The Amber Glen Alzheimer’s Special Care Center will cut its ribbon this afternoon at 4 P-M. Urbana Mayor Laurel Prussing is scheduled to do the honors. The 66-bed facility in Urbana is already filled to half capacity after less than four months of operation. Amber Glen Administrator Joy Rath says the first few months have been great.

“We’re having excellent results with our programming, and our building is designed especially for dementia residents, and that’s working very well too.”

The Center is unique in the area as a stand-alone facility just for dementia and Alzheimer’s. Amber Glen employees try to keep residents busy and out of their rooms with individualized programming. Rath says that every staff member goes through at least 16 hours of what they call “Meaningful Moment” training.

“So it’s very important that they have that, because we believe that with dementia people are in a moment at a time, and we need to make each of those moments as happy as we can.”

Rath says the facility fills a gap in the community for assisted living that accomodates Alzheimer’s and dementia.