The term "dementia" is a term used to describe: diseases and conditions characterized by a decline in receptive and expressive language ability including: memory, problem-solving, word retrieval and other thinking skills that affect a person's ability to perform activities of daily living (ADL).
Memory loss is often one facet of Dementia, but brain failure is more than just an inability to remember. Dementia affects a person’s ability to speak, move and participate in life.
There are more than 80 types of dementia.
Ronald Reagan wrote a lovely letter to the American people after he received his diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease.* AD is the most commonly known cause of dementia and accounts for 60-80% of dementia cases. The list of beloved celebrities lost to Alzheimer’s disease is a long one that includes; Glenn Campbell, Tony Bennett and Charles Bronson.
Vascular dementia / CVA / Stroke
Vascular dementia is the second most common form for dementia. Inadequate blood flow can damage and eventually kill cells anywhere in the body, but the brain is especially vulnerable.
Aphasia is a communication disorder as a result of stroke / CVA, stroke, closed head injury, trauma or disease.
Aphasia causes: word retrieval difficulty; challenges with problem solving; difficulty with initiation, sequencing, follow through, and/or perseveration.
Stroke Strategies improve communication with someone who is living with receptive and / or expressive aphasia.
NOTICE - ASK - WAIT – LISTEN.
Robin Williams Lewy body dementia which most experts estimate to be the third most common cause of dementia accounting for 5 to 10 percent of cases.
Mohammed Ali was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. The brain changes caused by Parkinson’s disease begin in a region that plays a key role in movement, leading to early symptoms that include tremors and shakiness, muscle stiffness, a shuffling step, stooped posture, difficulty initiating gross and fine motor movement, swallowing, speaking and lack of facial expression.
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is rare, occurring in about one in 1 million people annually worldwide. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease causes a type of dementia that gets worse unusually fast. More common causes of dementia, such as Alzheimer's disease, Lewy body dementia and frontotemporal dementia typically progress more slowly.
Julie Andrews received the diagnosis of Huntington's disease which is a progressive brain disorder caused by a single defective gene on chromosome 4 — one of the 23 human chromosomes that carry a person’s entire genetic code. This defect is "dominant," meaning that anyone who inherits it from a parent with Huntington's will eventually develop the disease.
Normal pressure hydrocephalus is a brain disorder in which excess cerebrospinal fluid accumulates in the brain’s ventricles, which are fluid-filled chambers. Normal pressure hydrocephalus is called "normal pressure" because despite the excess fluid, CSF pressure as measured during a spinal tap is often normal. As brain ventricles enlarge with the excess CSF, they can disrupt and damage nearby brain tissue, leading to difficulty walking, problems with thinking and reasoning, and loss of bladder control.
Scientists don’t know exactly how many people have Korsakoff syndrome. It’s widely considered less common than Alzheimer’s disease, vascular dementia, frontotemporal dementia (FTD) or Lewy body dementia (LBD). Like more common types of dementia, it may be underdiagnosed. Korsakoff syndrome is most commonly caused by alcohol misuse, but can also be associated with AIDS, cancers that have spread throughout the body, chronic infections, poor nutrition and certain other conditions.
Bruce Willis is living with Frontotemporal dementia. FTD was once referred to as Pick's disease after Arnold Pick, M.D., a physician who in 1892 first described a patient with distinct symptoms affecting language. Behavior variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) is characterized by prominent changes in personality and behavior. The nerve cell loss is most prominent in areas that control conduct, judgment, empathy and foresight, among other abilities.
The Crisis Prevention Institute published the following facts. I’m including it here as a letter to Care partners:
We are all First Responders in an emergency!
In that moment, whatever the crisis – it is an emergency for both the person living with dementia and the Caregiver! That’s why it’s so hard to know what to do! Everyone is in “fight” or “flight” mode! Responses come fast and furious – not always the best way to make decisions or to handle an emergency situation. Skill building and techniques need to be learned beforehand so the Caregiver is ready to handle difficult situations when they occur. It is imperative to give Caregivers a “bag of tricks” to pull from when they need to try something different to defuse an escalating catastrophe.
As is true of many things, people have no idea what “dementia” is until it hits close to home. Some of those people are now leading experts in the field of dementia care excellence today. Peter Ross established Senior Helpers - “Care and Comfort at a Moment’s Notice” - after he discovered there were no Caregivers adequately trained to care for his mother. Senior Helpers worked with Teepa Snow OT, Dementia Expert and Educator, to create the Senior GEMS Caregiver Training – unique to the industry then and still today!! In 2005, Teepa Snow went on to establish her Brain Change Model with language that refer to the levels of dementia as “living GEMS.” Teepa established Positive Approach to Care (PAC), Hand-under-hand and Positive Physical Approach that revolutionized Dementia Care. Today in 2023, Teepa travels the world sharing the good news: “There is no cure but there’s Care.”
Although Senior Helpers has been training their Caregivers and Teepa Snow has Certification Programs / Training for corporations, a standard for Caregiver training has not yet been established. There is no common language to describe the levels of dementia. Teepa Snow provides strategies to use and strategies to avoid at all six levels of dementia; however, there is no requirement to teach a standard language for dementia in school for therapists, healthcare providers or Emergency Responders. Some healthcare providers still use the Global Deterioration Scale that rates levels of dementia from 1 to 7 looking at all the abilities lost to dementia with no treatment plan or guide for Caregivers to use. Other healthcare providers use the Allen Cognitive Scale that rates the levels of dementia from 6 to 1 looking at all the abilities that still remain; however, the treatment plan is for the therapists to use during rehab.
When Caregivers and therapists receive dementia training, there is no common language from one training to the next. Some refer to the levels of dementia by numbers; others refer to the levels of dementia as “Beginning, Middle, End” or “Mild, Moderate, Severe” without strategies to use at the different levels or how to change strategies when the person living with dementia has a change in status or moves from one level to the next – in a day, in an hour. People living with dementia do not stay at one level; their abilities change with the environment and with the responses they receive. There is no standard for new employee orientation that includes a “positive physical approach” or “hand-under-hand technique” that reduces risks for falls, malnutrition, dehydration and social isolation.
People living with dementia are wrongfully “Baker Acted” because families and Caregivers do not understand that dementia is brain loss. The Baker Act was created to help people with Mental Health Disorders get a diagnosis and treatment. When you have a diagnosis of dementia, you do not need another diagnosis. There is no medication to cure dementia. The treatment needed is “kindness” and “understanding.”
When memory and reasoning are impaired people become frightened when approached abruptly or touched unexpectedly. Self-defense is perceived as “aggression” and the person “a harm to himself or others.”
It has been 20 years since Teepa Snow revolutionized healthcare for people living with dementia.
It’s not enough to mandate “dementia training” without:
1. identifying, “What makes one training superior to another?”
2. mandate the superior training before employment
3. mandate continue superior education every year to stay employed including skill building and coaching.
Healthcare professionals are required to continue their education in “dementia training,” but not all dementia education provides the Care partner with the tools required during each day caring for people living with dementia.
Care partners need a common language. We all do! When we don’t speak the same language we cannot talk to each other! When there is dementia involved, that is no time to stop talking!
For FREE Dementia Training with FREE written handouts go to www.DementiaSOS.com 6-Steps to Becomes Dementia Friendly – inspired by Teepa Snow and her Positive Approach to Care.
20 years ago Senior Helpers partnered with Teepa to create their Caregiver training program and firmly believe…
“Each person is precious and unique and require the right kind of care to shine.”
Teepa Snow
NOTE: This article was published in Go Christian Magazine Fall 2023 issue.
Comentarios