5 Online Dementia-Help Programs You Can Access From Home

Now more than ever, accessing helpful Dementia resources from home is essential. With an internet connection, computer, and proverbial click of a button, you can discover many free and low-cost tools.

We’ve rounded up our top five favorite Dementia help trainings and video libraries designed to inform and comfort people living with Dementia and their caregivers. Discover more about them below, including what you’ll learn, the cost (if any), and how to watch.

(1) UCLA Caregiver Training Videos

This online dementia help video library by UCLA is geared for caregivers of people living with dementia. It covers a range of helpful topics that can make it easier to respond to common behaviors and scenarios. Each video comes with a written narrative featuring expert explanations and recommended caregiver responses.

What you’ll learn: This comprehensive Dementia help video library walks you through everyday challenges for people living with Dementia, such as alcohol abuse, driving, lack of eating and paranoid thoughts. Additional caregiver video topics include:

·         Bathing

·         Depression and apathy

·         Hallucinations

·         Home safety

·         Sleep disturbances

·         Taking medications

·         Repetitive behaviors

Cost: Free

How to watch: Browse UCLA’s online video library and select your desired topic. Most videos are available with multi-language subtitles, and English and Spanish audio.

(2) Morningside Ministries Caregiver Training Videos

Morningside Ministries is a San Antonio-based non-profit senior care organization dedicated to “caring for those who cared for us.” They provide care for more than 800 residents in assisted living, memory care, rehabilitation, retirement, and skilled nursing care. 

They’ve produced over 300 caregiver training videos since 2007, demonstrating its commitment to deliver quality and consistent resources.

What you’ll learn: Morningside Ministries features an extensive Dementia help video library on various caregiving topics ranging from finding elder care and combatting loneliness to music therapy and the latest Alzheimer’s research. 

The video, "The Difference Between Dementias," is particularly beneficial to help caregivers understand the top four types of dementia.

Cost: Free

How to watch: Browse the Morningside Ministries video library to explore featured and other dementia help videos by topic.

(3) Living with Dementia Five-Week Online Course

Johns Hopkins School of Nursing offers a free, five-week online Dementia help course on living with Dementia. It’s geared for health professionals and students, people living with Dementia, friends and family caregivers, and others interested in Dementia and quality care.

The course’s goal is to explore the global challenge of living with Dementia for individuals, their families, communities, and society.

What you’ll learn: Each of the five weeks in the course syllabus includes video segments and structured exercises and activities covering:

·         Week 1: The Brain
·         Week 2: The Person
·         Week 3: The Home and Family Environment
·         Week 4: The Caregiving Community
·         Week 5: Social and Policy Changes

Cost: Free to people who want access to the materials without earning a certificate. The fee is $49 for those who would like to earn a certificate upon course completion.

How to watch: Learn more about the dementia help course on the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing website and enroll at Coursera.org to access the videos.

(4) The Dementia Action Plan Workshop

Presented by founder and nationally recognized spokesperson, Kevin Jameson, this approximately one-hour Dementia help video is a recorded live talk filmed with a studio audience at the Philadelphia PBS® station affiliate, WHYY-TV.

What you’ll learn: This engaging Dementia help seminar covers what to know when dealing with Dementia, including straightforward and empowering steps for navigating life as a caregiver or the person living with Dementia.

Cost: Normally a $9.95 mission-related donation, but please be our special guest and use promo code "FREE" to watch at no cost.

How to watch: Click here to access this on-demand Dementia care planning workshop or contact us to request a free DVD.

(5) Dementia Unplugged ™ Webinars

Dementia Unplugged is a monthly educational and conversational webinar developed in cooperation with Jeannine Forrest, Ph.D., R.N. 

It offers dementia help and support for caregivers of people living with Dementia.

What you’ll learn: Covering topics such as housing and living options, caregiver grief, meaningful activities in the home, agitation triggers, and responding to hallucinations and delusions, Dementia Unplugged is a well-rounded Dementia help forum where audience participation is encouraged.

Cost: Free

How to watch: Register to access the monthly sessions via Zoom on the first Mondays of every month at 10 am CST.

Beyond the Dementia help videos and trainings featured on this list, you can find dozens of helpful dementia videos available on our YouTube channel at no cost. We also, invite you to browse our extensive collection of media on our website, including feature films and documentaries for caregivers and people living with dementia to enjoy from the comfort and safety of your home.

Never Underestimate the Power of Hope

When we talk about the "C-word" (cancer), or the "D-word" (Dementia), it often seems difficult to include the concept of HOPE within our conversations.

Both conditions, while very different, take a similarly tremendous physical and mental toll, both on the individual and the family. Yet, the psychological benefits of hope can go a long way. Hope can improve our mood, outlook, and the way we partner with a person living with Dementia. 

According to a 2010 study, the same is true for cancer patients. In the study, women with breast cancer demonstrated that hope is an essential factor for coping and reducing the psychological distress of cancer treatment. The research shows that lower levels of hope were tied to the patient’s lower satisfaction with life. It also showed that hope intervenes and reconciles the relationship between distress and health status. In other words, the association between anxiety and disease was no longer as significant with hope at their side. Hope created an opportunity to look at the situation through a more hopeful lens, in the same way in which we talk about a glass of water being half full or half empty. It all depends on you.

Having hope at your side is extremely valuable when dealing with Dementia, as well. As advocates and educators, we are poised to help individuals, families, and medical professionals become “Dementia-aware.” In doing so, these newly educated advocates can provide the kind of compassionate and fulfilling care a person living with Dementia needs and caregiver desires.

As we become more Dementia-aware, we experience more reasons for hope and find that nuggets of inspiration are all around us if we look. When we present our talks and workshops across the country, there's no need to hammer the point that Dementia is stubborn and progressive. We get that. But instead, we focus on the simple steps that each of us can aspire to ascend: we can rise to the occasion; we can change our outlook; we can alter our perspective to discover the smallest day-to-day accomplishments ... and therefore, celebrate! 

When we do, we might just experience the joy and happiness that we had lacked in our journey up until that moment. That’s the goal: unlocking our abilities to make meaningful connections and uplifting moments, by approaching Dementia in a new light. As we do, we can discover greater hope within ourselves and create new hope with others!

Contributors: Laura Wayman, “The Dementia Whisperer,” an internationally recognized Dementia care expert who offers professional caregiver training services to providers and families, along with Kevin Jameson, DrHC.

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 the content contained within blog posts that have been provided to us with permission, or otherwise. Dementia Society of America does not provide medical advice. Please consult your doctor.

Curing Disease: More Insight Instead of Mere Effort

Curing disease correlates with insight, not blind effort. There is an eternal trade-off between insight and effort. If we think carefully, understand the problem, and plan, then effort is minimized. If (as too often happens) we think carelessly, misunderstand the problem, and rely on hope instead of planning, then effort is not only maximized, but is usually a complete waste. Lacking insight, we foolishly flush both money and effort down the drain. In the case of clinical trials for Alzheimer’s disease – and in fact, all age-related diseases – this is precisely the case.

The major problem is a naïve complaisance that we already understand aging pathology. If there was a single concept that is key to all of aging, it is the notion that everything in our organs, in our tissues, and in our cells is dynamically and actively in flux, rather than being a set of organs, tissues, cells, and molecules that statically and passively deteriorate. Aging isn’t just entropy; aging is entropy with insufficient biological response. Senescent cells no longer keep up with entropy, while young cells manage entropy quite handily. At the tissue level, the best example might be bone. We don’t form just bone and then leave it to the mercy of entropy, rather we continually recycle bony tissue throughout our lives – although more-and-more slowly as our osteocytes lose telomere length. This is equally true at the molecular level, for example the collagen and elastin molecules in our skin. We don’t finish forming collagen and elastin in our youth and then leave it to the vagaries of entropy, rather we continually recycle collagen and elastin molecules throughout our lives, although more-and-more slowly as our skin cells lose telomere length. Aging is not a process in which a fixed amount of bone, collagen, or elastin gradually erodes, denatures, or becomes damaged. Rather, aging is a process in which the rate of recycling of bone, collagen, or elastin gradually slows down as our shortening telomeres alter gene expression, slowing the rate of molecular turnover, and allowing damage to get ahead of the game. We don’t age because we are damaged, we age because cells with shortening telomeres no longer keep up with the damage.

The same is true not only of biological aging as a general process, but equally true of every age-related disease specifically. Vascular disease is not a disease in which our arteries are a static tissue that gradually gives way to an erosive entropy, but an active and dynamic set of cells that gradually slow their turnover of critical cellular components, culminating in the failure of endothelial cell function, the increasing pathology of the subendothelial layer, and the clinical outcomes of myocardial infarction, stroke, and a dozen other medical problems. Merely treating cholesterol, blood pressure, and hundreds of other specific pathological findings does nothing to reset the epigenetic changes that lie upstream and that cause those myriad changes. Small wonder that we fail to change the course of arterial disease if our only interventions are merely “stents and statins”.

Nor is Alzheimer’s a disease in which beta amyloid and tau proteins passively accumulate over time as they become denatured, resulting in neuronal death and cognitive failure. Alzheimer’s is a disease in which the turnover – the binding, the uptake, the degradation, and the replacement – of key molecules gradually slows down with telomere shortening, culminating in the failure of both glial cell and neuron function, the accumulation of plaques and tangles, and ending finally in a profound human tragedy. The cause is the change in gene expression, not the more obvious plaques and tangles.

Our lack of insight, even when we exert Herculean efforts – enormous clinical trials, immense amounts of funding, and years of work – is striking for a complete failure of every clinical trial aimed at Alzheimer’s disease. Naively, we target beta amyloid, tau proteins, phosphodiesterase, immune responses, and growth factors, without ever understanding the subtle upstream causes of these obvious downstream effects. Aging, aging diseases, and especially Alzheimer’s disease are not amenable to mere well-intended efforts. Without insight, our funding, our time, and our exertions are useless. Worse yet, that same funding time, and exertion could be used quite effectively, if used intelligently. If our target is to cure the diseases of aging, then we don’t need more effort, but more thought. However well-intentioned, however much investment, however many grants, and however many clinical trials, all will be wasted unless we understand the aging process. Aging is not a passive accumulation of damage, but an active process in which damage accumulates because cells change their patterns of gene expression, patterns which can be reset. Curing Alzheimer’s requires insight and intelligence, not naive hope and wasted effort.

#alzheimers #dementia #telomerase #research

Contributing Author: Dr. Michael Fossel earned both his PhD and MD from Stanford University, where he taught neurobiology and research methods. Winner of a National Science Foundation fellowship, he was a clinical professor of medicine for almost three decades, the executive director of the American Aging Association, and the founding editor of Rejuvenation Research. In 1996, he wrote the first book on the telomerase theory of aging, Reversing Human Aging, describing the medical aspects of extending human telomeres, reversing aging, and curing age-related disease. In 2004, he authored the magisterial academic textbook, Cells, Aging, and Human Disease, and in 2011, he coauthored The Immortality Edge, a bestselling discussion of the potential for extending the human lifespan. He currently teaches The Biology of Aging at Grand Valley State University.

The world's foremost expert on the clinical use of telomerase for age-related diseases, Michael has lectured at the National Institute for Health and the Smithsonian Institute, and continues to lecture at universities, institutes, and conferences throughout the world. He has appeared on Good Morning America, ABC 20/20, NBC Extra, Fox Network, CNN, BBC, Discovery Channel, and regularly on NPR. He is currently working to bring telomerase to human trials for Alzheimer’s disease.

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

Dementia is Not a Specific Disease

Many people are under the impression that Alzheimer Disease (AD) and dementia are different conditions. In fact, AD is a type of dementia. In addition to AD, dementia also includes types such as vascular dementia, frontotemporal dementia, and dementia with Lewy bodies. 

Many people, particularly those who are very old, have mixed dementia or dementia that is caused by more than one kind of brain disease.

AD is currently considered the most common kind of dementia. Researchers estimate that as many as 5.5 million people living in the United States have this type of dementia.*

Although scientists have found various genetic and environmental factors that may increase the likelihood of having AD, age is the most important risk factor.

In the United States, about 1 out of every 20 men and women between the ages of 65 and 74 have AD.* The frequency for this disease nearly doubles every five years beyond age 65. Researchers believe that nearly half of all people older than 85 may be in various stages of the disease.

Vascular dementia, accounting for 12 to 20 percent of all dementias, is the second most common age-related dementia.* Unlike the gradual progression of AD, the onset of vascular dementia symptoms are often abrupt and may occur when a heart attack or a stroke dramatically reduces blood flow to or through the brain.

Vascular dementia can also have a slow progression. This happens when the accumulative damage of transient ischemic attacks - often called TIAs - cause many small areas of brain damage and, eventually, noticeable symptoms. The descriptive name “multi-infarct dementia” is the term healthcare providers use to describe this kind of vascular dementia. Multi-infarct dementia is the most common type of vascular dementia.

Each type of dementia has specific signs and symptoms. For example, memory loss, confusion, and difficulty in performing what was once familiar and easy tasks are early symptoms of AD. In contrast, the early symptoms of frontotemporal lobe degeneration (FTD) are poor coordination, tremors, and difficulty in using and understanding written and spoken the language. Memory loss is another aspect of FTD but occurs much later in the course of the disease. Ultimately, however, memory loss is a symptom that all forms of dementia have in common.

Examples of other types of dementia include dementia resulting from Traumatic Brain Injury (TBD); Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome (WKS); Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus (NPH); Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE); Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), and others.

Janet Yagoda Shagam, Ph.D., 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 or guarantee products, comments, suggestions, links, or other forms of the 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

*https://www.alz.org/facts/downloads/facts_figures_2015.pdf (accessed May 5, 2016)