Peter Bondzinski, a pastor at Pine Knolls Alliance Church, knows that caring for relatives with Alzheimer's disease or dementia is no easy job.

For seven years, his six sisters took round-the-clock care of their parents, both of whom had Alzheimer's, while Bondzinski handled the medical paperwork and their property.

"Towards the end, my dad would say over and over that he wanted to go home, even though he was sitting in his own home, one that he built himself," Bondzinski said. "He was envisioning the home he'd grown up in as a kid. We'd take him for a ride, telling him we were taking him home, in the hopes he could re-orient himself."

After both parents had passed away, Bondzinski and his wife, Connie, broke ground on an adult day care center for seniors with Alzheimer's and dementia in 2007.

Named after Bondzinski's mother, Lena's Adult Day Services in South Glens Falls is housed in a brand new building with two senior citizen apartments and a day care facility.

The center, which features soaring ceilings and lots of windows, is painted a cheerful yellow.

Over-stuffed furniture, a fireplace, piano, and plants everywhere, help

create a "homey" atmosphere that the couple felt would be important to clients.

Although the center can handle up to 15 people, it hasn't yet reached that number, which Connie Bondzinski said she thought was due to the economy.

"With people's hours being cut, or being laid off, they're staying home and caring for their relatives themselves," she said. "But we're here if caregivers just need three or four hours of respite, too."

Sandy Tatko, supervisor of Home Care Services for Washington County Office of the Aging, said the field of social day care for adults is likely to grow as baby boomers age.

"It will become invaluable if the goal is to keep the loved one with the family," Tatko said. "Caregivers often have to work, and day care is a good option, rather than hiring someone to come to your home."

She added that getting the patient out of the house is good for both the patient and the caregiver.

"Isolation can cause premature aging," Tatko said. "Socialization, being out among peers, can be beneficial. And even if it's only one day a week so the caregiver can get away, do errands, it's miraculous how they feel re-charged."

Caring for seniors with Alzheimer's or dementia requires an easy-going demeanor, said Mary Lou Accardi, Peter Bondzinski's sister and the primary staff member working at Lena's Mondays through

Saturdays.

"You have to be able to go with the flow, day to day or even minute to minute, just being where they're at. If they want to do a puzzle, just for five minutes, that's what you do," Accardi said. "Love, respect and patience are all critical."

Those sentiments were echoed by Pat Walkup, a registered nurse who co-owns a day care service for adults with Alzheimer's and dementia called Partners in Care Giving in Queensbury.

The nonprofit center can handle up to 20 clients during the week.

"We like to work with small groups," said Walkup. "Too much stimulation causes anxiety. That's why it's not a good idea to try to fit an Alzheimer's patient into a regular senior center or adult club."

The nurse said her career has revolved around caring for dementia and Alzheimer's patients.

"I just love to make them smile," she said. "They live in the moment and you have to jump in where they are, not try to orient them to people they may have known or what year it is. Asking ‘you remember that, don't you?' doesn't help them at all."

Although "social" day care for adults may be a relatively new trend, medical day care resources will need to grow in tandem as the baby boomers advance in years, said Linda Trombly, a registered nurse and director of Pleasant Valley Medical Adult Day Care Health Center in

Argyle.

"We've been full, mostly on a daily basis, for the past two years, with maybe one or two openings on a Tuesday or a Thursday," Trombly said. "Our patients have to have a medical reason for coming here and typically come into our program when they get out of the hospital."

The center, which can handle 24 patients, provides rehabilitation for stroke, heart attack and diabetic patients with occupational and speech therapy, and strength training.

"A fairly new category of patient is the morbidly obese, and we have four to five of them who attend a special program every two weeks," Trombly said. "We bring in a nurse, nutritionist and social worker to help them make healthy choices like low fat cooking and

exercise."

The director said she gets concerned when she thinks about the need for adult day care over the next decade.

"The focus now is on keeping people in their family, but what do we do while caregivers are working?" Trombly said. "I've been a nurse for 38 years and I can't imagine what it's going to look like in another 10 years."