AMSTERDAM — Children ran around the grounds of the River Ridge Living Center on Thursday, enjoying games, a bouncy house, cotton candy and live music.

The 120-bed nursing home was holding its second summertime carnival, an event organizers said gives residents a chance to break free from their routine and enjoy sunshine, food and company.

The carnival is one of numerous changes that have taken place at the south Amsterdam facility since 2006, when the county sold what was then known as Montgomery Meadows to Susanne and Paul Guttenberg’s company, now called River Ridge Living Center LLC.

River Ridge Living Center in Amsterdam hosted a carnival to show off the renovated former Montgomery County Infirmary to the public.
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Changes both inside and outside the facility started immediately, Paul Guttenberg said.

Guttenberg recalls visiting the nursing home when the county still owned it and watching a resident being wheeled out to an ambulance in the middle of a snowstorm.

The resident was soaked from the snow before finally being loaded into the ambulance, Guttenberg said.

Now, a large canopy structure stands in front of the main entrance. It’s attached to a covered walkway so guests can be dropped off and picked up without having to brave the elements.

The formerly cold, institutional view upon entering the facility has been overhauled. Now, guests see a stone fireplace in a carpeted parlor with plush furniture and decorations.

The owners relocated the doorway to the kitchen — it was the first thing visible upon entering before the upgrades began.

“We want residents to feel like they’re maybe walking into a hotel,” said Paul Guttenberg, executive vice president at River Ridge.

Improvements to the facility’s ventilation system eliminated a hospital-like smell. The large dining room, Guttenberg said, “used to look like a bowling alley” but has been redecorated with the addition of a double-faced fireplace, soothing paint colors and new furniture.

Old skylights, covered up at some point in the past, are now open to let sunlight in.

“Folks can’t get over how the place has changed,” said Guttenberg.

A new sun room was added to provide a meeting place for residents and their families, and an activity room now sits where the former administration housed rehabilitation activities.

The former rehabilitation office is now used as an activities room.

River Ridge Living Center also now has a completely new gymnasium filled with exercise machines that residents can use for rehabilitation.

“The whole idea is to rehab people and get them back home,” Guttenberg said.

Guttenberg said members of the community are also using the gym for a $35 monthly fee.

“They try to involve family here; it’s nice,” said Christi DiNinni, of Ballston Lake, who came to the carnival Thursday with her husband, Lucio, and their children.

Lucio DiNinni said his mother, Elvira, has been a resident since before the nursing home changed hands.

“The facility’s in much better condition,” he said.

“The staff really seems to care, so we like it here,” Christi DiNinni said.

River Ridge Administrator Susanne Guttenberg said physical improvements are important but said new technologies employed in daily operations are a benefit both to workers and residents.

Staff at the facility wear tiny headphones and microphones similar to a hands-free cellphone adapter. They are part of the “Accunurse” program, which keeps staff in touch with supervisors. The devices give staff the means to receive their assignments and resident care plans remotely while recording their daily activities — a task that used to require an hour of paperwork, Guttenberg said.

“It does all the documentation for them; they have more time to dedicate to the residents,” Guttenberg said.

A new program in the planning stages with the Hamilton-Fulton-Montgomery BOCES will increase the number of students learning at River Ridge, said Guttenberg, herself a nurse.

Students from the Fulton-Montgomery Community College’s registered nurse program perform rotations at the facility, and Guttenberg said they have a relationship with the local Private Industry Council to provide job opportunities for the unemployed.

Shirley Buchanan gathered with her daughter, her son and his wife and her two granddaughters at Thursday’s carnival.

“It’s sort of like a family event,” said Buchanan, 80, who undergoes two hours of therapy daily at the nursing home because of a fall.

“So far, it’s very good,” Buchanan said.