Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: The holiday season is here, and that means more time for families to get together. But what if one of your family members suffers from dementia or Alzheimer's disease? What if you're one of those thousands of Arcansans who is in charge of caring for someone with Alzheimer's? How do you navigate the holiday season, which typically adds stress to the already challenging job of caregiving? That's the subject of this week's know the news podcast.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: You.
[00:00:38] Speaker A: Hi, everyone. This is Dave Perozic, managing editor of the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette your know.
[00:00:44] Speaker C: The news host this week.
[00:00:45] Speaker A: One of our reporters, Doug Thompson, is writing a story for this weekend about how families affected by dementia can prepare for the holidays. One of Doug's main sources for his story is Jill Thompson, program director for the Arkansas chapter of the Alzheimer's Association. And I had an opportunity to talk to Jill myself just the other day. Let's listen to that interview now, Jill.
[00:01:09] Speaker C: Arkansas has a state of about 3 million people total.
What's the estimate of how many Arkansas are living with Alzheimer's?
[00:01:17] Speaker B: Yeah, the estimate of our Kansas living with Alzheimer's is around 58,000. And I want to emphasize, too, those are diagnosed individuals. Those are individuals that we know about.
[00:01:29] Speaker C: And being a caregiver for an Alzheimer's patient is certainly never easy. But the holiday season presents additional challenges for them, would you say?
[00:01:39] Speaker B: Most definitely. Caregiving is a stressful journey anyway, especially caring for someone with dementia and layering the stress of the holidays, the getting together with families, the meals, the traveling, the gift giving, the buying, it can sometimes just seem unbearable to caregivers of someone with dementia.
[00:02:02] Speaker C: So what are some tips you would like to share with caregivers to help them navigate this time of year?
[00:02:08] Speaker B: Well, the Alzheimer's association has several tips. The one that I feel like the number one on the list that I feel like is the most important, is alerting your family and friends as to what's going on with your loved one or the person you're caring for.
And that can be especially important if that family member or friends coming in from out of town who maybe haven't seen that person for a while, letting them know what's going on, what behaviors they might see, and then also educating them on the best way to communicate with the person with dementia, because that looks different at the different stages.
I think another suggestion is to, as a caregiver, give yourself permission to say no to some things and give yourself permission to scale back.
And along with that is deciding which traditions are the most important to you, which traditions that your family has, which ones can you live without? And which ones can you not live without? And focus on those two that you can't live without. So again, that's part of scaling back.
Maintaining a regular routine with your loved one is very important. Routine has shown that it will help the person with dementia State in what we call contented state.
So kind of away from those negative behaviors, hopefully, such as anxiety and agitation and confusion and fear and suspicion. So if you've got a regular routine that you normally have with your loved one, try to maintain that routine during the holiday season.
You can prepare your loved ones, especially if they're in that early to middle stages, show them photos and talk about who's going to be coming for Thanksgiving or who's going to be coming for Christmas. And that can be very helpful, too, especially getting those out, those pictures right before the people arrive. The Alzheimer's association can be very helpful through support groups talking to other people as to how they have dealt with the holiday season, with their loved one with dementia in the past, and hearing what worked and what didn't work, as well as our 24 hours helpline that people will be able to call even during the holidays if they need to, to say, this is happening with my loved one and I don't know how to handle it. And they can get that advice from a licensed social worker. And again, that is available even on Christmas Day, Thanksgiving Day, throughout the whole holiday season.
As a caregiver, it's important to maintain your own health, because if you are not healthy and you are not taking care of yourself, you're not going to be able to take care of the person that you love and be there for them and then for caregivers as well. Plan for a post holiday retreat, right? I mean, you may need some time away after the holidays because it's so stressful. So maybe plan ahead to have someone come in and stay with your loved one, even as for the day, if it's for the day, so you can go have a spa treatment, go to lunch with friends, whatever that might be, but also understanding that if you are having a lot of people as a caregiver around you during the holidays and then they all go home, you may have this sense of loneliness once everybody leaves. And so being aware of that and maybe making some plans with friends in town. But really the main thing, I think, is alerting family and friends and then also just preparing, preparing ahead of time, having a family meeting. I need your help with A, B or C. I need you to come stay with dad, while I go shopping for presents, having that meeting, thinking about potentially having smaller family gatherings as opposed to one large, so many, maybe several small family gatherings as opposed to one large gathering. So really thinking ahead about what you can do to keep that situation from being one that's going to cause your loved one to have any undue stress, to have some negative behaviors, and then again, just to keep things calm for yourself and not feel like you have to do everything.
[00:06:19] Speaker C: A lot of us don't have much experience dealing with people who are living with Alzheimer's. So for people like that, what about communicating with someone who has Alzheimer's? What should we keep in mind when conversing with them?
[00:06:38] Speaker B: Yeah.
Again, that looks different at the different stages. Alzheimer's is a journey. Start out in what we call the early stages, progress to the middle stages and the late stages. So communication looks different at the different stages. But in essence, with all, everyone at any stage of dementia, you have to remember that communication is not only about the words that you're speaking or that you're hearing from them, but it's also about body language and facial expressions and tone of voice.
The person with dementia may not be able to tell you, maybe that they're in pain or something is going on, but if you can look at their body language and their facial expression, that might give you an idea of what feeling they're having at the moment. But the same is true for the caregiver or the family and friends who are visiting.
Your words may not make sense to the person with dementia, but your body language and your tone of voice will resonate with them. So I may say, I could say the kindest thing, but if my tone is sharp and dismissive or whatever, they're going to pick up on that tone. So keeping the tone and your body language open and warm and soft and loving is going to resonate with them. So that's the number one thing. The other thing I would say is being patient, because we know that even in the early stages, someone with Alzheimer's and dementia, they may have trouble finding that word. So in the early stages, give them time. Give them time to find the word. Do not rush the conversation. Make sure there's plenty of patience and time involved in that conversation. And as you progress through the stages of dementia, you get more to the middle stages. It's important to remember that their conversation abilities will decline, their ability to find the words to string together thoughts. But you can still have simple questions to them. Talk to them in simple phrases, using simple words.
If you give them a task to do to keep them busy. The person with dementia, make sure it's a one step task. So instead of saying something like, John, please set the table, it could be, John, please place the plates on the table. So that's just one step of setting the table, instead of having to think about what that all means. And then in the later stages, we really want to think about communication through what we call the five senses. So in the late stages, many times the individuals with dementia are unable to communicate, or if they do, it's just a few words. So communicating through the senses is very important. So whether that's through touch, maybe something soft or rubbing lotion on their hands, maybe being able to have a visual, so even maybe being able to take a small Christmas tree or something to decorate their room if they're in a nursing home or memory care.
But I think a great way to communicate with people in the later stages is through music. We know that music is one of the last. The area of the brain that processes music tends to be one of the last areas that's affected in Alzheimer's. And that's why we hear about music resonating with people with dementia for so long through the journey. And so singing familiar Christmas songs, whether those are secular songs or religious songs, is a good way to be able to communicate with people in those later stages of dementia.
[00:10:17] Speaker D: If you're enjoying this podcast, consider a newspaper subscription to the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette or the River Valley Democrat Gazette. We have a special offer for our podcast listeners, so visit nwanline.com podcast 23 to get started. You can also click the subscribe button on our websites, nwanline.com and rivervalleydemocratgazette.com. Or call us at 479-684-5509 and be sure to say that you're a podcast listener. Now back to the show.
[00:10:48] Speaker A: Welcome back. During my chat with Jill Thompson, I asked her to talk about what's being done at the state level to address Alzheimer's and what more she'd like to see happen. Here's how she responded.
[00:11:01] Speaker B: So a couple of things to know about the Alzheimer's Association. First is that we are a national association, but there are 75 chapters, and Arkansas is its own chapter. But as part of the national organization, the national organization number one research is a top priority. So we are the number one nonprofit funder of research around Alzheimer's and Dementia in the world. And we also have a huge advocacy team at the Alzheimer's association on a national level. And we have a wonderful director of public policy here on the local level. His name is David Cook and he's always talking to our congressmen and our senators and at the Capitol know, fighting for the rights of people with dementia and their caregivers.
So there's obviously a lot to be done. But I will say don't. And I'm not a legislator and I'm not the public policy person. So I just tell you what I know.
Arkansas has approved that there will be a state, and I'm not sure of the correct title. DAVID can obviously focus it on that, a state wide dementia person who they're going to be dedicated to working on a dementia plan for around the state.
DaviD has been working on assisted living facilities. I know for sure will now have to make sure their staff has a certain amount of dementia education every year. So there is progress in dementia care and around what the expectations are for assisted living and those caregiving facilities. But there's a lot more to do, and we are lucky that we have such a great director of public policy working on those issues for our state.
[00:13:08] Speaker A: For more on this topic, catch Doug Thompson's story publishing this weekend in the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette Want to share with you A brief preview of some other stories we have coming your way over the next few days.
Did you know Springdale Harbor High School students offer pet grooming servIces?
Veterinary science students are learning by providing dog washing and hygiene services for members of the community in exchange for a donation. Education Reporter Al Gaspiny will have that story.
What's it take to be a champion tree? Reporter Stacey Ryburn will tell us about that, including two trees in Springdale that recently achieved this honor.
And a little park in downtown Bentonville is about to be expanded and upgraded. Mike Jones tells us about that from the River Valley. Monica Brick reports on a North side high school senior who has received one of the highest awards available in the junior ROTC program. And Thomas Ascente gets us caught up on the Crawford County Library system's long search for a new director. It turns out the library board has whittled its candidate list to two, turning now to features, April Walsh will bring us an in depth profile piece on Elda Scott, campaign chairperson for the Amazium in Benville. And as usual, Sunday's WhatsApp section is the best place to find out what's happening arts and entertainment wise in our region this Sunday. You can read about the Share show coming to the Walton Arts center, the Enduring Amazon exhibit at the momentary, the Working America exhibit at Rogers Historical Museum, and a preview of Season 38 for Arkansas Public Theater. As always, our sports writers will deliver the best coverage of the region's high school Football playoff games this weekend, including, but not limited to, Benville west at Conway, Cabot at Benville, Fortsmouth Southside at Fayetteville and Rogers at Bryant.
All this and more will be available to our subscribers on our tablet and smartphone apps and on our websites, nwaonline.com and rivervalleydemocraticazette.com. Thanks, as always, for listening. Know the News is a weekly podcast brought to you by the newsrooms of the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette and the River Valley Democrat Gazette. Again, I'm Dave Perozic, your podcast host this week. Have a great weekend, great Thanksgiving, and until Friday, so long.
