Tips for Dementia Caregivers: Check Out My Interview with eCareDiary; FOX News Interview; and Guest Post on Popular New Zealand blog

Radio Interview with eCareDiary

Join Susan Baida of eCareDiary and me for a live, 30-min. interview about my book "Inside the Dementia Epidemic: A Daughter's Memoir" tomorrow, Tues, Nov. 20th at 2:00 EST. Call in with questions!

We'll talk about:

• Why I describe my caregiving journey with my mother as more of a "long hello" than a "long good-bye," as Alzheimer's caregiving is often described;
• How we can challenge the stereotypes and stigma of dementia:
• "Care partnerships" and "care circles"
• Some of the challenges of providing care in different settings, from home care to assisted living, rehab, "memory care," and a nursing home;
• Cutting-edge movements in changing the "culture" of elder care;
• Some things I would do differently as a caregiver if I were to do it all again

The link: http://www.ecarediary.com/RadioBlogs.aspx?Type=0

FOX News Report on National Family Caregivers Month (and my book)

I'm happy to report that FOX News covered a book reading I did in Binghamton, NY. Here's the short (51 second) piece they did on my book, National Family Caregivers Month, and the importance of finding support as a caregiver. www.wicz.com/news/video.asp?video=11-17-12care.flv&zone=News

"A Family Caregiver Shares an Inside Look at Dementia Care"
My Guest Post on Kiwiblog, a Popular New Zealand Blog

If we are unable to care for that family member or friend at home, it’s important to know what to look for in a dementia care facility, and how to distinguish assisted living from “memory care” and nursing homes. In this post I share my personal experience as a caregiver for my mother in five different settings, each with its own distinct level and quality of dementia care.

The link:  http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2012/11/guest_post_martha_stettinius_on_dementia.html

Short Radio Interview: Advocating for Your Loved One in a Facility; Challenging the Stereotypes of Alzheimer's Disease

This past Saturday I was interviewed on the radio show "Journey Through Aging" with Joel Wrobbel, the Marketing Director at Westminster-Thurber Community in Columbus, Ohio, and an Eden Alternative Associate. We're both passionate about culture change in elder care, and we talked about a number of topics in 2 very short segments:

Part I (12 min.): How to Advocate for Your Loved One in a Facility; Lessons I learned about transitions in care; and How "Inside the Dementia Epidemic: A Daughter's Memoir" is different from other caregiving memoirs

Part II (9 min.):  Seeing Alzheimer's differently, not as a "Long good-bye" but  as a "Long Hello"; Challenging the stigma of dementia; Key advice for new caregivers

Click on the links above to listen to the mp3 recordings. 

Overcoming the Stigma of Dementia; and Alzheimer's as a "Long Hello"

This past week I was fortunate to be interviewed by Lori La Bey of Alzheimer's Speaks Radio, who was just named "Number 1 Online Influencer in Alzheimer's Disease" by ShareCareNow (Congratulations, Lori!). We talked about

• How we can overcome the stigma and stereotypes of dementia; 
• Why I learned to see Alzheimer's differently, not as a "long good-bye" but as a "long hello";
• How, as women, we often feel like we should be "superwomen" and take on all the tasks of caregiving ourselves while balancing children, marriage, and work
• How a "care partnership" is different than "caregiving," and why it's important; and
• What a "care circle" is and how we can build networks to both support us as caregivers and to share caregiving tasks with family, friends, and neighbors

Listen to the interview here (mp3).

My Debut Blog Post: An Inspiring Model of Dementia Care at Lakeview Ranch

Today I'd like to share with you a video about the kind of place I wish my mother, Judy, could have lived in these past 7 years that I've been her caregiver. My mother is 80, living in a nursing home with advanced dementia (vascular and probable Alzheimer's disease). Since she first moved into my home with me, my husband and 2 children in 2005, she's also lived in a conventional assisted living facility that had no real support for people with dementia, then a rehab center when she fractured her pelvis, where she was pretty much left on her own between her physical therapy sessions. She then lived in a private-pay "memory care" facility where she enjoyed 2 1/2 years of specialized dementia care and lovely, attentive staff, until she ran out of money and needed more care than they could provide.

This video is about a home in Minnesota for people with dementia called Lakeview Ranch, started by Judy Berry, left, a woman whose mother had dementia years ago and was bounced from facility to facility because of her "aggressive" behavior. Judy invested her savings into a home where people with middle- and end-stage dementia could continue to enjoy life each day despite the ravages of the disease, a place where the staff would know how to communicate with the residents and treat them as fully human, not "shells" of their former selves. Now she has two homes with 85 staff trained to provide person-centered dementia care.

But how do people afford this kind of care? Judy did not want to limit her vision of dementia care only to people with lots of savings, so she started the Dementia Care Foundation, a MN non-profit 501c3 to provide scholarship funding.

My mother lived in a memory care facility similar to the Lakeview Ranch model, but it was not nearly as lively or full of joy. The staff at the Lakeview Ranch seem much happier, too. Lakeview Ranch takes dementia care to a whole new level.

The video gets off to a slow start for the first minute or so, with a rather ominous-sounding narrator, but hang in there, because it's truly inspiring. Here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQGaEceKXng&list=UU_4MvaAKoD-FSnSV0BxRa3Q&index=3&feature=plcp

Please post your comments or questions below.  Thank you!

Martha Stettinius