February 23, 2010

Comfort Keepers Would Like To Offer Three Helpful Ideas To Our Healthy Aging Senior Citizens With Dementia, Their Family Caregivers and Private Companions of Three Powerful Techniques From The Alzheimer’s Innovation Institute

By Carol Carbutti

Carol Carbutti, the owner of Comfort Keepers in Wallingford, CT would like to share some techniques from the Alzheimer’s Innovation Institute.  She believes that these ideas will improve the effectiveness of all caregivers.   All three techniques integrate several cognitive stimulation approaches together to increase the neural connections being used by the senior client during their exercise.  By performing these exercises senior citizens will associate situations with their past memories, like years ago when they saw their mother put on her cooking apron and they automatically knew she was going to be cooking something soon.  Caregivers should experiment to discover what works best for each of their in home elderly clients and their family members.

 

 

1.    The first idea caregivers can try is to incorporate multi-modal sensory stimulation to enhance neural connections. Senior parents can associate an activity like matching playing cards from two decks, then listening to the aging retiree’s favorite music while preparing a pot of tea. While these activities may at first appear unrelated, the elderly client will soon make a connection with at least two of them. Perhaps they will remember having tea and hearing Frank Sinatra singing. The more senses involved in remembering, the more likely it is that one of those senses will connect us to a past memory.  By performing these simple tasks, auditory cues (the music), with a visually based action (matching playing cards), and a familiar routine (such as having tea), they will sustain more memories.  It is very important for caregivers to personalize the activities and other choices toward their senior citizens preferences for best results.

 

 

2.     Caregivers can associate highly familiar action-based routines from the past with less familiar tasks. It is easier for an in home elderly senior with dementia to associate an event, such as lunch or dinner time, if you use action based cues associated with the event. In the past most seniors are used to getting ready for lunch or dinner by preparing for meal times and going through a highly familiar action-based routine. A good example of a various action routines would be to have your senior client start with washing their hands, have them help set the table and then remind your aging senior to dress appropriately for dinner. Elderly clients may no longer remember when its lunch time or dinner time if they reside in a facility because action cues are no longer provided as part of the process of their meal times. You may find other self care activities like showering that may be more easily accomplished using this same technique.

 

3.     Another approach personal companions can try is Dyadic training.  This is a method to instruct others so that they can work as part of a team towards a common objective. Dyadic training can be a tremendous value in utilizing the clients family to reinforce the work caregivers do. Now if the family and private caregivers are confident that their senior can follow their specific instructions, they can leave behind an unfinished booklet exercise.  During the other times they may wish to organize and set up something a little more elaborate in order to address any other issues.   The time spent in instructing others will likely pay big dividends for the aging client being cared for and for the personal care companion providing the care!

 

 

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Topics: Uncategorized | No Comments »

Comments

« | Home | »