March 13, 2025 • 15 mins
According to the Alzheimer's Association, nearly 7 million Americans are living with Alzheimer's. By 2050, that number is expected to grow to 13 million.As Delaware's aging population is expected to grow, the need for memory care is also increasing.
On this episode, Dr. Steven Huege endowed chair of ChristianaCare's Swank Center for Memory Care reveals how a multidisciplinary approach makes all the difference for patients and their families. You'll hear about the different conditions addressed by the Swank Center, their participation in the innovative GUIDE Program to assist caregivers, and what the future holds for memory care in terms of medications and cutting-edge treatments. If you're concerned about memory changes in yourself or a loved one, this is an episode not to be missed.
Steven Huege, M.D., MSEd is The Swank Foundation Endowed Chair in Memory Care and Geriatrics at ChristianaCare. He brings over two decades of experience to his clinical practice as a compassionate, dedicated board-certified geriatric psychiatrist. Dr. Huege sees older adults with behavioral and psychiatric symptoms related to neurocognitive disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, Lewy Body Dementia, and FTD.
Links
- ChristianaCare Swank Center for Memory Care
- ChristianaCare News: Swank Center for Memory Care Will Test Groundbreaking Dementia Care Model
- Alzheimer's Association Facts and Figures
- Alzheimer's Association Delaware Statistics
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
The caregiver or family member becomes almost as
much the patient as the patientthemselves.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
You're listening to For the Love of Health, a
podcast about delivering careand creating health, brought to
you by Christiana Care.
And now here are your hosts.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Hello everyone, I'm Megan McGerman.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
And I'm Jason Tokarski.
Welcome to another episode ofFor the Love of Health brought
to you by Christiana Care.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
According to the Alzheimer's Association, nearly
7 million Americans are livingwith Alzheimer's.
By 2050, that number isexpected to grow to 13 million.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
As Delaware's aging population is expected to grow,
the need for memory care is alsoincreasing.
That's where today's guestcomes in.
Dr Stephen Hugie joins us today.
He's the endowed chair ofChristiana Care's Swank Center
for Memory Care.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Steve, thank you so much for being here today.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Oh, thank you for having me.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Steve.
The Alzheimer's Associationreports 22,000 people 65 and
older living with Alzheimer's inDelaware.
Talk to us about that number.
What does the memory carelandscape look like in our
region?
Speaker 1 (01:05):
This is such an important issue because, if you
look at that number, what thattranslates to is roughly 12% of
Delawareans over the age of 65who have Alzheimer's disease, so
almost 1 in 10.
The proportion of thepopulation that is over 65,
(01:27):
we're reaching an inflectionpoint where that proportion
that's over 65 is going toexceed the proportion that's
under 18.
And this is really unheard ofin history.
Really focusing on the care ofolder adults is going to become
an increasingly important partof our society.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
For people who are interested in the treatments
that you offer.
They're thinking memory care,they're probably thinking
Alzheimer's and dementia andthey may not know the difference
between the two.
So can you give us some detailabout what conditions you're
treating at Swank?
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Absolutely so.
That's often an importantdistinction.
So dementia, the way we thinkabout dementia is it's a broad
category or syndrome of acquiredcognitive impairment.
So what that means is that aperson was functioning at one
level of cognitive performanceand then, because of a medical
illness, suddenly start to haveproblems with cognition.
(02:17):
There's more than just memoryto cognition.
So the way I think aboutcognition is it's the way our
brain takes in information fromthe external world, processes it
and then allows us to interactwith the world in meaningful and
purposeful ways.
So memory is one facet of that,but there are other things like
visual, spatial abilities, whatwe call executive functioning,
(02:39):
all these different facets ofcognition.
So dementia as a syndrome ofacquired cognitive impairment.
Alzheimer's disease is oneparticular illness that causes
dementia, and there are lots ofother conditions that can cause
dementia.
For example, parkinson'sdisease can cause dementia.
(03:00):
There's a similar relatedcondition called Lewy body
dementia.
There's another conditioncalled frontotemporal dementia,
which tends to impact somewhatyounger patients, so patients
more in their late 50s, early60s.
We can see a lot of primarylanguage and behavioral
disturbances, whereas sort ofclassic kind of textbook
Alzheimer's disease begins moreas a disorder of short-term
memory loss, begins more as adisorder of short-term memory
(03:22):
loss, so problems recallingrecent events, and then it
eventually can spread to other.
As it does spread to otherparts of the brain, you can see
deficits in other areas as well.
So there's lots of conditionsthat can cause acquired memory
loss, and so that's one of thethings when patients come to
Swank is we do a very thorough,comprehensive assessment to
(03:44):
determine is this Alzheimer'sdisease or could this be some
other condition?
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Talk to us about the Swank Center for Memory Care
here at Christiana Care and whatmakes it such a special and
different program from what youmight find in other healthcare
systems around the country.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
When I came here, the thing that really impressed me
with our team and our programwas just how cohesive and
connected we all are.
The Swank Center is amultidisciplinary care team, so
we have specialists in a varietyof disciplines, including
geriatric psychiatry, which ismy personal background.
We have geriatricians, neurology, and we also have a number of
(04:23):
other staff who are social workteam or nursing staff who really
work cohesively together.
And I think one of the thingsthat patients who come to Swank
maybe don't realize, becauseit's somewhat behind the scenes,
is that you really have anentire team of professionals
that are taking care of you andyour family member, that are
(04:45):
collaborating together, reallysharing that expertise, because
I'm a big believer that no onediscipline has all the skill set
necessary to take care ofpatients and their families.
So it really is a team approachand I think that that's one of
the things that really makes ourprogram unique is that not only
do we have a multidisciplinaryteam, there's also great
(05:08):
communication, greatcoordination of care amongst our
teams.
Clinicians talk to each otherfrequently, we'll share cases,
we are state-of-the-art, butwe're also very focused and
centered in our community.
We have locations across thestate.
We're very committed to servingall of the state of Delaware
and the surrounding communities.
Part of our philosophy isreally meeting patients and
(05:31):
their families where they're at,understanding the unique needs
of each community that we serve.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
So you mentioned the need for multidisciplinary care
and how important and a bitunique that is in your program.
How does that show from apatient care perspective?
Speaker 1 (05:47):
That shows in that you have a broad array of
practitioners who are supportingyou.
If there are issues with fallsor frailty, for example, our
geriatricians have thatexpertise and really are
equipped to handle those kindsof issues.
If you have a patient, forexample, our geriatricians have
that expertise and really areequipped to handle those kinds
of issues.
If you have a patient, forexample, who has more
psychiatric or behavioraldisturbances, we have the
(06:08):
psychiatric expertise.
If there's concerns, is there apossible co-occurring movement
disorder or some otherneurological condition, we have
that expertise.
All of these disciplines thatcan approach the patient
together, but recognizing thatdifferent patients will have
different care needs, differentmedical needs.
And I think what sets us apartis that we're very intentional
(06:32):
about this at Swank is that wedon't want care that's siloed.
So it's really all disciplinesphysicians, nurse practitioners,
pas, social work, nursing allworking together.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
The Alzheimer's Association reports there's
31,000 family caregivers inDelaware bearing this burden of
helping deal with the diseasesof Alzheimer's and dementia.
What is SWANC doing, and whatshould really all memory centers
be doing, aside fromChristianaCare, to help those
caregivers?
Speaker 1 (07:02):
I think this is such an important part of really
comprehensive memory care isfocusing not just on the patient
but also on their caregiver'sunit.
It can be adult children, itcan be a spousal partner, it can
be other friends.
You know, again, we think ofsupportive caregivers as being
very broad.
There's different types offamilies for everybody, and so
(07:25):
one of the things we're reallyexcited about is that we are
participating in the CMSInnovation Guide program.
We're really excited to berolling that out in our
Wilmington location this summer.
Guide is a CMS innovationprogram that is centered on
providing care, support andresources to caregivers of
(07:48):
patients with living withdementia.
And I think what Guide does isit allows us and health systems
like Christiana to develop theinfrastructure and the staff
needed really to properly attendto the care needs of caregivers
, because one of the things wefind is that the caregiver or
(08:09):
family member becomes almost asmuch of the patient as the
patient themselves.
And so what Guide does is itcreates an infrastructure to
help support the caregiver andmeet them where they're at the
focus.
The center point of that is acare navigator, what we call
memory support partner, so thatis the point of contact for the
(08:32):
caregiver and the patient, wherethat person then is their
liaison to the rest of the SWANKguide team.
So what the memory supportpartner does and these are
community health workers whohave additional training and
expertise in dementia care anddementia symptom management
(08:54):
provide that initial point ofcontact, so somebody that the
caregiver can reach out to andsay you know, I'm having this
problem or I'm worried about myfamily member getting lost or
misplacing things.
Our memory support partner isthe initial point of contact.
And then let's say it's anissue that maybe they need a
social work question, then theycan guide the caregiver to the
(09:17):
social work, or maybe it's anursing question or maybe it has
to go up to our nursepractitioner or the physician
level.
But what you have is you haveone person who is sort of the
station master for your care.
So we're so excited about this.
I think that this for us, thisreally is the way that memory
care should be provided andwe're really excited to be part
(09:40):
of a program that provides thatinfrastructure for support.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Tell us what you're looking forward to the most in
terms of memory care, be itspecifically for the SWANC
program or, in general, for thefield that you're in.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
We have some new treatments that are coming on
board and this is a new class oftreatments that we're really
excited about.
For the past you know Igraduated roughly almost 20
years ago now and from that timetill very recently, there were
two classes of medications thatwere purely symptomatic, so they
didn't change the course of theillness.
(10:15):
They gave some people someimprovement.
But now we have a new class ofmedications that was recently
approved, within the past yearor two, that changed the rate of
illness.
Now these medications are quitenew and we're learning a lot
about them.
They're not for everybody,unfortunately.
(10:35):
There's really strictmonitoring and there's certain
criteria that we have to look atand there's certain criteria
that we have to look at.
These medications, whileholding great promise, they're
also only indicated for peoplewith very, very mild early
disease.
So again, really tremendouspromise.
(10:55):
I sort of think about if youimagine where the field of
cancer was maybe a generation ortwo ago.
I'm very hopeful about thefuture that we're going to
continue to develop even bettertreatments and treatments that
are more preventative in nature.
Expanding innovativeprogramming like Guide those are
some of the things that I'mreally excited about.
Also building the pipeline offolks to care for these patients
(11:20):
.
So I'm a geriatric psychiatrist.
If you look nationwide, there'sless than 50 geriatric
psychiatrists trained annually,and not all geriatric
psychiatrists focus exclusivelyon memory disorders.
So one thing that I think hasbeen a challenge for our field
has been recruiting talentedpeople into this field, and so
(11:41):
we're developing someinitiatives related to that.
We have a PA nurse practitionertraining program that we're
developing that we're reallyexcited about to help build this
pipeline.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
If someone is listening to this and isn't yet
involved in your program, but isseeing signs in a family member
that may be concerning, at whatpoint should they call you?
What are the warning signs?
Speaker 1 (12:03):
I mean, certainly I think an important thing is
making sure you have a goodrelationship with your primary
care provider, but where I tellfolks, where we start to become
concerned are is there a changein this person's level of
functioning.
So it's one thing if you'resomebody who you just never were
good with names and you're notgood with names, that's less
worrisome than you know what.
I used to never forget a faceand now I can't remember who
(12:26):
people are or if you're noticingdifficulty functioning in your
day-to-day environment.
This is where sometimes folkswho are still in the workforce
may notice more subtle deficitsbecause they're working there's
more intellectual demand thanmaybe somebody whose lifestyle
is much more pared down.
So things that we worry aboutare is this person having
(12:48):
difficulty in day-to-dayfunctioning?
Are they getting lost infamiliar places?
Are they misplacing thingsaround the house?
Often, are they missing bills,mismanaging medications?
Sometimes we also see folksfalling victim to scams and
things like that.
Again, that can happen, but isit happening frequently or
repeatedly?
(13:08):
The other thing that we oftenalso notice or that is when you
start to see changes inpersonality or behavior and
actually sometimes that's reallythe first indication that
something might be happening,that sometimes it's's more,
these behavioral psychiatricsymptoms, so things like
depression, severe anxiety, andeven include psychotic symptoms,
(13:29):
so like hallucinations,delusions, especially in
somebody who has never had thosekinds of symptoms before.
To me that would be a worrisomesign that you would want to get
somebody assessed through aprogram like ours at Swank.
I think an important take-homemessage is that you're not alone
in this, that this can feelvery isolating, and I know that
you know a lot of our patientshave also had other family
(13:52):
members who may be their ownparents or aunts or uncles or
siblings, and it can feel veryisolating.
And what we hope is thatthrough a comprehensive memory
care program like Swank, thatyou have a team that's
supporting you, that has theexpertise and really knows how
to be with you for this journey.
(14:14):
These illnesses, unfortunately,can progress over years.
If you look at the typicalcourse of Alzheimer's disease,
from initial onset of symptomsand diagnosis till end stage can
be a decade.
This is a long haul process andhaving the resources and
expertise of a comprehensiveprogram like SWANK can certainly
(14:34):
facilitate or help ease some ofthe difficulties and burdens
along that journey.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
Steve, thank you so much for your time today and
burdens along that journey.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Steve, thank you so much for your time today.
Oh, thank you for having me andjust the opportunity to share
about what we're doing at Swankand how we're serving our
community.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
We'll have more information on Christiana Care's
Swank Center for Memory Care inthe show notes for this episode
.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
And don't forget, you can keep up with For the Love
of Health on social media.
Just search at Christiana Careon your favorite platform.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
We'll be back in two weeks with another great
conversation.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Until then, thanks for joining us for the Love of
Health.
The caregiver or family member becomes almost as
much the patient as the patientthemselves.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
You're listening to For the Love of Health, a
podcast about delivering careand creating health, brought to
you by Christiana Care.
And now here are your hosts.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Hello everyone, I'm Megan McGerman.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
And I'm Jason Tokarski.
Welcome to another episode ofFor the Love of Health brought
to you by Christiana Care.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
According to the Alzheimer's Association, nearly
7 million Americans are livingwith Alzheimer's.
By 2050, that number isexpected to grow to 13 million.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
As Delaware's aging population is expected to grow,
the need for memory care is alsoincreasing.
That's where today's guestcomes in.
Dr Stephen Hugie joins us today.
He's the endowed chair ofChristiana Care's Swank Center
for Memory Care.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Steve, thank you so much for being here today.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Oh, thank you for having me.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Steve.
The Alzheimer's Associationreports 22,000 people 65 and
older living with Alzheimer's inDelaware.
Talk to us about that number.
What does the memory carelandscape look like in our
region?
Speaker 1 (01:05):
This is such an important issue because, if you
look at that number, what thattranslates to is roughly 12% of
Delawareans over the age of 65who have Alzheimer's disease, so
almost 1 in 10.
The proportion of thepopulation that is over 65,
(01:27):
we're reaching an inflectionpoint where that proportion
that's over 65 is going toexceed the proportion that's
under 18.
And this is really unheard ofin history.
Really focusing on the care ofolder adults is going to become
an increasingly important partof our society.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
For people who are interested in the treatments
that you offer.
They're thinking memory care,they're probably thinking
Alzheimer's and dementia andthey may not know the difference
between the two.
So can you give us some detailabout what conditions you're
treating at Swank?
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Absolutely so.
That's often an importantdistinction.
So dementia, the way we thinkabout dementia is it's a broad
category or syndrome of acquiredcognitive impairment.
So what that means is that aperson was functioning at one
level of cognitive performanceand then, because of a medical
illness, suddenly start to haveproblems with cognition.
(02:17):
There's more than just memoryto cognition.
So the way I think aboutcognition is it's the way our
brain takes in information fromthe external world, processes it
and then allows us to interactwith the world in meaningful and
purposeful ways.
So memory is one facet of that,but there are other things like
visual, spatial abilities, whatwe call executive functioning,
(02:39):
all these different facets ofcognition.
So dementia as a syndrome ofacquired cognitive impairment.
Alzheimer's disease is oneparticular illness that causes
dementia, and there are lots ofother conditions that can cause
dementia.
For example, parkinson'sdisease can cause dementia.
(03:00):
There's a similar relatedcondition called Lewy body
dementia.
There's another conditioncalled frontotemporal dementia,
which tends to impact somewhatyounger patients, so patients
more in their late 50s, early60s.
We can see a lot of primarylanguage and behavioral
disturbances, whereas sort ofclassic kind of textbook
Alzheimer's disease begins moreas a disorder of short-term
memory loss, begins more as adisorder of short-term memory
(03:22):
loss, so problems recallingrecent events, and then it
eventually can spread to other.
As it does spread to otherparts of the brain, you can see
deficits in other areas as well.
So there's lots of conditionsthat can cause acquired memory
loss, and so that's one of thethings when patients come to
Swank is we do a very thorough,comprehensive assessment to
(03:44):
determine is this Alzheimer'sdisease or could this be some
other condition?
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Talk to us about the Swank Center for Memory Care
here at Christiana Care and whatmakes it such a special and
different program from what youmight find in other healthcare
systems around the country.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
When I came here, the thing that really impressed me
with our team and our programwas just how cohesive and
connected we all are.
The Swank Center is amultidisciplinary care team, so
we have specialists in a varietyof disciplines, including
geriatric psychiatry, which ismy personal background.
We have geriatricians, neurology, and we also have a number of
(04:23):
other staff who are social workteam or nursing staff who really
work cohesively together.
And I think one of the thingsthat patients who come to Swank
maybe don't realize, becauseit's somewhat behind the scenes,
is that you really have anentire team of professionals
that are taking care of you andyour family member, that are
(04:45):
collaborating together, reallysharing that expertise, because
I'm a big believer that no onediscipline has all the skill set
necessary to take care ofpatients and their families.
So it really is a team approachand I think that that's one of
the things that really makes ourprogram unique is that not only
do we have a multidisciplinaryteam, there's also great
(05:08):
communication, greatcoordination of care amongst our
teams.
Clinicians talk to each otherfrequently, we'll share cases,
we are state-of-the-art, butwe're also very focused and
centered in our community.
We have locations across thestate.
We're very committed to servingall of the state of Delaware
and the surrounding communities.
Part of our philosophy isreally meeting patients and
(05:31):
their families where they're at,understanding the unique needs
of each community that we serve.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
So you mentioned the need for multidisciplinary care
and how important and a bitunique that is in your program.
How does that show from apatient care perspective?
Speaker 1 (05:47):
That shows in that you have a broad array of
practitioners who are supportingyou.
If there are issues with fallsor frailty, for example, our
geriatricians have thatexpertise and really are
equipped to handle those kindsof issues.
If you have a patient, forexample, our geriatricians have
that expertise and really areequipped to handle those kinds
of issues.
If you have a patient, forexample, who has more
psychiatric or behavioraldisturbances, we have the
(06:08):
psychiatric expertise.
If there's concerns, is there apossible co-occurring movement
disorder or some otherneurological condition, we have
that expertise.
All of these disciplines thatcan approach the patient
together, but recognizing thatdifferent patients will have
different care needs, differentmedical needs.
And I think what sets us apartis that we're very intentional
(06:32):
about this at Swank is that wedon't want care that's siloed.
So it's really all disciplinesphysicians, nurse practitioners,
pas, social work, nursing allworking together.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
The Alzheimer's Association reports there's
31,000 family caregivers inDelaware bearing this burden of
helping deal with the diseasesof Alzheimer's and dementia.
What is SWANC doing, and whatshould really all memory centers
be doing, aside fromChristianaCare, to help those
caregivers?
Speaker 1 (07:02):
I think this is such an important part of really
comprehensive memory care isfocusing not just on the patient
but also on their caregiver'sunit.
It can be adult children, itcan be a spousal partner, it can
be other friends.
You know, again, we think ofsupportive caregivers as being
very broad.
There's different types offamilies for everybody, and so
(07:25):
one of the things we're reallyexcited about is that we are
participating in the CMSInnovation Guide program.
We're really excited to berolling that out in our
Wilmington location this summer.
Guide is a CMS innovationprogram that is centered on
providing care, support andresources to caregivers of
(07:48):
patients with living withdementia.
And I think what Guide does isit allows us and health systems
like Christiana to develop theinfrastructure and the staff
needed really to properly attendto the care needs of caregivers
, because one of the things wefind is that the caregiver or
(08:09):
family member becomes almost asmuch of the patient as the
patient themselves.
And so what Guide does is itcreates an infrastructure to
help support the caregiver andmeet them where they're at the
focus.
The center point of that is acare navigator, what we call
memory support partner, so thatis the point of contact for the
(08:32):
caregiver and the patient, wherethat person then is their
liaison to the rest of the SWANKguide team.
So what the memory supportpartner does and these are
community health workers whohave additional training and
expertise in dementia care anddementia symptom management
(08:54):
provide that initial point ofcontact, so somebody that the
caregiver can reach out to andsay you know, I'm having this
problem or I'm worried about myfamily member getting lost or
misplacing things.
Our memory support partner isthe initial point of contact.
And then let's say it's anissue that maybe they need a
social work question, then theycan guide the caregiver to the
(09:17):
social work, or maybe it's anursing question or maybe it has
to go up to our nursepractitioner or the physician
level.
But what you have is you haveone person who is sort of the
station master for your care.
So we're so excited about this.
I think that this for us, thisreally is the way that memory
care should be provided andwe're really excited to be part
(09:40):
of a program that provides thatinfrastructure for support.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Tell us what you're looking forward to the most in
terms of memory care, be itspecifically for the SWANC
program or, in general, for thefield that you're in.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
We have some new treatments that are coming on
board and this is a new class oftreatments that we're really
excited about.
For the past you know Igraduated roughly almost 20
years ago now and from that timetill very recently, there were
two classes of medications thatwere purely symptomatic, so they
didn't change the course of theillness.
(10:15):
They gave some people someimprovement.
But now we have a new class ofmedications that was recently
approved, within the past yearor two, that changed the rate of
illness.
Now these medications are quitenew and we're learning a lot
about them.
They're not for everybody,unfortunately.
(10:35):
There's really strictmonitoring and there's certain
criteria that we have to look atand there's certain criteria
that we have to look at.
These medications, whileholding great promise, they're
also only indicated for peoplewith very, very mild early
disease.
So again, really tremendouspromise.
(10:55):
I sort of think about if youimagine where the field of
cancer was maybe a generation ortwo ago.
I'm very hopeful about thefuture that we're going to
continue to develop even bettertreatments and treatments that
are more preventative in nature.
Expanding innovativeprogramming like Guide those are
some of the things that I'mreally excited about.
Also building the pipeline offolks to care for these patients
(11:20):
.
So I'm a geriatric psychiatrist.
If you look nationwide, there'sless than 50 geriatric
psychiatrists trained annually,and not all geriatric
psychiatrists focus exclusivelyon memory disorders.
So one thing that I think hasbeen a challenge for our field
has been recruiting talentedpeople into this field, and so
(11:41):
we're developing someinitiatives related to that.
We have a PA nurse practitionertraining program that we're
developing that we're reallyexcited about to help build this
pipeline.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
If someone is listening to this and isn't yet
involved in your program, but isseeing signs in a family member
that may be concerning, at whatpoint should they call you?
What are the warning signs?
Speaker 1 (12:03):
I mean, certainly I think an important thing is
making sure you have a goodrelationship with your primary
care provider, but where I tellfolks, where we start to become
concerned are is there a changein this person's level of
functioning.
So it's one thing if you'resomebody who you just never were
good with names and you're notgood with names, that's less
worrisome than you know what.
I used to never forget a faceand now I can't remember who
(12:26):
people are or if you're noticingdifficulty functioning in your
day-to-day environment.
This is where sometimes folkswho are still in the workforce
may notice more subtle deficitsbecause they're working there's
more intellectual demand thanmaybe somebody whose lifestyle
is much more pared down.
So things that we worry aboutare is this person having
(12:48):
difficulty in day-to-dayfunctioning?
Are they getting lost infamiliar places?
Are they misplacing thingsaround the house?
Often, are they missing bills,mismanaging medications?
Sometimes we also see folksfalling victim to scams and
things like that.
Again, that can happen, but isit happening frequently or
repeatedly?
(13:08):
The other thing that we oftenalso notice or that is when you
start to see changes inpersonality or behavior and
actually sometimes that's reallythe first indication that
something might be happening,that sometimes it's's more,
these behavioral psychiatricsymptoms, so things like
depression, severe anxiety, andeven include psychotic symptoms,
(13:29):
so like hallucinations,delusions, especially in
somebody who has never had thosekinds of symptoms before.
To me that would be a worrisomesign that you would want to get
somebody assessed through aprogram like ours at Swank.
I think an important take-homemessage is that you're not alone
in this, that this can feelvery isolating, and I know that
you know a lot of our patientshave also had other family
(13:52):
members who may be their ownparents or aunts or uncles or
siblings, and it can feel veryisolating.
And what we hope is thatthrough a comprehensive memory
care program like Swank, thatyou have a team that's
supporting you, that has theexpertise and really knows how
to be with you for this journey.
(14:14):
These illnesses, unfortunately,can progress over years.
If you look at the typicalcourse of Alzheimer's disease,
from initial onset of symptomsand diagnosis till end stage can
be a decade.
This is a long haul process andhaving the resources and
expertise of a comprehensiveprogram like SWANK can certainly
(14:34):
facilitate or help ease some ofthe difficulties and burdens
along that journey.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
Steve, thank you so much for your time today and
burdens along that journey.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Steve, thank you so much for your time today.
Oh, thank you for having me andjust the opportunity to share
about what we're doing at Swankand how we're serving our
community.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
We'll have more information on Christiana Care's
Swank Center for Memory Care inthe show notes for this episode
.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
And don't forget, you can keep up with For the Love
of Health on social media.
Just search at Christiana Careon your favorite platform.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
We'll be back in two weeks with another great
conversation.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Until then, thanks for joining us for the Love of
Health.
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