Use this checklist to help you begin to identify seniors with potential risk factors for becoming socially isolated. Read the book! Connecting with Socially Isolated Seniors A Service Provider’s Guide By Patricia Osage, with Mary McCall, Ph.D. Copyright © 2012 by Satellite Housing, Inc. Learn to recognize the symptoms of social isolation and reach out to at-risk seniors with this useful guide. Learn more…
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An early-stage Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis can feel devastating, yet there is hope and support available. Robyn Yale, who pioneered some of the first available support groups for people with early-stage Alzheimer’s disease, discusses the healing powers of counseling for people who have received an early-stage Alzheimer’s diagnosis. Her book, Counseling People with Early-Stage Alzheimer’s Disease: A Powerful Process of Transformation, provides practitioners with an innovative therapeutic model specifically designed to meet the unique needs of clients living with Alzheimer’s. The book’s counseling methods not only help people cope with and adjust to…
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These psychosocial interventions have been designed to specifically address the intense emotions people feel while adjusting to loss. This post was adapted from Transitions in Dying and Bereavement: A Psychosocial Guide for Hospice and Palliative Care, Second Edition by Victoria Hospice, Marney Thompson, and Wendy Wainwright. Copyright © 2017 by Victoria Hospice. All rights reserved. For someone mourning the loss of a loved one, life is full of reminders of the loss of the person who died. Day-to-day existence is full of triggers, and feelings arise unbidden and uncontrolled. The outward manifestation of emotions, such as tears, frequent sighing,…
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An essay by Richard Taylor, Ph.D. I have talked with dozens of people in their 30s and 40s who have been diagnosed with early-onset (defined as anyone under the age 65 who is diagnosed), early-stage (the first of a three-stage description of the disease) Alzheimer’s disease. I was 58 when I was officially diagnosed. After hearing the diagnosis, I cried every day for three weeks. My neurologist told me that 95% of the people he diagnoses with Alzheimer’s are not ever tested. The patients, most of whom are in their mid-to-late 70s, would not be able…
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Retired psychologist Richard Taylor, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at age 58. What is it like to drive your car from Houston to Anchorage? The answer depends on many things: the type of care you will drive, the age of the car, how well you maintained it, where you are in your trip, if others are helping you with the drive, if you have accepted the fact you must drive to Anchorage, whether or not you are afraid of arriving in Anchorage. What is it like to have Alzheimer’s? This, too, depends on many things: Do you have an existing group…
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People who rarely interact with older adults can often perceive that the population is composed primarily of sweet little grandmas and grandpas who get along well with one another. So it is surprising to learn that bullying behaviors actually occur among older adults—especially in senior programs and senior living facilities. Interventions to address bullying among older adults must consider what older adults themselves have to say about potentially effective strategies, especially given that they may witness bullying incidents more often than staff members do. Assisted living residents offered the following suggestions for how senior living organizations can decrease bullying and…
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Bullying is not an experience limited to childhood… When thinking of bullying, most people would picture schoolyard taunts, childish games, perhaps even being pushed and shoved—but certainly nothing that goes beyond grade school. However, new research has shown that bullying is not an experience limited to childhood, but is an epidemic occurring with an alarming frequency among older adults as well. Bullying among peers in senior programs and care settings (such as nursing homes and retirement communities) results in profoundly negative effects on the elders, the staff, and the community in which it is occurring. But little is known about…
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10 years ago you wrote the first book in the Two-Lap® Series, The Sunshine on My Face. How did you develop the idea for such a unique book? My mother had mid- to late-stage dementia, and I was feeling frustrated during my visits with her. She would basically sit in the den, have something to eat and drink, and watch TV. Mom wasn’t speaking or smiling. We were definitely not doing anything together that brought happiness to either one of us during our visits. One visit, I casually gave my mother a magazine to look at.
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