Ask the Expert 2026
Shane Stumpf
Jazba Care
Shane Stumpf is the founder and CEO of Jazba Care, boutique residential memory care homes in Sacramento built around a holistic approach to dementia care. A respiratory-therapist-turned-healthcare-disruptor with an MBA, she challenges traditional assumptions about aging and dementia, advocating for helping older adults continue living, not simply being cared for.
Many senior living communities focus on safety and supervision. Why does Jazba Care emphasize movement, nutrition and engagement?
Safety is essential, but safety alone should never be the goal. Too often, we accept decline as an inevitable part of aging and dementia. We can’t cure dementia, but we can influence how someone experiences it. Through daily movement, proper nutrition, hydration, social connection and purpose, we ask ourselves one question every day: How can we help this person live better today than they did yesterday?
You describe your philosophy as “rehabilitation-minded memory care.” What does that mean?
When someone receives a dementia diagnosis, expectations drop—from families, from providers, sometimes from the person themselves. We take a different approach. One resident came to us nonverbal, having spent most of their days in bed, brought out only for meals. Here, surrounded by conversation instead of a television, walking daily and participating in a life built around them, that same resident now gets out of bed on their own, walks and talks. Every resident’s journey is different. That is what environment can do. The goal is not perfection. The goal is progress.
What’s the biggest misconception families have about memory care?
That it’s simply a place where medications are managed and residents are supervised. Great memory care is so much more: a place of joy, connection, movement, purpose and dignity. A dementia diagnosis changes many things, but it does not erase a person’s ability to laugh, learn, participate and contribute. The question shouldn’t be, “How do we keep someone safe?” The better question is, “How do we help them continue living?”
916-903-8937. jazbacare.com
