Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Co-Founder of Presence Care Project, Marguerite Manteau-Rao explains in an article published by the Huffington Post how “being a long-distance caregiver is hard, especially when a loved one’s mind can no longer dwell on the memory of prior times together, or the anticipation of a future visit. One can easily feel helpless and overcome with grief, and guilt, and frustration. I would like to share one small thing I have discovered with my mother, that’s made a huge difference in how I feel about living so far from her…” This story if for the 2.3 million long-distance caregivers who have a loved one with Alzheimer’s. Read the article
Posts Tagged ‘Dementia Care’
Making Alzheimers Moms Happy With Just a One Minute Call a Day
Saturday, May 5th, 2012Essential Checklist for Good Dementia Care
Friday, September 30th, 2011
Marguerite Manteau-Rao, LCSW, ATR, Mindful living advocate, Memory care consultant, published on the Huffington Post The Essential Checklist for Good Dementia Care. She shares the work of Jane Verity’s about the 5 universal needs to be an essential framework for good care of people with Dementia. These unmet emotional needs are:
- To be needed and useful
- To have opportunity to care
- To love and be loved
- To have self-esteem boosted
- To have the power to choose
New Devices Help Seniors Stay Longer in Their Own Homes.
Saturday, January 22nd, 2011
An article supporting Living Well’s high-tech – high touch approach, was published by Health Day: News for Healthier Living on January 18 by Dennis Thompson. The article stresses the importance of using technology to keep seniors for longer and safer: ” Seniors who want to remain in their homes despite illness and infirmity can get a high-tech assist these days. So can their children who might worry about…Sensors, GPS and more are being used to track aging parents’ movements… So can their children who might worry about an elderly parent living alone, often far from family members.
The 1980s-era medical alert pendants made famous by their television advertising (“I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up!”) are now among a wide array of devices that can help keep an eye on aging parents and get them help when they need it.
Available technologies include:
- Sensors in the home to track an older person’s movement, from the front door to the medicine cabinet to the refrigerator to the stove. The sensors are linked with computers that can issue alerts when people deviate from their routine.
- Global positioning system devices, using the GPS technology that’s become so common in cars, that can help locate someone with dementia who’s wandered from home.
- Computerized pillboxes that track whether medication is being taken on time.
Activity key to a Dementia sufferer’s well-being
Tuesday, January 18th, 2011
MINNEAPOLIS, MN, January 10, 2011/ Troy Media/ –
Studies have shown nursing home residents with dementia spend 70 to 80 per cent of their time with nothing to do. “I’m dying of boredom” was the statement made by a gentleman living in an Alzheimer’s care unit to Wendy Wood of Colorado State University Head of Department of Occupational Therapy.
According to research conducted by Wood and published in the American Journal of Occupational Therapy in May 2009, the remaining cognitive, social, and emotional capabilities of persons with dementia living in Alzheimer’s units were rarely tapped into, promoting “excess disability” or disability beyond what is directly attributable to the disease itself. This could lead to a more rapid decline.
Because concerns about the use of certain medications to manage behaviours in persons with dementia are being raised, new approaches – such as music, dancing, art, and storytelling – are being tested and have been found to be effective in the care for persons with dementia.
The common element in all of them is engagement – or doing. Even routine tasks are beneficial for persons with dementia. Having the person help with dressing, setting the table, getting the mail, or answering the door are all tasks that can be assigned, as long as directions are also given. Targeted care incorporating daily engagement is key and has many benefits.
If you have Alzheimer’s you can have wahtever you want: GIVING ALZHEIMER’S PATIENTS THEIR WAY, EVEN CHOCOLATE!
Sunday, January 2nd, 2011
Even Chocolate
There are some caregivers -in family settings- or in nursing homes that have found that allowing people with dementia practically anything that brings comfort to them, improves the mood, decreases agitation, and soothes them in a higher rate that psychotropics medications that usually creates undesirable side effects in the elder. In a recent article by Pam Belluck for the New York Times, she interviewed Tina Alonzo, director of a nursing home, who states that “… Research suggests that creating positive emotional experiences for Alzheimer’s patients diminishes distress and behavior problems…” . The article also suggests that one-on-one activities instead of big “bingo-groups’ along with individualized menus help to improve people’s mood: “…Comforting food improves behavior and mood because it “sends messages they can still understand: ‘it feels good, therefore I must be in a place where I’m loved…”
The Aging Brain
Friday, September 3rd, 2010
Living Well with memory loss and Alzheimer's
On Episode Six of the Charlie Rose Brain Series, a discussion of the Aging Brain with Brenda Milner of McGill University, Larry Squire of the University of California San Diego, John Hardy of University College London, and Scott Small of Columbia University. Co-hosted by Eric Kandel of Columbia University and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, we find easy information for the laymen about what occurs in the aging memory related to memory loss and the developing of Alzheimer’s
Brain Wellness À la Wii
Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010
The Wii is a home video game console released by Nintendo on November 19, 2006. As of August 2010, the Wii leads the generation over the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in worldwide sales and in December 2009 broke the record for best-selling console in a single month in the United States.
Nintendo hoped to target a wider demographic with its console. The productions are Nintendo’s first broad-based advertising strategy and include a two-minute video clip showing a varied assortment of people enjoying the Wii system, such as urban apartment-dwellers, country ranchers, grandparents, and parents with their children.The marketing campaign has proved to be successful: pensioners, as old as 103 have been reported to be playing the Wii in the United Kingdom.. A report by the British newspaper The People also stated that Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain has played using the Wii console!
Now, we have data that the Wii games have brought back feelings of being young again as the participants flex their mental muscles and improve their physical fitness. The Wii is improving the quality of life of many aging seniors.
Diane Carbo, in an article written for Senior Advice, states that “…Healthy aging and a brain fitness program along with the Wii promotes the development of new skills, and helps aging seniors learn from their mistakes. The best part of using the Wii as part of a healthy aging program is the laughter and excitement you see in the faces of the participants. The environment is electric as the aging seniors enjoy familiar interests in a new format. For many seniors it feels like old times again…”
