Winner of two 2021 IBPA Gold Benjamin Franklin Awards for Self Help and for Psychology. Dementia is an illness that causes no physical pain. But just ask anyone who cares about someone with Alzheimer's or another dementia if their heart isn't aching. The pain in dementia comes from feeling hopeless, alone, or disconnected from loved ones—but a broken relationship can be healed. This book is for family members and friends, for spouses, caregivers, and those who simply care. It outlines a path to a life with dementia that includes more life and less illness. With imagination, compassion, empathy, and quiet humor, the real-life stories in Dementia Together show you how to build a healthy dementia relationship. Because there are ways to communicate that result in greater capacity to receive as well as to provide both warm connection and practical collaboration. Living with dementia gives everyone an opportunity to grow their hearts bigger. This book shows you how.
Christine Bryden was a top civil servant and single mother of three children when she was diagnosed with dementia at the age of 46. Dancing with Dementia is a vivid account of her experiences of living with dementia, exploring the effects of memory problems, loss of independence, difficulties in communication and the exhaustion of coping with simple tasks. She describes how, with the support of her husband Paul, she continues to lead an active life nevertheless, and explains how professionals and carers can help. This book is a thoughtful exploration of how dementia challenges our ideas of personal identity and of the process of self-discovery it can bring about.
There is a friendship revolution happening in dementia care across the country. Since the birth of the Respite Ministry in 2012 at a southern church in Montgomery, Alabama, their outreach to friends and neighbors living with dementia has been innovative and all welcoming. Originally a faith-born ministry, Respite's place in the community and now the world has been an open-arms embrace--a great welcoming to friends, neighbors, and strangers of any ethnicity or faith who are living with dementia of any variety. Respite is mainly staffed with volunteers. Director Daphne Johnston calls these volunteers the forerunners in dementia care the force that drives this friendship revolution. "In the Respite care environment everyone is a volunteer. Everyone needs help. Everyone is needy because he or she needs to either receive help or give help." Daphne Johnston knows that "Volunteers make a Respite community thrive in any locale. It is an adaptable model that can be tailored to your community and fit your resources and gifts. This book Reclaiming Joy Together is the current summary of what we at Respite have learned, become, and it explains our vision for the future. The model is now replicated in 17 other Respite programs with modifications for their own local neighborhood. Different names are chosen by each community, but the core values of volunteer Respite are all guided by one driving purpose: to come alongside others who need the help of neighbors and new friends." Daphne Johnston explains how this friendship revolution began: "My boss at the time and mentor Bishop Lawson Bryan asked me to create a business plan to establish a faith community at our church. He felt that people who have been worshipping and fellowshipping in their home church shouldn't have to be excluded when they developed any illness or even dementia. The vision originated with and was inspired by Lawson Bryan, and with his guidance and encouragement, I just started asking people to help. They got on board in a big way." As a result of Respite's individual story, the global narrative of dementia care began to change. "When people first hear the diagnosis of dementia, Alzheimer's or Parkinson's, they brace for what they assume will become an overwhelming tsunami--a flood of worry and work that will overtake and erode all normalcy and subsume a quality of life that can never be had again. That doesn't have to be true," Daphne asserts. "The diagnosis of dementia is like other kinds of diagnoses that something is now wrong that needs to be tended. We simply need to provide a kind of care tailored to the needs of people with memory or reasoning impairment, which vary significantly depending upon the person." About Daphne Johnston: After serving in long-term care administration for 15 years, Daphne Johnston accepted the challenge in 2012 at the First United Methodist Church to develop the Respite Ministry for families affected by Alzheimer's in the tri-county area of Montgomery, Alabama. Since then, Daphne has helped to plant the volunteer-driven model in 17 different program sites in AL, FL, and GA. Her mission is to help individuals with dementia and their family members find purpose, dignity, and opportunity to serve their community while living with new life challenges. Daphne and her husband Frank make their home in Montgomery, Alabama and have two children: Bo and Kathleen. She is an avid reader and tennis player.
A writing couple searches for answers when Alzheimer's causes one of them to lose the place where stories come from — memory. At the age of fifty-three, Tony walks away from a life of journalism and into an unknown future. June is forty-eight, a writer and teacher, and over the following decade watches as her husband changes — in interests, goals, and behaviour — until Tony has a fall, ending the life they had known. A diagnosis is seven years away, yet the signs of Alzheimer’s are all around. A suitcase Tony packs for a trip is jammed with four umbrellas, a visual symbol of cognitive looping. But how far back do these signs go? The couple starts probing the past and finding answers. This is not an old person’s disease.
If you’re caring for a loved one with dementia, you know firsthand the challenge of providing care while maintaining your own well-being. Caring for a Loved One with Dementia offers a compassionate and effective mindfulness-based dementia care (MBDC) guide to help you reduce stress, stay balanced, and bring ease into your interactions with the person with dementia. In this book, you’ll learn how to approach caring with calm, centered presence; respond to your loved one with compassion; and maintain authentic communication, even in the absence of words. Most importantly, you’ll discover ways to manage the grief, anger, depression, and other emotions often associated with dementia care, so you can find strength and meaning in each moment you spend with your loved one.
From the award-winning journalist and author, a lyrical, raw and humane investigation of dementia that explores both the journeys of the people who live with the condition and those of their loved ones After a diagnosis of dementia, Nicci Gerrard’s father, John, continued to live life on his own terms, alongside the disease. But when an isolating hospital stay precipitated a dramatic turn for the worse, Gerrard, an award-winning journalist and author, recognized that it was not just the disease, but misguided protocol and harmful practices that cause such pain at the end of life. Gerrard was inspired to seek a better course for all who suffer because of the disease. The Last Ocean is Gerrard’s investigation into what dementia does to both the person who lives with the condition and to their caregivers. Dementia is now one of the leading causes of death in the West, and this necessary book will offer both comfort and a map to those walking through it. While she begins with her father’s long slip into forgetting, Gerrard expands to examine dementia writ large. Gerrard gives raw but literary shape both to the unimaginable loss of one’s own faculties, as well as to the pain of their loved ones. Her lens is unflinching, but Gerrard honors her subjects and finds the beauty and the humanity in their seemingly diminished states. In so doing, she examines the philosophy of what it means to have a self, as well as how we can offer dignity and peace to those who suffer with this terrible disease. Not only will it aid those walking with dementia patients, The Last Ocean will prompt all of us to think on the nature of a life well lived.
This picture book aims to raise awareness of the impact that dementia can have on an individual and their family in a child-friendly and supportive way. It is aimed at 4-11 year olds and has been inspired and informed by people with lived experiences of dementia. Through rhyme and engaging illustrations this book hopes to start conversations about dementia, in order to help relieve anxieties that children might have about someone close to them who may be living with dementia. The MY HAS series of books aims to help children to understand a range of long-term health conditions whilst promoting an inclusive and diverse society.
When a loved one has been diagnosed with dementia you might step into the new role of carer, helping your relative to remain safe, happy and as independent as possible. In this fully updated and revised edition, Dementia Essentials offers a realistic and reassuring guide to help you and the person affected navigate the complexities of dementia and Alzheimer’s, and face anything that these conditions might place your way. Written by real carers with first-hand experience, this book is now updated with the latest research coupled with essential advice, personal insights and helpful strategies, including: · Advice on medication and getting support from local health professionals · Ideas for encouraging independence, confidence and activity while reducing anxiety, aggression and confusion · Strategies for coping as a carer, helping you understand your emotions and feel more empowered · Guidance on how to prepare for the future, including revised legal and financial advice and tips on choosing a care home Positive and practical, Dementia Essentials will give you with everything you need to provide the best possible care for the person you are supporting.
The revolutionary how-to guidebook that details ways to make it easier to provide dementia home care for people experiencing Alzheimer's or dementia. Alzheimer's home care is possible! Dementia with Dignity explains the groundbreaking new approach: the DAWN Method(R), designed so families and caregivers can provide home care. It outlines practical tools and techniques to help your loved one feel happier and more comfortable so that you can postpone the expense of long-term care. In this book you'll learn: -The basic facts about Alzheimer's and dementia, plus the skills lost and those not lost; -How to recognize and respond to the emotions caused by Alzheimer's or dementia, and avoid dementia-related behaviors; -Tools for working with an impaired person's moods and changing sense of reality; -Home care techniques for dealing with hygiene, safety, nutrition and exercise issues; -A greater understanding and appreciation of what someone with Alzheimer's or dementia is experiencing, and how your home care can increase home their emotional wellbeing. Wouldn't dementia home care be easier if you could get on the same page as your loved one? When we understand what someone experiencing Alzheimer's or dementia is going through, we can truly help them enjoy more peace and security at home. This book will help you recognize the unmet emotional needs that are causing problems, giving you a better understanding and ability to address them. The good news about dementia is that home care is possible. There are infinitely more happy times and experiences to be shared together. Be a part of caring for, honoring, and upholding the life of someone you love by helping them experience Alzheimer's or dementia with dignity. Judy Cornish is the author of The Dementia Handbook-How to Provide Dementia Care at Home, founder of the Dementia & Alzheimer's Wellbeing Network(R) (DAWN), and creator of the DAWN Method. She is also a geriatric care manager and elder law attorney, member of the National Association of Elder Law Attorneys (NAELA) and the American Society on Aging (ASA).
