Tag: positive approach to dementia care

Lakeya meets with PAC Trainer at our site in Philadelphia

NursePartners’ Senior Recruiter, Lakeya Dula, completes her training to become a PAC certified dementia coach.  After on site training in Baltimore with Teepa Snow, Rebekah Wilson visited us at the NursePartners office in Philadelphia.  Rebekah served as Lakeya’s mentor throughout these past 8 weeks.  Lakeya and Rebekah used the PAC materials and tools from the course to increase Lakeya’s confidence in becoming an effective coach to our carepartners.

The Positive Approach to Care (PAC) methodology was created by Teepa Snow in response to the shortcomings of other dementia progression models.  Other models seemed to focus on the cognitive decline, versus emphasizing what the person could still do.  Each in the last stage (Pearl), a person still exists behind the ugly façade of the disease.  Teepa sought to teach others how to connect before providing care, which is the bedrock of any effective carepartner relationship.

As a dementia coach, Lakeya plays a fundamental role in training each carepartner before they begin working with us.  Lakeya leads a dementia workshop where we act out various difficult situations with our carepartners.  NursePartners’ admin takes on the role of our clients and the carepartners show us how they would respond in a given situation.  Carepartners consent to being video recorded.  This allows them to watch their own interaction later, from the view of the client.  This activity helps them break preconceived conceptions and to adapt their own care approaches to become more effective carepartners.

During this workshop, carepartners learn about the GEM levels, the Positive Physical Approach to Care, and receive a general overview of dementia.  Afterwards, carepartners must complete additional training in order to become eligible to work with any of our clients living with dementia.

Lakeya is the third member of the NursePartners administrative team to complete a certification with Teepa Snow.  Angela Geiger embraced the methodology as the basis to create the GEM division in 2012.  She became certified as the company’s PAC dementia trainer in additional to another national certification as a dementia practitioner.  Peter Abraldes developed the dementia program with Angela in 2016 to make this training a requirement for any carepartner working with a client living with dementia.  At this time, all other admin members were trained as well.  This prepared us to respond to any issue arising from clients, family members of clients, or carepartners.

NursePartners also provides training to family members and other organizations as requested.  We have seem the effectiveness of this approach in the field and always glad to help others provide more effective care to their loved ones or clients.

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Lakeya received her PAC certified dementia coach certificate!

 

Understanding Behaviors and Adapting Approaches in Dementia Care

Your role as caregiver, family member, or friend evolves with the progression of dementia.  Even faced with challenging behaviors, you can still connect with your loved one and fill their day with meaningful activities.  NursePartners is here to support you while your relationship evolves with the person living with dementia.

 

What is their behavior telling you?

We are constantly learning more about the brain’s ability to comprehend messages.  This includes messages that are delivered through speech versus writing, in a crowded space versus a one-on-one situation, or even a familiar voice versus one of a stranger.

Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias can cause people to act in unpredictable ways. Some individuals become anxious or aggressive while others repeat certain questions or gestures. Messages can be misinterpreted, surprising both the care recipient and caregiver. These types of reactions lead to misunderstanding, frustration, and tension.

It’s important to understand your loved one is not trying to be difficult and that these behaviors are also forms of communication.

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Tips for managing behavioral changes

As carepartners, we need to adapt our delivery process throughout the progression of the disease. When we carry on a traditional conversation, we usually engage in a back and forth volley of information. When a person is diagnosed with dementia, it is important to realize that the three essential language skills for processing and sharing verbal messages need to be supported in different ways. These core linguistic skills are:

  • Vocabulary (the words – the meaning of the content)
  • Comprehension (receptive language – the ability to process the message)
  • Speech production (expressive language – the ability to deliver the message)

Certain retained skills will assist you in conveying a message:

  • Social chit-chat (the back and forth that can mask loss of comprehension, but covers in short simple conversations)
  • Rhythm of speech (this includes awareness of the rhythm of a question that is seeking an answer, as well as ability to sustain rhythm or hear a rhythm that sounds familiar).  Additionally it can and does signal changes in emotion – changes in frequency, intensity, or volume can indicate shifts in emotional state or discomfort.
  • Rhythmic speech as is present in music, poetry, prayer, counting and even spelling.

What you can do:

There are important supportive phrases that can help when they are used in combination with pauses, inflections, visual cues, props, and partial reflective statement to confirm what was said or south:

  1. Seek more information by being nonspecific, try phrases such as  “Tell me more about it.”
  2. Seek demonstration or visual representation with phrases such as  “Could you show me how you would use it?” or“Show me how you’d do it.”
  3. Offer simplified options, by using two options at a time, or encouraging yes/no responses.  Employ the use of object pronouns.

What can help:

Awareness, knowledge, skill and support for both parties.

Mary Stehle, licensed social worker and Senior Care Advisor says, “A person with Alzheimer’s who has lost the ability to understand and communicate through language is always looking for cues from us as to how to interpret the world. They are constantly reading our tone of voice, facial expressions, and body language. When we are tired, stressed, and resentful, they pick up on this and it often impacts them negatively.” It’s important to remember that asking for help is not an act of selfishness, it’s providing better care for both you and your loved one.

We can be by their side when you can’t be. If your loved one need home care assistance or relief – Contact us today.

NursePartners is committed to providing uncompromised care to those living with a diagnosis of dementia. Our carepartners work with each family to enable safety, comfort and happiness through home-care services.