Category: Dementia Care Approaches

Getting the Life Story into Daily Use

This post originally appeared on www.bestfriendsapproach.com. View it here. When we make friends, our stories come out slowly. As we get to know one another, we learn each other’s favorite foods and songs, pastimes and passions. But person’s with dementia, especially those who live in memory care, may not be able to recall or share their own stories. And their care partners may be juggling so many responsibilities that they don’t have the time to sit down and listen. This is why the Life Story matters. It summarizes the most important elements of a person’s life. With those…

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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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The Benefits of Birds and Nature for People with Dementia

The healthcare community, urban planners, and government agencies are all acknowledging what researchers have been saying for decades: Green spaces can revitalize a person physically, psychologically, and socially. Environmental psychologist, Kathleen Wolf at the University of Washington has gathered more than 1,800 research papers spanning the past 40 years—most published in the last decade—that show that green spaces in cities can provide a number of benefits, including: faster healing; reduced ailments, such as high blood pressure and diabetes; increased coping and learning capacity; promotion of a sense of community and self-esteem; and, in some cases, reduced crime. Nature’s healing powers…

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ADLs: You Would Resist, Too, If It Happened to You

Many elders need help with Activities of Daily Living, commonly known as ADLs. They include dressing, bathing, grooming (hair and nail care, brushing teeth), continence care (also known as toileting), and eating and drinking (nutrition and hydration). These are often considered tasks to be completed, but if seen as opportunities for building relationships, everyone’s satisfaction increases. One of the phrases that is like fingernails on a chalkboard is “resistance to care,” implying that the older adult we intend to help is ungrateful and cranky. Whether or not people have dementia, people say “no”…

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Matthew’s Last Days

November is National Hospice and Palliative Care Month, and HPP will be joining organizations across the nation to raise awareness for hospice and demonstrate its importance. In our Hospice Perspectives Series, people share their stories of hospice care. While these stories do feature death, they also feature profound hope, compassion, comfort, and joy. They will touch your heart and provide invaluable insight into palliative care and the end of life.  This story is written by Joyce Simard, social worker, internationally recognized speaker, author, and creator of the Namaste Care™ program. Life has a way of leading you down…

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‘At Last I Found You:’ The Powerful Effect of Namaste Care

November is National Hospice and Palliative Care Month, and HPP will be joining organizations across the nation to raise awareness for hospice and demonstrate its importance. In our Hospice Perspectives Series, people share their stories of hospice care. While these stories do feature death, they also feature profound hope, compassion, comfort, and joy. They will touch your heart and provide invaluable insight into palliative care and the end of life.  This story is written by Joyce Simard, social worker, internationally recognized speaker, author, and creator of the Namaste Care™ program. In dementia care, stuffed animals and dolls are not for…

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Getting Started with the Life Story

Respect, trust, humor, support—these are all things we share with our friends. We know our friend’s occupations, marital status, general interests, favorite foods, type of car, hobbies, and other details. We know their family history and traditions, likes and dislikes, even some of their secrets! We also know their strengths and weaknesses and understand their basic personalities. We know how to cheer them up when they are having a bad day, when to give advice (or not), and how to turn a no into a yes. Great dementia care can be rooted in something as simple as friendship. As we…

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Questions that Enrich a Life Story

The Life Story in dementia care is a person’s right to be known and be among people who care. To help ensure that right, you need to learn a lot about the person and incorporate that into your everyday relationship. You can use this knowledge to bring up favorite memories and special achievements, provide cues, and take advantage of past preferences and interests. Life Story information enhances conversations, helps customize activities, allows us to better understand behavior, and helps us redirect with greater success. Play detective when writing a Life Story! Looking beneath the surface can pay many dividends in…

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Implementing Modifications in the Care Community

Environmental interventions and modifications may require approval and/or funding to implement. When requesting funding from a supervisor or the administrator of your care community, here are a few things to keep in mind. The importance of environment Research has shown that communication is impacted by the environment, and that modifications improve communication skills in individuals with dementia. Unfortunately, poorly designed environmental features often contribute to unsatisfactory responses or behaviors in individuals with cognitive impairment. As individuals age, there are changes in cognition, memory, language, vision, and hearing. Therefore, it is necessary that the living environment adapt to optimize cognitive, visual, and…

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A New Dialogue on Dementia

In this excerpt from his book, Dementia Beyond Drugs: Changing the Culture of Care, Second Edition, Dr. Al Power re-frames the barriers and stigma of dementia-as-tragedy into a new dialogue.  Diabetes versus Dementia Imagine for a few moments that you have been diagnosed with diabetes. I am choosing this disease because it is a common condition about which most of us have a fair degree of awareness. It is incurable, but treatments are available. Many people live many years without serious problems, but many people may experience progression…

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