colleague says, “Judy is committed to use her hard-earned life experience to [create] change in dementia care.”