Does memory care need a special license in Kentucky?
Yes. Any Kentucky assisted living community that operates a secured dementia care unit, or that advertises or markets specialized care for Alzheimer's disease or other dementias, must hold an Assisted Living Community with Dementia Care (ALC-DC) license from the Office of Inspector General (KRS 194A.700(6) and 194A.710(3)).
This is a real license, inscribed “Assisted Living Community with Dementia Care,” and OIG must inspect the unit on site before issuing it (KRS 194A.7061). For a brand-new dementia unit, OIG weighs the applicant's experience managing residents with dementia and its compliance history; an operator without that experience must retain a dementia-care consultant for at least its first six months. Units already operating on July 14, 2022 were licensed on a physical-environment inspection instead.
Nursing homes are different: they are licensed under separate nursing-facility rules, and the OIG long-term-care roster shows any Alzheimer's beds in its own ALZ column.
How much dementia training must Kentucky memory care staff have?
Every staff member who works on a Kentucky secured dementia unit needs at least 8 hours of dementia-specific orientation in the first 30 days, and direct care staff need at least 16 hours of specialized dementia training within 30 days of working independently plus at least 8 hours every year after (KRS 194A.7205).
- Orientation topics include the nature and progression of Alzheimer's and other dementias, an environment that minimizes challenging behavior, safety risks, and communication.
- Until the first 8 hours are done, a new employee may provide direct care only when a trained co-worker is on site to help.
- Trainers need two years of combined dementia or health-care education and experience and must pass a competency test (KRS 194A.7203(6)).
- The manager of an ALC-DC completes at least 10 hours of dementia-specific training every year (902 KAR 20:480 Section 16).
Ask a community for its training roster; the unit must keep course content, instructor qualifications, agendas and attendance records.
Does Kentucky set a staff-to-resident ratio for memory care?
No. Kentucky sets no numeric ratio for memory care; KRS 194A.7203 requires staffing “sufficient to meet the scheduled needs of residents,” with nighttime staffing based on residents' sleep patterns, and only dementia-trained staff assigned to the secured unit except in a documented emergency.
Because there is no ratio to point to, the overnight question is the one to press. Ask how many trained staff are physically inside the secured unit between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m., not the building-wide number, and whether those staff also cover the assisted living side. Statewide, every licensed assisted living building must have at least one awake staff member on site at all times (KRS 194A.717(2)); that is a floor, not a staffing plan for a dementia unit.
What services must a Louisville memory care unit provide?
An ALC-DC must evaluate every resident on its secured unit for an individualized activity plan, offer daily structured and unstructured activities, evaluate behavioral symptoms that affect the resident and others, and offer support services to families at least every six months (KRS 194A.7052).
Two further rules are easy to verify on a tour. Dementia care units built after July 14, 2022 must offer access to secured outdoor space, and the community must hand the resident and their contact or legal representative a copy of its dementia-care policies and procedures at move-in (902 KAR 20:480 Section 16(4)). If the outdoor space is a locked courtyard nobody uses, or the policy binder is not offered until after the lease is signed, that tells you something.
Meals in the secured unit must also be flexible enough for residents who eat outside scheduled dining hours (KRS 194A.705(1)(b)).
How many memory care licenses are there in the Louisville area?
Kentucky OIG's October 2026 directory lists 28 Assisted Living Community with Dementia Care (ALC-DC) licenses in the seven Louisville-area counties, 24 of them in Jefferson County, with 701 licensed units between them.
The full list, with license numbers, unit counts, cities and expiration dates, is on our memory care roster. It is generated from OIG's own directory each build, so a community that markets dementia care but does not appear there either has an application pending or should be asked why.
At a glance
| Kentucky ALC-DC memory care is | Kentucky ALC-DC memory care is not | |
|---|---|---|
| License | A separate OIG license inscribed for dementia care | An add-on disclosure or brochure claim |
| Staff | Dementia-trained staff only on the secured unit (8 + 16 + 8 hours/year) | Subject to a fixed staff-to-resident ratio |
| Residents | People living with dementia who still meet assisted living criteria | A substitute for 24-hour skilled nursing |
| Cost data | Priced by each community | Covered by any published Kentucky median |
Sources include KRS Chapter 194A, 902 KAR 20:480, Kentucky CHFS and DMS pages, CareScout and VA rate tables as cited above; see our editorial standards.
