What can we do when we witness a person trying to calm someone in their care? In that moment, whatever the crisis, the person with dementia considers it an emergency. It’s so hard for caregivers and others to know what to do. Responses come fast and furious – not always the best way to make decisions, especially in an emergency. Skill building and techniques need to be learned beforehand so the caregiver is ready to handle difficult situations when they occur. It is imperative to give caregivers a “bag of tricks” to pull from when they need to defuse an escalating catastrophe.
Often, people don’t understand dementia until a loved one is diagnosed and they begin caring for that person. Some of these caregivers are now leading experts in the field of dementia care excellence. Peter Ross established Senior Helpers - “Care and Comfort at a Moment’s Notice” - after he discovered there were no caregivers adequately trained to care for his mother. Senior Helpers worked with Teepa Snow OT, Dementia Expert and Educator, to create the Senior GEMS Caregiver Training. In 2005, Teepa Snow established her Brain Change Model with language that refers to the levels of dementia as “living GEMS.” She also implemented her Positive Approach to Care (PAC), Hand-under-hand, and Positive Physical Approach that revolutionized Dementia Care. Today, Teepa travels the world sharing her knowledge. “There is no cure but there’s care,” is her motto.
Now it is time to establish a standard for caregiver training. Many local assisted living facilities and nursing homes have memory care units. Teepa Snow provides strategies to use and strategies to avoid at all six levels of dementia; however, there is no requirement to teach a standard language for dementia in school for therapists, healthcare providers, or emergency responders. Some healthcare providers still use the Global Deterioration Scale that rates levels of dementia from 1 to 7 looking at all the abilities lost to dementia with no treatment plan or guide for caregivers to use. Others use the Allen Cognitive Scale that rates the levels of dementia from 6 to 1 looking at all the abilities that remain; however, the treatment plan is for the therapists to use during rehab.
When caregivers and therapists receive dementia training, there is no common language from one training to the next. Some refer to the levels of dementia by numbers; others refer to the levels of dementia as “Beginning, Middle, End” or “Mild, Moderate, Severe” without strategies to use at the different levels or how to change strategies when the person living with dementia has a change in status or moves from one level to the next – in a day, in an hour. People living with dementia do not stay at one level; their abilities change with the environment and with the responses they receive. There is no standard for new employee orientation that includes a “positive physical approach” or “hand-under-hand technique” that reduces fall risks, malnutrition, dehydration, and social isolation.
People living with dementia are wrongfully “Baker Acted” (involuntarily hospitalized) because families and caregivers do not understand that dementia is brain loss. The Baker Act was created to help people with mental health disorders get a diagnosis and treatment. When you have a diagnosis of dementia, you do not need another diagnosis. There is no medication to cure dementia. The treatment needed is “kindness” and “understanding.”
When memory and reasoning are impaired people become frightened when approached abruptly or touched unexpectedly. Self-defense is perceived as aggression.
It has been 20 years since Teepa Snow revolutionized healthcare for people living with dementia.
It’s not enough to mandate “dementia training” without:
1. Identifying, “What makes one training superior to another?”
2. Mandating the superior training before employment.
3. Mandating skill building and coaching PRN and annual superior education to stay employed
.
Healthcare professionals are required to continue their education in “dementia training,” care partners need a common language. We all do! When we don’t speak the same language, we cannot talk to each other. When there is dementia involved, that is no time to stop talking. That is why Dementia Family Pathways created 6-Steps to Becomes Dementia Friendly – inspired by Teepa Snow and her Positive Approach to Care.
To learn more about Dementia Care Excellence, visit www.DementiaFamilyPathways.com.
To study the types of dementia, visit www.BridgesOfCare.org.
Questions?
Reach out to Karen McGee, CCC-SLP
Speech-Language Pathologist'
at KB.McGee.SLP@gmail.com
