Riverside Adult Day Services, the area’s first provider of adult day services, has ceased operations after serving Lincoln County for 30 years.

Wanda Wilcox, executive director of Chase Point Assisted Living, where the Riverside adult day program is located, said the decision was a result of the gradual growth of other adult day services in the area that has saturated the market over time. There are now eight residential care providers offering day services.

Another factor is that the Riverside adult day program was a licensed separate program. The other day programs in the area accept day clients into their resident population. As a separate program, Riverside Adult Day faced a much higher regulatory burden as well as a higher cost structure because of the need to have dedicated space and staff.

Those higher costs made it impossible to offer the extended weekday and weekend hours that other programs offer.

While Chase Point will no longer offer separate adult day services, however, Wilcox noted the community is not losing the service and she said no jobs will be lost.

And while Chase will not operate a separate program, it will be able to accept up to two day clients into Riverside at Chase Point depending on staffing and the needs of the current full-time residents. Riverside is a secure memory care facility.

The closure of the adult day program is a reflection of both changes in the community over the past three decades and the availability of new services to meet the needs of the community, particularly seniors.

When adult day first started, there was perhaps one other adult day center in the state. Most of the original clients of the adult day program at Chase Point were elderly women who took the Coastal Transportation bus to the facility. For many of those original clients, adult day services met largely a social need, with most staying for the morning and leaving after lunch at 1 p.m.

Today, more clients have memory issues and need to stay longer hours because their spouses or adult children are working.

Wilcox said there are also more services in the area that provide socialization opportunities for seniors, such as Spectrum Generations, which offers a wide range of activities for seniors.

Chase Point Assisted Living and the Riverside memory care unit remain open as normal. Please call Wanda Wilcox at 207-563-4201 with any questions.