#dementia care

A Labor of Love

Most healthcare professionals choose their profession out of a personal passion to care for others.  It is a true labor of love.  There is great concern that reaches all of healthcare.  This is the depleting pool of professional direct care staff.  In reading articles and journal entries from 2018 and 2019, this was already of major concern in the healthcare industry.  The pandemic has only contributed to the shortage. However, with the system-wide healthcare shortage, this continues to be most challenging for so many nursing homes, homecare agencies, assisted living, and memory care communities.     Looking at the nursing home level of staffing needed to provide the required basic care

October 21, 2020
#Alzheimer's

Importance of Diagnostic Testing

During these days of the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing violence, and political uncertainty, I wanted to talk about something else.  I want to increase awareness about the reality that symptoms of dementia could very well be the consequence of something that is treatable and reversible.  Dementia is NOT a diagnosis.  It is a group of symptoms including memory loss; confusion and disorientation; lack of insight and poor judgement; challenges with sequencing and performing tasks; challenges with language and word finding; and mood and personality changes. When someone experiences any of these symptoms, a common reaction is to begin to withdraw and

June 10, 2020
#dementia and COVID-19

Recommendations to Improve the Quality of your Day during Social Isolation

Are you a care partner for your loved one who has dementia?  This is an incredibly difficult time for all of us, but only you know how challenging this time of social distancing has been for you and your loved one.  Adult Day programs are closed, and we do not know when they will open.  Although there are home care agencies who are equipped and educated to provide care in the home, you may resist having anyone enter your home.  This is due to fear of exposing you and your loved one to COVID-19.  This crisis has spawned increased fear,

May 21, 2020
#caregiving

Holding the Person with Dementia to a Higher Emotional Standard

All human beings share emotion.  We freely feel sad, happy, angry, excited, frustrated, proud, frightened, relieved, anxious, affectionate, embarrassed, satisfied, guilty, confident; and I could go on and on to list all the positive and negative feelings we experience. In a recent blog by Dr. G. Allen Power, he expresses a very powerful thought process and how people view a person living with dementia.  Although he focusses on the research on ECT (Electroconvulsive Therapy) used for dementia symptoms, this paragraph struck me as completely valid in my experience. “We get angry, sad, frustrated or anxious, but people with dementia have

February 12, 2020
#Alzheimer's

Reality Orientation… Good or Bad?

When researching reality orientation therapy, there is plenty out there to support that there is benefit to the therapy. Reality orientation is providing the person living with dementia reminders, tools, and constant correction to reorient to the reality that we live in.  If it’s Wednesday, and the person living with dementia believes it is Sunday, reality orientation would include correcting the person, showing them a calendar, and other devices to prove that it is Wednesday. Some believe reality orientation will improve a person’s cognitive functioning, jog the memory, and stunt cognitive decline. The alternative to reality orientation therapy is validation

March 7, 2019

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