Monday, January 28, 2013
Dementia Weekly | Alzheimer's Weekly: Diagnosing Lewy Body Dementia is Tricky But Vital
Dementia Weekly | Alzheimer's Weekly: Diagnosing Lewy Body Dementia is Tricky But Vital: 80% of people with Lewy Body Dementia said they were originally misdiagnosed with a type of dementia such as Alzheimer's. Find out how LBD...
Dementia Weekly | Alzheimer's Weekly: Am I Doing My Best?
Dementia Weekly | Alzheimer's Weekly: Am I Doing My Best?: VIDEO Nursing homes pose one of dementia’s greatest quandaries for caregivers. There are so many pros-and-cons, it is such a huge life d...
Dementia Weekly | Alzheimer's Weekly: Experience 12 Minutes in Alzheimer's on the New Vi...
Dementia Weekly | Alzheimer's Weekly: Experience 12 Minutes in Alzheimer's on the New Vi...: VIDEO & ARTICLE What is a loved one with dementia going through? For years, a 12-minute virtual Alzheimer's tour has helped care professio...
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Dementia Weekly | Alzheimer's Weekly: 7 Stages of Alzheimer's
Dementia Weekly | Alzheimer's Weekly: 7 Stages of Alzheimer's: The seven stages of Alzheimer's are helpful in finding the words to discuss Alzheimer's. Caregivers find them particularly useful in suppo...
I have an issue with calling these the 7 stages of Alzheimer's when the first few are not Alzheimer's at all. It should be called 7 stages of memory concerns.
I have an issue with calling these the 7 stages of Alzheimer's when the first few are not Alzheimer's at all. It should be called 7 stages of memory concerns.
Trauma Informed Care in Alzheimer's Disease
I am looking for resources, research studies etc that talk about the impact of a life of trauma on a diagnosis of Alzheimer's. Having studied TIC some, I am aware of the way the brain changes due to trauma through life; i.e. things that act as triggers to signal danger go right to the hind brain where emotiion is generated. The person often cannot even remember the trauma but feels fear nontheless. The trigger evokes behavior designed to protect the person from perceived harm. I'm wondering if, since the memory retained to death in Alzheimer's is the emotional memory, would past traumas resurface and change the way Alzheimer's is expressed.
I had one client who had gone through concentration camps in WW II, had seemingly resolved the experience in that it was in its place in his mind but not bothersome. When he got Alzheimer's he became obsessed with the experience, relived it daily, and often saw his wife as a perpetrator of harm.
I had one client who had gone through concentration camps in WW II, had seemingly resolved the experience in that it was in its place in his mind but not bothersome. When he got Alzheimer's he became obsessed with the experience, relived it daily, and often saw his wife as a perpetrator of harm.
Dementia Weekly | Alzheimer's Weekly: NIH Highlights U.S. Progress Towards Curing Alzhei...
Dementia Weekly | Alzheimer's Weekly: NIH Highlights U.S. Progress Towards Curing Alzhei...: VIDEO & ARTICLE A new online report from the National Institutes of Health ( NIH ) highlights recent progress in NIH-supported Alzheimer...
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Dementia Weekly | Alzheimer's Weekly: How a Doctor Should Explain an Alzheimer's Diagnos...
Dementia Weekly | Alzheimer's Weekly: How a Doctor Should Explain an Alzheimer's Diagnos...: VIDEO An Alzheimer's diagnosis is hard to get and hard to give. Watch Doctor Chodosh approach this difficult challenge with skilled experi...
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Read on
I hope you all can read each of the articles in this week's Dementia Weekly. Lots of great information. We need all the information we can gather about managing this disease Alzheimer's.
On another note, my e-book is available at Barnes & Noble and Amazon amoung several others. Go on line and peruse it. The more hits it gets whether you buy it or not, the more foreign agents are interested in picking it up on their website. The book is New Trends in Alzheimer Care; Finding the Spirit Within by Strategic Publishing. They are a great outfit to work with; all on line! If you read it, please let me know your thoughts. I had trouble getting it out there as it is personal and my thoughts and behaviors were sometimes surprising to me.
Bev
On another note, my e-book is available at Barnes & Noble and Amazon amoung several others. Go on line and peruse it. The more hits it gets whether you buy it or not, the more foreign agents are interested in picking it up on their website. The book is New Trends in Alzheimer Care; Finding the Spirit Within by Strategic Publishing. They are a great outfit to work with; all on line! If you read it, please let me know your thoughts. I had trouble getting it out there as it is personal and my thoughts and behaviors were sometimes surprising to me.
Bev
Dementia Weekly | Alzheimer's Weekly: Thought of the Week
Dementia Weekly | Alzheimer's Weekly: Thought of the Week: Click photo to enlarge, Esc to return. For gifts using this photo-thought, click here.
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Some thoughts today about loss
I've had a lot of time on my hands ( a rarity ) since my time at work has been cut way down. The first week I wandered about not knowing what to do with myself. I took up one book after another trying to get some ideas about what new service for my company Stilmee would be helpful and/or what new direction I wanted to go in.
I think it is a grieving process, not unlike any grieving of something lost. I felt sadness at not seeing the staff and the patients, felt confused and 'neither afoot or horseback' as the old saying goes, strung up between two opposites and out of control.
I've been here before. Once, just as I'd built a fanancially stable family therapy practice, I was first waylaid with injuries from a motor cycle accident (I visited my clients on a red Honda in those days), then found out the company I worked for closed for good. I was left without a job, unable to work due to injuries, a feeling of sadness and guilt at not serving the many families I had been counseling, and nothing to do in the near future but to heal. Healing from an injury is work in itself and took up a great deal of my energy. But there was no special meaning such as what I got in my work.
Anyway, without going into the details, that eventually gave me opportunity to start over and learn how much I enjoyed teaching families. That led to my eventually opening up my business to teach families grieving the loss of the person who was due to a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease and helping them enjoy the person who is. I wrote a book about those families challenges.
Last night at the support group I facilitate this theme of grieving was explored. There was the grief of the diagnosis, then the fear about what the future holds, then later grieving the loss of the person and the caregiving role. Most in the group had given up a lot; work, career, normal life, to become a caregiver. We wondered what we'd be once the role of caregiver was done. There were no answers last night. No one knew.
I think it is a grieving process, not unlike any grieving of something lost. I felt sadness at not seeing the staff and the patients, felt confused and 'neither afoot or horseback' as the old saying goes, strung up between two opposites and out of control.
I've been here before. Once, just as I'd built a fanancially stable family therapy practice, I was first waylaid with injuries from a motor cycle accident (I visited my clients on a red Honda in those days), then found out the company I worked for closed for good. I was left without a job, unable to work due to injuries, a feeling of sadness and guilt at not serving the many families I had been counseling, and nothing to do in the near future but to heal. Healing from an injury is work in itself and took up a great deal of my energy. But there was no special meaning such as what I got in my work.
Anyway, without going into the details, that eventually gave me opportunity to start over and learn how much I enjoyed teaching families. That led to my eventually opening up my business to teach families grieving the loss of the person who was due to a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease and helping them enjoy the person who is. I wrote a book about those families challenges.
Last night at the support group I facilitate this theme of grieving was explored. There was the grief of the diagnosis, then the fear about what the future holds, then later grieving the loss of the person and the caregiving role. Most in the group had given up a lot; work, career, normal life, to become a caregiver. We wondered what we'd be once the role of caregiver was done. There were no answers last night. No one knew.
Monday, January 7, 2013
What is she feeling....experiencing?
After rereading John Zeisel's book I'm Still Here, I am committed to making a difference for the person with Alzheimer's disease or related dementia by giving a platform for them to speak about their 'new life' with Alzheimer's. My last 2 blogs addressed the stigma that must be disspelled in order to hear them.
For 13 years my company StilMee Alzheimer coaching has served family caregivers to help ease the caregiving journey. Thirteen years ago the person with the disease was thought to be unable to grasp the meaning of what was happening to them. The fact of the diagnosis was generally hidden, or minimized by families, giving little room to hearing what the person with the disease was experiencing. Over the years I and my wonderful coaches have learned that the journey is a partnership with the caregiver, empowering the care recipient to take charge of his life to the extent safely possible. We've designed many ways to do that and caregivers have found success.
A new trend, and not soon enough, is to give meaning to life with Alzheimer's. Zeisel addresses this in his book as hopefully I was able to accomplish in my book Matters of the Mind...and the Heart and my soon to be released E-book, New trends in Alzheimer Care; Finding the Spirit Within. We are hearing from people with the disease more and more that they want a place to discuss what life with Alzheimer's is for them.
This platform is necessary to start disspelling the myths and stigma of many diseases, not just Alzheimer's. People with mental illness are gravely misunderstood as are those with autism and other 'thinking' disorders that change behavior. Much of the behavior I see in mental health work is an attempt to get back control of life. We need to strive to see the person first; to appreciate the strengths, the successes, in order to help the person recover. The recovery model says people can find satisfaction and meaning in life with a disease that may be limiting but doesn't count them out.
For 13 years my company StilMee Alzheimer coaching has served family caregivers to help ease the caregiving journey. Thirteen years ago the person with the disease was thought to be unable to grasp the meaning of what was happening to them. The fact of the diagnosis was generally hidden, or minimized by families, giving little room to hearing what the person with the disease was experiencing. Over the years I and my wonderful coaches have learned that the journey is a partnership with the caregiver, empowering the care recipient to take charge of his life to the extent safely possible. We've designed many ways to do that and caregivers have found success.
A new trend, and not soon enough, is to give meaning to life with Alzheimer's. Zeisel addresses this in his book as hopefully I was able to accomplish in my book Matters of the Mind...and the Heart and my soon to be released E-book, New trends in Alzheimer Care; Finding the Spirit Within. We are hearing from people with the disease more and more that they want a place to discuss what life with Alzheimer's is for them.
This platform is necessary to start disspelling the myths and stigma of many diseases, not just Alzheimer's. People with mental illness are gravely misunderstood as are those with autism and other 'thinking' disorders that change behavior. Much of the behavior I see in mental health work is an attempt to get back control of life. We need to strive to see the person first; to appreciate the strengths, the successes, in order to help the person recover. The recovery model says people can find satisfaction and meaning in life with a disease that may be limiting but doesn't count them out.
Dementia Weekly | Alzheimer's Weekly: New Year's Resolution: Be A Stigma Buster
Dementia Weekly | Alzheimer's Weekly: New Year's Resolution: Be A Stigma Buster: VIDEO & ARTICLE Learn about The Alzheimer's Society of Canada's campaign to bust the stigma of dementia. Discover six easy ways you can ...
Thursday, January 3, 2013
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