Eric Dalton wants to set the gold standard for personalized homecare for people with dementia and Parkinson’s disease. As vice president of Angels on Call Homecare, that means developing a wide range of programs to support patients with those ailments and their families.
Although Dalton has been around homecare his whole life, his focus on dementia care came about 20 years ago.
His mother, an Irish immigrant, began working in hospitals after arriving in the United States and then opened Angels on Call. Dalton, who said he has worked pretty much every department imaginable, including scheduling, care coordination, human resources and finances, describes her as one of the best nurses he’s ever seen. Just before the COVID-19 pandemic began, his mother said she wanted to take a step back from the business, leaving Dalton in the role of vice president and his brother as CEO.
One of his mother’s dreams was to have a recognized memory care program to help patients with dementia and their families. Dalton said he started working closely with her when she was going through her dementia certification, which was when everything shifted for him.
“Seeing dementia really for the first time up close and watching her work with these patients during the interviews and care planning, it just taught me there’s still a human in there, no matter how advanced it is,” he said. “It’s just about finding them and bringing them back out into the light and giving them a reason, a purpose for life. That’s kind of a moment that changed everything for me.”
Today, Dalton holds multiple specialized dementia and Parkinson’s care credentials, including Certified Dementia Engagement Specialist, Certified Dementia Care Partner, Montessori Dementia Capable Certification, Dementia Care Specialist, Alzheimer’s & Dementia Care Specialist, Parkinson’s Foundation Site Champion and Certified Parkinson’s Disease Care Advocate.
He has also set out a vision for reshaping dementia care. Two years ago, Angels on Call launched the Memory Care Angel service, in which caregivers do a deep dive into a dementia patient’s personal history and build a memory care program personalized to the individual patient’s history to help them engage.
“We look for things like what did they study in school, what were their hobbies and interests in their early lives, tell me about their families, then we start building and developing personalized programming for them,” he said.
Dalton has also spearheaded the Guardian Angel RN program, achieved a New York state licensure to open a personal care assistant training school that offers free certifications, and opened the Timeless Beauty Spa, the first nationwide in-home beauty spa service for individuals with dementia and cognitive impairment.
Dalton said that when dementia patients needed haircuts, they often responded poorly to new and unfamiliar environments and stylists or nail techs wouldn’t know how to handle the situation. Then one of the company’s nurses who was certified in dementia care told him she was going to beautician school, and it gave him an idea.
“We have a nurse who’s a beautician and an expert in dementia—why not just bring the beauty salon to [the patients]?” he said. “It’s a really unique program and has a lot of success. When the patients themselves feel good or look good, they’re happier and it creates engagement and a better bond between the nurses and the clients.”
It’s the kind of thing that makes him love his job, he says.
“I truly love creating customized programming for (people living with dementia or Parkinson’s) and giving them an experience,” Dalton said. “Half the time you go into a memory care facility and it’s just generic activities people are doing together, and when you make this promise to a family that these will be very personalized and customized and dignity-focused and they see it in action, I think that’s what gives me the most passion every day.”
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