Dementia and Alzheimer’s - When Caregiving is Vital

At some point in our lives, we will all be touched by dementia or Alzheimer's disease. Unfortunately, in the developmental disability community, these conditions are more likely to show up. We connect with Karen Tyrell, author of Cracking the Dementia Code and consultant to the DDA community.

 

TRANSCRIPT

 

Dementia and Alzheimer’s – When Caregiving is Vital

 

00:05

Welcome once again to DDA's Encouraging Abilities podcast. I'm your host, Evan Kelly, Communications Manager here at Developmental Disabilities Association. Today we are talking about aging and dementia and Alzheimer's in people who have developmental disabilities. Dementia and Alzheimer's can be hard on people with developmental disabilities in the community because they can be at higher risk of developing the conditions. And we'll talk a little bit more about that in a moment.

 

00:31

Advances in healthcare also mean that people with developmental disabilities are living longer, thus creating the need for understanding how caregivers can deal with the onset of conditions like dementia or Alzheimer's. Joining me today to talk about this is Karen Tyrell, who recently was contracted here to provide regular dementia care to frontline staff and management teams. So next week will have been four workshops so far.

 

00:59

So Karen is a certified professional consultant on aging and a certified dementia care provider with a passion for improving dementia care. She is the owner and operator of Dementia Solutions and offers education and support for families and caregivers when it comes to aging with these conditions. She is the author of a book called Cracking the Dementia Code, Creative Solutions to Cope with Changed Behaviors. Also a therapeutic coloring book for adults.

 

01:27

and is the co-creator of an app that offers solutions when dealing with those with dementia and Alzheimer's, all of which can be found on their website, Deme So Karen, thank you for joining me today. Well, thank you for inviting me, Evan. This is great. So you've been in this industry since 1995. What got you into it? Well, at that age, I was just finishing high school.

 

01:53

and I wasn't sure which direction to take, whether to work with children or adolescents, or I wasn't quite sure. I did some volunteer work and I found out it was definitely older adults. I really enjoyed my time volunteering in a long-term care home. So then ever since I have been on a path and I went to take a program in school,

 

02:18

that was in Toronto, Ontario, where it was gerontology based, but it was therapeutic recreation. And that program actually had me do practicum twice a week and learning theory three days a week. So I was really able to get a sense of what the real world was like. And working in long-term care, I experienced many situations with individuals with dementia.

 

02:47

And that's where my passion started right away, wanting to make a difference for these individuals in all stages. Now, can you define dementia versus Alzheimer's? Sure. So let me just start by saying Alzheimer's disease is a disease. Dementia, a lot of people think it's a disease on its own, but it's not.

 

03:13

So dementia, if you can picture your hand, and I'm going to make you make a fist, and each finger would be a symptom. And when you close your fist, it creates a syndrome. So what dementia is, is a syndrome that is made up of, I'm gonna say here, five common symptoms. Now let me just give another example of a common cold.

 

03:41

When we get a common cold, it's not a disease, but we get symptoms like runny nose, headache, sore throat, coughing. When we get all these symptoms, oh no, we got a cold, great, this is fun. But those symptoms typically fade a