Category: Implementing Culture Change

Leading Change in Memory Care: Commitment to Ongoing Education

I like to point out to people working in senior living that change will not only benefit their residents but also their bottom line. I work with families who are beginning their search for a life-affirming environment for a loved one. On a recent call with a man who had toured four nearby places with his father, he could not answer my question about which one he preferred. “Honestly, I can’t tell them apart. They all promise wonderful things, but I didn’t see [evidence of them] as we toured.” If you can tell the stories of the people’s lives you…

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Behind Locked Doors: Segregation in Memory Care

Memory care is the fastest-growing area of senior living. It is now standard for assisted living communities and nursing homes to designate an area for a secure unit, usually with a coded keypad on the door. This is where the residents living with dementia will live, segregated from the rest of the residents. Often these secured units, with their extra charges, are the most expensive areas to live. I have worked as a registered nurse long enough to remember when it was also standard to tie people in their chairs or beds “for their own good.” None of us would…

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5 Inspiring Stories of Meaningful Person-Centered Memory Care

Small Ways Care Partners Have Improved Quality of Life and Made a Difference This post was excerpted from Getting Dementia Care Right: What’s Not Working and How It Can Change by Anne Ellett, M.S.N., NP. Copyright © 2023 by Health Professions Press. I have had so many meaningful experiences over the years working in memory care. I have worked with countless wonderful support partners and leaders, people who took the time to listen to an individual resident, advocated for him or her, and provided a gentle touch at just the needed moment to improve that person’s day. The following stories…

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The 5 Main Flaws of Nonpharmacological Interventions (and How to Address Them Without Medication)

This post was excerpted from Dementia Beyond Disease: Enhancing Well-Being by G. Allen Power, M.D. (2017, Health Professions Press) Why Nonpharmacological Interventions Do Not Work This provocative heading may seem out of line for the author of a book called Dementia Beyond Drugs. Rest assured, I remain firmly rooted in the belief that most distress arises as expressions of unmet needs, and that drugs are not the answer. (For a deep dive on this, see Dementia Beyond Drugs: Changing the Culture of Care, Second Edition.) The problem lies not in that underlying philosophy, but…

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Can We Achieve Drug-Free Dementia Care?

It may seem unrealistic to expect that we can care for people without using any psychotropic drugs for their various expressions. What is clear, however, is that a new approach to dementia can drastically reduce the use of these medications, making them the exception rather than the rule. We have seen a similar learning curve with the use of physical restraints in nursing homes. Due to the tireless work of pioneers, including Carter Catlett Williams, Lois Evans, and Neville Strumpf, these once-common features of nursing homes are rapidly disappearing. Many nursing homes are now restraint-free; I have not personally ordered…

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The Dementia Experience

The Experiential Model of Dementia Care The biomedical model (that is, a mindset of dementia that focuses only on physical and cognitive decline) sees dementia mostly as neuropathology. However, viewing only what can be easily observed and measured is inadequate to our needs. We must ask ourselves: how is dementia experienced by the person with the changing brain? That experience is more than simple structural and chemical defects; many other factors come into play, such as life history, relationships, ethnicity and culture, values, spirituality, interactions, and coping styles. Seeing dementia as a life experience and viewing the world through those…

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Dementia Care: Change Begins with Us

This post is adapted from Getting Dementia Care Right: What’s Not Working and How It Can Change by Anne Ellett, M.S.N., NP. Copyright © 2023 by Health Professions Press, an imprint of Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., Inc. All rights reserved. Memory care is the fastest-growing area of senior living. Yet over the past many years, while there has been a proliferation of new attractive modern buildings, I have seen a lack of innovation and resources put toward staffing and education that would humanize and honor the human rights of residents with dementia. In the majority of residential care…

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A Mindshift: 14 Terms to Know

What holds us back in transforming senior living? In Disrupting the Status Quo of Senior Living: A Mindshift, author Jill Vitale-Aussem says it is a combination of societal views on aging, the persistence of institutional culture in every level of living, and communities that continue to operate based on processes and policies infused with paternalism, ageism, and antiquated thinking. To truly transform senior living, we need a MINDSHIFT. Here are some critical terms for guiding important new conversations. SENIOR LIVING Congregate living for older people. Includes nursing homes, assisted living, memory support, senior housing, and retirement communities/life plan communities. HOSPITALITY…

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Best Friends™ Approach Free Downloadable Materials

What is the Best Friends™ Approach? These 13 handouts are free for you to download and will introduce you to the Best Friends™ approach, a highly successful model for dementia care that puts the person first. Adopted world-wide, this easy-to-implement approach is built on the essential elements of friendship—respect, empathy, support, trust, and humor. Use these handouts to learn the foundations of this approach and how effortlessly it can be adopted in your organization. Visit the Best Friends Portal for more information and resources on this approach and its related products and training. 21 Ways to Sustain a Best Friends™…

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