The Dementia Caregiver

This simple, easy to read, 100 page guidebook helps family members, friends, and caregivers to better understand the changes that come with advancing dementia or other impairments in thinking, reasoning or processing information. It also reinforces the impact of Teepa Snow's guidance and person-centered care interventions including the GEMS and Positive Approach to Care techniques. The goal is to provide better support and care practices when someone is living with an ever-changing condition. By appreciating what has changed but leveraging what is still possible, care partners can choose interactions that are more positive, communication that is more productive, and care that is more effective and less challenging for all involved.

Marc Agronin guides readers through a better understanding of the changes their loved one may be going through, and helps them tap into the various resources available to them as they embark on an uncertain caregiving journey.

Care for yourself, while caring for a loved one with dementia When caring for someone with dementia, your own mental stability can be the single most critical factor in your loved one's quality of life. The Caregiver's Guide to Dementia brings practical and comprehensive guidance to understanding the illness, caring for someone, and caring for yourself. From understanding common behavioral and mood changes to making financial decisions, this book contains bulleted lists of actions you can take to improve your health and your caregiving. Inspirational and compassionate, it focuses on the caregiver's underlying love and humanity that cannot be taken away by any disease. In The Caregiver's Guide to Dementia you'll find: Dementia defined--Understand dementia and its many forms, with an explanation of the illness and its variations. Caregiver wellness--At the end of each chapter, a small section provides relaxation and mindfulness exercises and reflection for dementia caregivers. Practical approach--The back of the book is filled with resources, from financial planning to tips on safety, along with questions for health care professionals, lawyers, accountants, therapists, and friends.

ESSENTIAL STRATEGIES FOR THE DEMENTIA CAREGIVER offers a fresh and practical approach to the challenges faced by wives, husbands, and adult children who care for loved ones with dementia. Using the 4 D's of Dementia Care - detach, document, diffuse, distract - caregivers can find solutions for behaviors ranging from shadowing to wandering to medication refusal. The PACE model emphasizes the importance of prioritizing the caregiver's well-being while navigating the dementia journey: P = Permission for Trial and Error, A = Acknowledge Their Reality, C = Compassionate Care, E = Empower Yourself.

Received a 2012 Caregiver Friendly Award from Today's Caregiver Magazine Although Lewy Body Dementia is the second leading cause of degenerative dementia in the elderly, it is not well known or understood and is often confused with Alzheimer' Disease or Parkinson's. The Caregiver's Guide to Lewy Body Dementia is the first book ot present a thorough picture of what Lewy Body Dementia really is. A Caregiver's Guide to Lewy Body Dementia is written in everyday language and filled with personal examples that connect to the readers' own experiences. It includes quick fact and caregiving tips for easy reference, a comprehensive resource guide, and a glossary of terms and acronyms. This is the ideal resource for caregivers, family members, and friends of individuals seeking to understand Lewy Body Dementia.

Dementia is one of the greatest challenges facing seniors and their caregivers around the globe. Developed by experts in both research and practice, this guide for mental health clinicians explores the experience of caregiving in dementia, discussing the latest research developments and sharing clinical pearls of wisdom that can easily be translated to daily practice. The contributors explore the history of caregiving and then examine the current demographics of caregivers for persons with dementia. They discuss who provides care, the settings in which it is delivered, and the rewards and burdens of caregiving. They place special emphasis on understanding the psychological needs of both the person with dementia and the caregiver, as well as interpersonal bonds, spiritual dimensions, and reactions to grief and loss. Using a multidisciplinary approach to treatment for caregivers, this book addresses the role of pharmacotherapy, individual and family interventions, and social supports. Finally, the authors reflect on societal issues such as health care policies, ethnic elders, and ethics. This volume offers health professionals insights into the daily lives of caregivers, along with tools to provide their patients with the support they need.

The Common Sense Guide to Dementia for Clinicians and Caregivers provides an easy-to-read, practical, and thoughtful approach to dementia care. Written by two specialists who have cared for thousands of patients with dementia and their families, this ground-breaking title unifies the perspectives of neurology and psychiatry to meet a variety of caregiver needs. It spotlights many real-world concerns not typically covered in standard textbooks, while simultaneously presenting a more detailed medical perspective than typical caregiver manuals. This handy title offers expert guidance for the clinical management of dementia and compassionate support of patients and families. Designed to enhance the physician-caregiver interaction and liberally illustrated with case examples, The Common Sense Guide espouses general principles of dementia care that apply across the stages and spectrum of this illness, including non-Alzheimer's types of dementia, in addition to Alzheimer's disease. Clinicians, family members, and other caregivers will find this volume useful from the moment that symptoms of dementia emerge. The authors place an emphasis on caring for the caregiver as well as the patient. Essential topics include how to find the right clinician, make the most of a doctor's visit, and avert a crisis - or manage one that can't be avoided. Sometimes difficult considerations, such as driving, financial management, legal matters, long-term placement, and end-of-life care, are faced head-on. Tried, true, and time-saving tips are explained in terms of what works - and what doesn't - with regard to clinical evaluation, medications, behavioral measures, and alternate therapies. Medical, nursing, and allied health care professionals will undoubtedly turn to this unique overview as a vital resource and mainstay of clinical dementia care, as well as a valuable recommendation for family caregivers.

Losing Me, While Losing You is a long-needed resource to those providing care for people living with dementia — and for those providing care to the caregivers. In this book, caregivers speak from their own experiences of caring for loved ones with dementia; they cover when they first noticed behavioural changes, what they did and how their roles changed when they received the diagnosis, how the experiences changed their perceptions of themselves, especially in cases where important ones no longer recognized them or their, often long-standing, relationships. The caregivers also talked about what resources, if any, were available to support them through the caregiving journey and what recommendations they would make to government policymakers and to others in similar situations. This book is unique in that it documents the personal lived experience of loss which family, friends and caregivers go through as their roles, expectations and images of self are changed throughout the caregiving process.