No caregiver should face Alzheimer’s disease alone. I’ve witnessed the emotional and physical strain that caregivers endure when helping those with the disease the National Institute of Aging estimates affects between 2.4 million and 5.1 million Americans.

I have also seen caregivers connect to a supportive community that enables them to provide better care for their loved ones and themselves. If you are caring for someone with Alzheimer’s, here are some steps you can take to receive the support you need:

Connect with a support group

• A local Alzheimer’s support group is a…

A recent New York Times headline caught my attention: “Tennessee’s Summit Reveals Dementia Diagnosis”.

If you are not familiar with Pat Summit, she is widely considered the most successful college basketball coach of all time. Her recognition is well deserved after coaching Tennessee University’s women’s basketball team to a record eight national championships and more than 1,000 wins.

Sally Jenkins of the Washington Post writes:

“Denial was followed by anger. For the first few weeks, Summitt would barely even discuss the subject. She told her doctors, ‘You don’t know me. You don’t know what I’m capable…

If you care for someone with Alzheimer’s Disease and just went through Hurricane Irene, you know that a crisis can make caregiving even more challenging. People with Alzheimer’s can’t always express how they feel, but they can be very attuned to their environment, the people around them, and how they’re feeling. Coping with a disaster can be stressful, people with Alzheimer’s may feel that stress and it can affect their behavior. Here are some tips on coping after a crisis from the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America:

• Ensure that your loved one…

Now that the weather is nice, it’s a great time of year to get out with loved ones. Going out to eat is a great way to socialize, relax, get together with friends and family and de-stress. When someone has dementia, these benefits continue to be important for the person and the caregiver, but caregivers may be hesitant to take their loved ones out to eat because of the challenges that situation might present.

In the Spring 2011 issue of care ADvantage magazine, published by the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America, there are excellent…

When working with people with dementia, you quickly realize that each person’s symptoms are quite unique. To reach each person in our program, we’re constantly trying new activities geared toward different cultures, levels of functioning and ways of understanding information. We strive to provide cognitive stimulation in a variety of ways in order to connect with our seniors and help them function to the best of their abilities.

This time of year lends itself to celebrating holidays in many creative ways. We often use things like  art, music and reminiscence therapy. In our dementia program,…

Over the past few months, the Day Center staff had begun to notice changes in Ms. L.’s memory and ability to follow through with directions. The staff reported this information to Ms. L.’s Nurse Consultant and Social Worker, who along with the rest of Ms. L’s team, visited her at home and quickly set up an appointment for a memory screening (for resources on memory screenings, http://nationalmemoryscreening.org). Accompanied by her family, Ms. L underwent further medical testing and evaluations, and was diagnosed with early stage Alzheimer’s Disease. She is now taking Aricept, which…

Caregivers have a lot on their plate, and it can be very challenging balancing caregiving responsibilities while taking care of their own lives and families. Some people with Alzheimer’s Disease may exhibit wandering behaviors and that adds even more challenges to keeping loved ones safe and healthy. Some may attempt to leave their safe environments without supervision or may get lost while out in the community unattended.

At our center, we have a Wanderguard program for memory impaired seniors to help prevent wandering. The Alzheimer’s Association has a Safe Return Program…

When a loved one is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease, it affects caregivers on so many different levels and few are prepared. The more caregivers care for themselves, the better they can care for loved ones. Here are a few tips from the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America:

• Get information about the illness – read books, surf the web, attend seminars, etc.
• Stick to routines.  Changes in schedule or surroundings can cause confusion for your loved one and make things more difficult.
• Share caregiving tasks with others.
• Take time for respite for yourself – do something to make…

In our dementia program, we have some participants that are very high functioning and at times, they remember more than I do! We also have participants in the later stages of Alzheimer’s Disease that have difficulty reading, recognizing numbers and expressing themselves.

We believe and we’ve seen that the more cognitive and physical stimulation we provide, the more the participants respond and improve. One such example is Mr. M — he came to us unable to speak or read. He started coming to our center one day a week and quickly increased to three days per…

Instead of focusing on wellness and maximizing functioning, seniors sometimes focus on illness and loss of functioning. One of our Center’s main goals is to focus on what is feeling well, and using that to help people function as highly as possible. We strive to help seniors and their caregivers feel positive about their level of functioning, skills and talents.

In our program for people with memory impairment, it is very important to help them strengthen their skills and “exercise” their memory as much as possible. Over the years, we’ve observed that the…