Avoiding Medicine and Health Remedy Scams Schemes advertising dubious pills, potions, diets and other supposed treatments for a wide variety of illnesses common in older people have been promoted by fraudulent salesmen for centuries. Nowadays, instead of listening to sales pitches for home remedies at the county fair from snake oil salesmen, vulnerable older adults are bombarded by ads for these questionable solutions in newspapers, magazines, TV, the internet, and even cell phone text messages. Read more
Spring Increases Risk of Dementia-Related Wandering For caregivers of someone with memory and thinking problems, the change of seasons from winter to spring can raise unique concerns. The same freedom that warmer weather provides can also increase the risk of wandering for those with dementia. According to the Alzheimer’s Association, 60 percent of persons with dementia will wander at least once; many will wander repeatedly. As risky and dangerous as wandering is, caregivers can take steps to reduce the risk. Read more
Understanding and Diagnosing an Older Loved One’s Dementia- or IDD-Related Depression Dementia, intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) and depression can, unfortunately, be closely linked. An estimated 30 to 40 percent of individuals diagnosed with dementia may also suffer from depression. This number includes older adults in the IDD population who also have dementia—and who are already fifty percent more likely to struggle with mental health conditions, according to the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health. Read more
Caring for Yourself as a Caregiver with Mini-Breaks Being a caregiver of an older adult with a chronic illness can be especially challenging. Trying to meet both their healthcare and safety needs can often take up most of a caregivers’ time. Letting your loved ones’ care needs overshadow your own, however, can lead to resentment and impatience and can impact your own health. How can caregivers step away from their caregiving role and still ensure supervision and safety? Enter the mini-break, a small bitesize rest period that provides time to step out of the caregiving role without leaving the one you care for to do so. Read more
How Caregivers Can Help Older Adults Retain Independence Lack or loss of control can be a very frustrating feeling, and it’s one most people have to contend with as they age. A natural reaction to loss of control is resistance. However, for those of us who are caregivers, that resistance can make providing the support a loved one needs challenging. It can feel like having to do daily battle against a loved one’s stubbornness, and as frustration mounts, it can become easy to forget just how much personal freedoms mean to a loved one and how hard it would be for anyone—including us—to give them up. Read more
Communication Aids to Support People with Dementia and IDD One of the biggest challenges facing caregivers and loved ones of someone with moderate to severe dementia and/or intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) is communication. Both conditions can affect a person’s ability to understand what is being said and to respond in a clear, appropriate and easy-to-understand way. Because communication can become so challenging, many caregivers and loved ones make the mistake of getting visibly frustrated, avoiding communication as much as possible and even speaking as if the person with dementia and IDD isn’t in the room and by nature can’t understand anything being said. Read more
4 Benefits of Reminiscence and Storytelling in Improving Caregiving As we age, it can sometimes feel as if our lives are defined more by our health and the conditions we may be living with than by our past experiences, values and memories. For those coping with memory loss, it may be even harder to feel a connection to the past and the things that matter most. As caregivers, managing a loved one’s current wellbeing may seem a higher priority than reflecting on the past, but giving a loved one an outlet to reminisce may be more important than we think. Research shows that storytelling has numerous benefits not only for older adults, but also for their caregivers through improved, personalized care and better communication. Read more
Why Assessment is More Effective When It’s Conducted Over Time Many people take the term “assessment” to be the first phase of a diagnostic or treatment program. But in the case of a comprehensive, long-term caregiver support program, assessment is actually much more effective when it’s treated as an ongoing process. Through multiple clinical trials conducted with BRI Care Consultation, Benjamin Rose Institute on Aging’s evidence-based care-coaching program, we've learned that it takes time to identify and uncover all the areas of need within a caregiving environment, and that many needs are missed when using a one-and-done assessment model. Read more
3 Ways Older Adults Can Stay Healthy In The New Year As we head more into the new year, this tends to be a time of reflection and improvement for most older adults. While it’s no mystery, improving your health seems to be the most popular area of concentration for everybody. When starting to write your next chapter, being healthy makes it easier for you to do so in the best way possible. Whether you have your goals locked in or you’re still searching for a plan of attack, here are three ways you can stay healthy throughout all of 2023. Read more
How to Handle Advance Directives When a Loved One Has Dementia Advance directives—legal documents that allow one to express their end-of-life wishes regarding finances and medical care—are important for all of us to consider as we age as a way of retaining decision-making authority no matter what happens to us. However, end-of-life can be a very difficult thing to confront. Even though advance directives are designed to help us protect our wishes and the futures of our loved ones, it's easy to delay making them until a health crisis happens. But what if that health crisis is dementia? Read more
