Looking After Loved Ones: Myriad Resources in Central Arkansas Help Seniors Live Healthier, Happier

Getting older brings with it a long list of challenges, from housing options to aging in place to access to healthcare, transportation and companionship. Often, when a person becomes incapacitated or less mobile, quality of life suffers dramatically, especially if their finances are limited or they do not have a family member in the immediate area to look after them and check on their well-being.

 

Fortunately, Arkansas is replete with organizations and resources to help seniors navigate the latter stages of life and address the needs that come with it. For instance, many senior living communities now offer therapeutic services and care not just for their full-time permanent residents but for seniors in the community needing short-stay medical options to recuperate from surgery or other health procedures.

 

“That trend actually started between 10 and 15 years ago,” said Rachel Bunch, executive director of the Arkansas Health Care Association. “It started in just a small handful of communities, and now Arkansas has over 200 facilities in the state that offer long-term care and also speech, physical and occupational therapy in-house.

 

 

“Having more than 200 facilities now that do that, people are generally finding therapy options closer to home. People who live in south Arkansas, for instance, if they got surgery in Little Rock, used to have to stay in Little Rock for therapy. Now they can go back home for those services.”

 

Therapeutic services are just one way today’s senior living communities are changing, Bunch said. She noted that operators in Arkansas have invested more in the accommodations at all levels, which helps boost quality of life.

 

“I think the biggest change that we’ve seen in the last several years, just thinking about nursing facilities and the availability of different types of beds and options for placement, the biggest change you see today is the increase of new facilities and private room/private bathroom availability,” she said. “That’s something that we’ve worked really hard on as an industry over the last few years. It’s not the majority of the beds for the state, but we have made significant progress there.”

 

 

Even some senior independent living communities, which, by definition, do not provide nursing care, have taken steps to make healthcare more accessible and convenient to its residents. Grand Village at Clear Creek, an upscale senior living community in Fayetteville, has introduced an innovative program that brings medical personnel to campus regularly for the ease of use of its seniors.

 

“We have a physician’s group that comes in and makes rounds with residents who are signed up with them,” said Rochelle Johnson, chief operating officer. “They’re not having to go get out and go to a doctor’s appointment. The physicians have the ability to do lab work. They can do some radiology. Basically, healthcare can come to the residents.”

 

 

The medical group offers primary care, as well as urgent care, and services can be paid for by the resident’s insurance. Johnson said the three-year-old program has gone over so well that she is looking for ways to expand it to include additional medical specialties.

 

“We also have an audiologist that comes in probably once every three months and sees people. My goal is to also have an ophthalmologist, as well,” she said. “Again, it’s about making it easier so that residents don’t always have to go out into the community for care.”

 

One of central Arkansas’ largest organizations dedicated to seniors, CareLink provides direct services such as Meals on Wheels, home care, Medicare counseling, legal referrals, operate senior centers and even pet care assistance.

 

Michelle Gilbert, vice president of development, said the organization also acts as an information clearinghouse, helping seniors connect with other organizations that provide additional services outside CareLink’s offering.

 

 

“This is a service we perform multiple, multiple times per day,” Gilbert said. “We really hope that the community understands what CareLink does but, also, that they think about us if they have needs for themselves or for their loved ones. If they find themselves in a situation where they kind of don’t know what to do, we hope that people default to calling CareLink first.

 

“We aim to be a resource for senior services here in central Arkansas, and we are an unbiased referral source. We have a robust resource directory of just about anything you can think of in central Arkansas related to these types of needs and services. We will connect people with a program, a resource, whatever it is that meets their needs, whether it comes from CareLink ourselves or from another agency.”

 

Gilbert said the need for such resources and services has never been greater, and, given the large bloc of aging baby boomers and even Generation X, which is largely made up of people 60 and older, demand will continue to grow substantially in the near term.

 

“By 2030, 1 in 4 Arkansans will be over the age of 60,” she said. “Over the next few years, we will have a total increase in the number of seniors in central Arkansas that is equivalent to the population of Little Rock.”

 

With a surge in the number of aging Arkansans comes the need for resources helping families deal with the onset of certain diseases, including dementia. Kimberly Kinder, interim executive director at Alzheimer’s Arkansas, said the prevalence of the disease is on a tear, exposing more individuals and families than ever to frightening new realities.

 

 

“About 60,000 Arkansans who are 65 and older are affected by Alzheimer’s. That’s over 11 percent of the senior population in our state,” she said. “Alzheimer’s deaths rose 233 percent between 2000 and 2024, which is obviously a huge increase. It is now the sixth leading cause of death in the state of Arkansas.

 

“That also equates to about 175,000 unpaid caregivers — husbands, wives, sons and daughters. Caregivers are often in the sandwich generation, which means they’re also caring for their children, as well as their parents, and estimates are over half of them have their own chronic health conditions.”

 

Kinder said the organization offers a bevy of educational services to help individuals and families dealing with the disease. In addition to support groups and other resources addressing direct caregiving, the group also has services to help with other challenging, often overlooked elements family members face when caring for loved ones.

 

“One of the things people run into a lot is Dad always did everything with the finances, and he has this account sitting out there that no one else knows about,” she said. “We have lawyers and financial planning people that will do free consultations not to say, ‘Hey, let me manage your money,’ but more, ‘Let me help you find out what X, Y, Z account is.’”

 

Alzheimer’s Arkansas also acts as a resource for the community at large, distributing accurate information while dispelling myths about the condition.

 

 

“There are things that lead to Alzheimer’s that are not genetic; as a matter of fact, most cases of Alzheimer’s are not genetic,” she said. “There are things we can do to help decrease the risk of dementia. One of those, obviously, is taking better care of yourself. I always say, you’ve got to exercise, and exercise is moving the body. Exercise keeps the brain active.

 

“People think, ‘Oh, I’ll do some crossword puzzles,’ but you’re still sitting. You’re not challenging your balance. You’re not making muscles work. The evidence really does show that exercise in and of itself works the brain more than almost anything else.”   

 

SEE THE FEATURE BELOW AND IN OUR SEPTEMBER 2026 ISSUE OF AY MAGAZINE