Music connects people to their life history and culture. Music transports people back to happy and sad places such as having attended a concert with friends or as a reminder of a long-gone relative.
Listening to or making music is a wonderful way for you and your loved-one to get a mini-vacation from illness as well as to stimulate conversation different from what he or she had for breakfast.
Clinical case studies show when people who have dementia listen to the music of their youth they become animated and may tap their feet to the rhythm or sing. Music therapists say that music therapy improves mood and behavior as well as lessens reliance on behavior-modifying medications.
Research shows that active involvement is more beneficial than listening to music. Singing and playing music, especially when preparing for a performance, improves focus, attention and memory. Opportunities to socialize and, perhaps even more importantly, share with others, is another important benefit of active participation.
Most people have positive reactions to the popular music of their youth or the kinds of music that reflect their taste and preferences. Therefore don’t assume the person in your care will want to hear Glenn Miller or Bing Crosby. Baby Boomers may prefer Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, the Beatles or the Rolling Stones. Some people may favor classical music, jazz, or opera.
There are many simple ways to bring music into your loved-one’s life. At home you can download music from the internet and watch or listen to broadcast performances. Together, you can sing, play a music instrument, or use bells, sticks, and homemade drums to create a home-style rhythm band. Consider inviting family members, friends as well as other caregivers and their loved-ones to participate in a jam-session. Serve coffee and cookies and you have an event!
It’s always a nice break to take excursions outside of the home. Combining an early afternoon concert with lunch or an early supper is another way to enjoy a day and enrich a relationship. You can find local and sometimes no-cost events in the calendar section of your local newspaper. Community orchestras and choral groups often give public performances. Senior centers are another place where you can find performances as well as music classes your loved-one might enjoy.
Many non-profit organizations, such as the Dementia Society of America, sponsor music programs designed especially for people who have dementia and other disabilities. An internet search is an easy way to find music programs and performances in the community where your loved-one lives.
Janet Yagoda Shagam, PhD, is a freelance medical and science writer and the author of “An Unintended Journey: A Caregiver's Guide to Dementia.” Available through Amazon.
The opinions expressed by contributing authors are not necessarily the opinions of the Dementia Society, Inc. We do not endorse nor guarantee products, comments, suggestions, links, or other forms of content contained within blog posts- that have been provided to us with permission, or otherwise. Dementia Society does not provide medical advice, please consult your doctor. www.DementiaSociety.org
The words “house” and “home” aren’t the same. For most people, the word “house” produces a mental image of a building. In contrast, the word “home” stimulates an array of complex feelings.
“Home” may bring back memories of a mother’s cooking, the view from a childhood tree house, the sound of children playing, and the feel of a loved-one’s kiss. For nearly everyone, home is more than four walls and a roof. Home is memory, personal history, and a bountiful source of comfort.
A dementia-friendly home is one that provides both emotional and physical comfort and safety. Family photographs, the worn but still comfortable chair, an ancient radio, and a hugely-ugly coffee mug – are all remnants of a life-well lived. While you may consider them clutter, your loved-one finds enjoyment and pleasure in their presence. The chair may remind him or her of having once read bedtime stories to you and your siblings. The radio might encourage conversation about the days when people listened to baseball games. And what does the hugely ugly coffee mug contribute to a dementia-friendly home? It doesn’t matter, the mug isn’t yours.
Creating a physically safe environment for your loved-one requires sensitivity, practicality and acknowledgement of his or her capabilities. It is more likely your loved-one will accept the changes to his or her personal space if you describe the installation of bathroom handrails as an “update” and the new automatic tea kettle as a “gift.”
As a first step, assess your loved-one’s home for areas and objects of potential danger. Examples of simple changes include installing automatic shut-off timers on appliances such as the toaster oven. Replace the overhead microwave oven with a countertop model. Remove tripping hazards and improve household lighting. Adjust the thermostat on the hot water heater to a lower temperature. Install handrails in the bathroom. Use safety locks on the cabinets that contain toxic cleaning supplies. Remove locks to prevent your loved-one from becoming entrapped in the bathroom or bedroom.
Another approach to creating a dementia-safe home is to learn about the new assistive technologies that help disabled people live at home for as long as is possible. Smart phone apps as well as televideo and other kinds of monitoring systems can let you know if your loved-one is as active as expected, has left a certain area, or if an appliance has not been turned on or off. There are smart phone apps that can remind your loved-one to take his or medication, give verbal instructions on how to use an appliance, find misplaced items, as well as keep track of day and time.
Good intentions aside, creating a dementia-friendly home for your loved-one takes insight and experience. Your internet browser and the key words -- home, safety, assessment, and dementia--will link you to many excellent on-line resources.
Another option is to have an eldercare home safety consultant inspect your loved-one’s home. Taking into consideration your loved-one’s capabilities, he or she will inform you of needed improvements. The safety consultant can also suggest where to buy home-safety equipment and, if need be, people to install such things as bathroom handrails. Use your internet browser and the key words--eldercare home safety consultant--plus the location where you loved-one lives to find locally-conveniently home safety services.
A dementia-friendly home is one that respects your loved-one’s dignity, while at the same time, and an illusion of independence.
Janet Yagoda Shagam, PhD, is a freelance medical and science writer and the author of “An Unintended Journey: A Caregiver's Guide to Dementia.” Available through Amazon.
The opinions expressed by contributing authors are not necessarily the opinions of the Dementia Society, Inc. We do not endorse nor guarantee products, comments, suggestions, links, or other forms of content contained within blog posts- that have been provided to us with permission, or otherwise. Dementia Society does not provide medical advice, please consult your doctor. www.DementiaSociety.org
Music is incredibly important for enhancing brain development. Numerous sources, including Time Magazine, have published articles extolling the value of learning to play an instrument, and how it can improve academic achievement, among other cognitive skills.
The key is actively engaging in the instrument. When we look at our ability to excel at mathematics and develop psychomotor skills and manual dexterity, people who play music are simply better at these things than people who don’t.
Learning to play involves learning to read music, which is highly analytical and mathematical in nature. Playing the instrument involves motor neurons and many areas of the brain in the process as you learn to perform smoothly. Remembering the song, the arrangements, and the changes in tempo also taps into memory and cognitive ability.
There are also ‘brain balancing’ benefits through right-brain, left-brain stimulation. Playing music (or, even singing) with other people or in a band also improves interpersonal skills and team building.
A professional drummer, after having participated in a brain training program here in 2014, signed a contract with a major country music band because his drumming skills had so dramatically improved. His improved mathematical skills, focus, and attention, as well as his improved ability to use his left (non-dominant) hand, allowed him to follow his dream.
The benefits of music also extend to perseverance; sticking to something worthwhile over time. Coordination, reading and comprehension skills, stress relief, and responsibility (i.e. taking care of your instruments) are all powerful ‘side-effects’ of playing music. Self-expression can also be improved. There are some that struggle with their ability to communicate through words, and music can be their vehicle for communication.
Some woodwind and brass instruments will help improve your breathing and oxygen levels. Even if you’ve never played an instrument before, it’s never too late to learn.
Contributor Author: Dr. Michael Trayford is a Board Certified Chiropractic Neurologist and Founder of APEX Brain Centers in Asheville, NC. For more information, please visit www.ApexBrainCenters.com/memory.
The opinions expressed by contributing authors are not necessarily the opinions of the Dementia Society, Inc. We do not endorse nor guarantee products, comments, suggestions, links, or other forms of content contained within blog posts- that have been provided to us with permission, or otherwise. Dementia Society does not provide medical advice, please consult your doctor. www.DementiaSociety.org
On the surface, the idea of making your bed might seem mundane. However, there are significant benefits to making your bed each morning. Many successful organizations, including the military and Psychology Today, have looked at the benefits that making your bed has for the brain.
It’s something that a lot of people often leave behind. You wake up, the room is dark, you take a quick shower, and go about your day. Then you come home at night and you see a big pile of blankets and sheets right in the middle of the bed and you accept that it still needs to be made. Sometimes it can even be a little bit stressful to not have your bed made when all you want to do is go to sleep.
There is mounting evidence to support the fact that making the bed in the morning contributes towards making a person happier and more successful. A recent online survey of 68,000 people, which is a fairly substantial base of people, found that 59% of people don’t make their beds and 27% do. The remaining 12% were people that have someone else, like a housekeeper, make their bed for them.
They also found that 71% of the bed makers consider themselves to be generally happy with their lives. 62% of non-bed makers admitted to being generally unhappy. Of course these results can vary by the life circumstances of the individual. It can extend to their job satisfaction, owning a home, exercising regularly, proper diet, feeling well rested. These things are all associated with people that fix their beds every day.
There is basis behind fixing your bed each morning. What happens is you wake up and right away you’re training your brain to do a task and attend to an activity that makes you feel good. As a result, you start your day with a sense of accomplishment. This sets the tone for the rest of your day and carries over to completing other tasks. It is the start of the snow ball effect that encourages you to keep a proactive attitude throughout the rest of your day.
When you stop and think about it, it only takes a couple of minutes in the morning to stop and make your bed. Start developing the habit, stick with it, and see what happens. I guarantee, it will help to start your day off on the right foot, because it’s the little things that make a difference.
Contributor Author: Dr. Michael
Trayford is a Board Certified Chiropractic Neurologist and Founder of APEX
Brain Centers in Asheville, NC. For more information, please visit www.ApexBrainCenters.com/memory.
The opinions expressed by
contributing authors are not necessarily the opinions of the Dementia Society,
Inc. We do not endorse nor guarantee products, comments, suggestions, links, or
other forms of content contained within blog posts- that have been provided to
us with permission, or otherwise. Dementia Society does not provide medical
advice, please consult your doctor. www.DementiaSociety.org
Late stage Dementia can create an inability retell certain personal and family histories. Dementia might make long-held treasured memories slow and difficult to retrieve, or they morph into something different than how you remember them.
Research shows that people who have a terminal illness, desire opportunities to give as well as to receive. Compiling a family’s history through recordings and other activities is a gift the person who has dementia can give to his or her family.
Together, family members and their loved-one can explore the treasure trove of stored photographs and other memorabilia. With or without the assistance of a professional videographer, audio and video recordings give another perspective about the people and events that molded your loved-one’s life and perhaps influenced yours as well.
Before getting started, it is important to consider the permanence and availability of electronically-stored photographs and audio and video recordings. Floppy discs and hard discs have been obsolete for many years. Compact discs (CDs) and hard drives are quickly becoming phased out - and there is no reason to assume that cloud computing will last forever.
Probably the best solution, in addition to electronic storage, is to make hard (paper) copies of photographs, scanned memorabilia, and transcripts of audio recordings. With the help of online self-publishing services you can design a beautiful book that contains selected images, transcripts and commentary.
Some ideas:
1. Video record your loved-one as he or she tours their home or another meaningful location. Ask “tell me about questions” to get the stories associated with framed photographs, a chipped and repaired vase, or a lovely rose garden. Encourage further discussion by asking logical follow-up questions. And above all – listen!!
2. Record your loved one as he or she recalls various events such as a particularly exciting fishing trip, your birth, or having fought in the Vietnam War.
3. Create a memory box that contains small objects plus a few sentences that describes the significance of each item. Have your loved-one write memory “tweets” on slips of paper. Memory Tweets might be something like “Make my steaks medium rare and my eggs over-easy, “or “I remember the day you were born. The sun was shining and I was the happiest person alive.”
Janet Yagoda
Shagam, PhD, is a freelance medical and science writer and the author of “An
Unintended Journey: A Caregiver's Guide to Dementia.” Available through Amazon.
The opinions
expressed by contributing authors are not necessarily the opinions of the
Dementia Society, Inc. We do not endorse nor guarantee products, comments,
suggestions, links, or other forms of content contained within blog posts- that
have been provided to us with permission, or otherwise. Dementia Society does
not provide medical advice, please consult your doctor. www.DementiaSociety.org
Notes:
1. KE Steinhauser, et. al. “In Search of a Good Death: Observations of Patients, Families, and Providers,” http://www.eutanasia.ws/hemeroteca/t377.pdf (accessed May 2, 2016)
Many of us, when unable to answer simple questions about the medications we take, promise ourselves to make a list before our next appointment. We know it’s important, but we never seem to get around to doing so. Besides, we are quite sure our prescription history is already a part of our medical history file.
However, your doctor may not know about the prescriptions you have received from other clinicians, or if you take dietary supplements such as vitamins or alternative medicine herbals such as echinacea. Conversely, an emergency room doctor or another clinician may not easy access to your medical records.
Keeping a current record of all the medications your loved-one takes is especially important when dementia is part of the equation. People who have dementia may see physicians that, in addition to his or her family doctor, include a geriatrician, a neurologist or a psychiatrist. It’s also quite likely the person who has dementia will require evaluation and treatment for conditions unrelated to his or her dementia diagnosis. In addition, with the progression of dementia, memory loss and other disabilities, makes it imperative that a family member or other caregiver have access to the medication list.
As a first step, make a complete list of the medications, supplements, and any herbals your loved-one may use. The list, in the form of a table, should include the following information: the name of the medication, the daily dosage, the prescription number, the pharmacy contact information, the prescribing clinician’s name and contact information, as well as the location of the medication in your loved-one’s place of residence. You might also want to jot down a few words about any side effects, you or other people may have noticed.
As a second step, and on a need-to-know basis, a hard copy of the compiled information should be available to other family members as well as to other caregivers responsible for your loved one’s care. Place another paper copy in a folder or a three-ring binder and leave it by the telephone. The folder, in addition to the medication list, should also contain other important names and numbers such as the contact information for your loved-one’s doctors, as well as for the local hospital, ambulance service and emergency room.
Create a file on your computer hard-drive that contains the all information you need to oversee your loved one’s care. Doing so will make it easy to update your loved-one’s medical records.
Do keep in mind that only certain people should have access to your loved-one’s Medicare, health insurance and credit card information as well as other types of confidential information. Doing so will help to prevent financial abuse and identity theft.
And while you are at it – this is a good time to finally get around to tabulating your medications and other types of personally important information!
Janet Yagoda
Shagam, PhD, is a freelance medical and science writer and the author of “An
Unintended Journey: A Caregiver's Guide to Dementia.” Available through Amazon.
The opinions
expressed by contributing authors are not necessarily the opinions of the
Dementia Society, Inc. We do not endorse nor guarantee products, comments,
suggestions, links, or other forms of content contained within blog posts- that
have been provided to us with permission, or otherwise. Dementia Society does
not provide medical advice, please consult your doctor. www.DementiaSociety.org
Memorizing names can be a serious challenge for some people. The world is rife with all kinds of tricks for putting faces with names and the like. Most of them have various degrees of success. In a certain light, saying someone’s name three times during your first meeting can essentially be a type of brain game.
Most brain games are simple exercises to help your brain work better. Saying someone’s name three times is as much about memorization as it is about developing conversational skills and working on associations.
I must admit that I’m not the best when it comes to remembering names. I’ve tried a lot of different tips and tricks over the years and very few of them ever really helped.
Saying someone’s name three times is a simple brain games you can do when you meet people (and they will never know it). The goal is to be subtle about it. You don’t want to shake someone’s hand and simply rattle off their name three times.
What you want to do when you first meet somebody: at the first handshake you want to repeat their name. For example, if I was meeting someone named Jason for the first time I would say, “Hello Jason, how are you doing?”
As the introduction and conversation flows naturally, I follow up with opportunities. “So tell me Jason, where do you live?” So, at this point I’ve already said his name twice. My brain is getting used to that and it’s associating that person’s face, his demeanor and everything in that environment at that particular time.
Within the next minute or so, create another opportunity to use their name again. Something along the lines of “So Jason, how many kids do you have?”
Not only are you repeating their name to put it into your memory, but you’re also creating associations that are relevant to them (i.e. where they live and how many kids they have).
Of course, there are a lot of different topics you could touch on. Family, hobbies, where they live, or what they do for a living are all common topics that help you learn more about them and create memorable associations that will stick in your mind the next time you meet them.
With regular practice, I think you’ll find that you can get to know a lot about people in a relatively short period of time. This is especially helpful if you’re involved in any kind of networking or social groups, where you’re trying to learn as much as you can about someone in a short period of time.
The key is to drop their name into the conversation. As you say the name, really try to emphasize your focus on their face or their demeanor. This could also include finding a similarity to someone you know that has the same name.
Contributor Author: Dr. Michael
Trayford is a Board Certified Chiropractic Neurologist and Founder of APEX
Brain Centers in Asheville, NC. For more information, please visit www.ApexBrainCenters.com/memory.
The opinions expressed by
contributing authors are not necessarily the opinions of the Dementia Society,
Inc. We do not endorse nor guarantee products, comments, suggestions, links, or
other forms of content contained within blog posts- that have been provided to
us with permission, or otherwise. Dementia Society does not provide medical
advice, please consult your doctor. www.DementiaSociety.org
When it comes to sleep, establishing a routine is critical. Sleep-wake cycles are for the brain what your transmission is for your car. Further, sleep issues are often associated with dementia and may very well be a catalyst for dementia onset and severity.
In this day and age a lot of people are simply going to bed whenever they crash or whenever their kids or life demands allow them to crash. When they wake up, it’s rarely of their own accord. Instead they tend to wake up to loud alarm clocks blaring at them, somebody else waking them up or something else like the dog jumping on the bed.
Sleep routines are critically important for brain function and it can be as simple as setting a time to go to bed and a time to wake up, then sticking with it to make it a part of your regular routine. Establishing a routine helps your body find homeostasis with hormone production, regulating blood pressure, as well as other things like the glymphatic system which removes toxins from the brain while you sleep.
This is often easier said than done. Family life, career demands, pets and a lot of other distractions can make it challenging to establish a set sleep routine.
There’s no magic number for the number of hours you need to get each night, although 7-9 hours is a good rule of thumb. The brain needs a good solid two to three deep sleep cycles per night and you can’t do that if you’re only getting three or four hours of sleep per night.
The key is to listen to your body. Ideally you want to establish a sleep routine where you’re falling asleep easily at a set time and when you wake up in the morning you feel energized, alert and ready to face the day.
Some people might only need six hours of sleep while other people might need eight or even ten hours! There are some people that meditate quite regularly and the deep state training involved in the process means they may only require five or so hours of sleep each night.
Sleep science is constantly changing as research reveals more and more of the positive benefits of sleep and how to incorporate a positive sleep routine in your daily life. What it boils down to is the routine that is best for you, your body and what makes you feel the most rested.
Contributor Author: Dr. Michael
Trayford is a Board Certified Chiropractic Neurologist and Founder of APEX
Brain Centers in Asheville, NC. For more information, please visit www.ApexBrainCenters.com/memory.
The opinions expressed by
contributing authors are not necessarily the opinions of the Dementia Society,
Inc. We do not endorse nor guarantee products, comments, suggestions, links, or
other forms of content contained within blog posts- that have been provided to
us with permission, or otherwise. Dementia Society does not provide medical
advice, please consult your doctor. www.DementiaSociety.org
