All of our care centers are in the process of adopting the Eden Alternative, which has the potential of remaking the experience of aging and disability across America. The Eden Alternative is a powerful tool for improving quality of life. It creates better social and physical environments for our residents by developing enlivening environments and the elimination of the plagues of loneliness, helplessness and boredom.

The core concept of the Eden Alternative is strikingly simple. It shows us how companion animals, the opportunity to give meaningful care to other living creatures, and the variety and spontaneity that mark an enlivened environment can succeed where medication and therapies fail. Our goal is to help people weave together the philosophy of the Eden Alternative with the real world of daily practice.

Each Mission Care Center is integrating and adopting the core Eden Alternative Ten Principles:

1. The three plagues of loneliness, helplessness and boredom account for the bulk of suffering among our Elders.
2. An Elder-centered community commits to creating a Human Habitat where life revolves around close and continuing contact with plants, animals and children. It is these relationships that provide the young and old alike with a pathway to a life worth living.
3. Loving companionship is the antidote to loneliness. Elders deserve easy access to human and animal companionship.
4. An Elder-centered community creates opportunity to give as well as receive care. This is the antidote to helplessness.
5. An Elder-centered community imbues daily life with variety and spontaneity by creating an environment in which unexpected and unpredictable interactions and happenings can take place. This is the antidote to boredom.
6. Meaningless activity corrodes the human spirit. The opportunity to do things that we find meaningful is essential to human health.
7. Medical treatment should be the servant of genuine human caring, never its master.
8. An Elder-centered community honors its Elders by de-emphasizing top-down bureaucratic authority, seeking instead to place the maximum possible decision-making authority into the hands of the Elders or into the hands of those closest to them.
9. Creating an Elder-centered community is a never-ending process. Human growth must never be separated from human life.
10. Wise leadership is the lifeblood of any struggle against the three plagues. For it, there can be no substitute.

For more information about the Eden Alternative visit their Web site at www.edenalt.com or email us at info@missioncaregroup.com or call your nearest Mission Care Center.