January 7, 2021 • 20 mins
Lets talk about how signs can be helpful and confusing for people living with Dementia!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Welcome to Dementia Real Talk by Karen Thrive, a podcast
to help you navigate life with dementia, presented by Blair Pharmacy.
Whether you're living with dementia or a care partner for
someone with dementia, join us to learn more about what
to expect and practical approaches to adapt your world to thrive.
Now welcome our host Jerry Young and certified dementia practitioner
(00:30):
and trainer Judy Pritchard.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Love you're not seeing do this, don't do that cause
you read the sign.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
You know, sometimes when you read a sign, it still
doesn't make sense, you know, like, uh saw stop stop
sign and write beside it another sign that says keep
moving right. I mean things like that happen, okay. And
direction signals on the highway. You know you left three
lanes turn left. The middle lane is the only one
that goes straight, and there's seven lanes on your right
(01:09):
that turns right. Oh yeah, I mean it's just hard
to decide which one of those fourteen lanes you're supposed.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
To be in.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
Oh and now the latest one I saw, speaking of
red lights, it was you know you're in the turn lane,
so you know your turn left. Well, then all of
a sudden, now they have instead of it being a
yellow light, now it's a blinking yellow arrow, which means
if it's blinking, then you have to read another sign
that says, as if blinking.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
You could turn, but only cautiously.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
And so I mean it's when nobody's coming at you. Okay,
how about this? How about a sign at the end
of the sidewalk that says sidewalk ins here. Okay, I
mean it makes no sense right.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
Well, especially because you know, I'm going to say this
a thing against millennials, and I have two of my own,
which I love dearly.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
But are they not going to see it anyway because
they're on their phone.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
So they're looking down, so they're run into the side
because they're texting and walking.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Unless it's written on the sidewalk, let's see it. But yeah,
so what.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Are we going to talk about today? I know this
is a little bit more in depth about ways to
label and how to use signs to your advantage. Correct.
Speaker 4 (02:07):
Yeah, we've talked about this and touched on it before
on other episodes, but I really want to talk more
about how signs can be so very helpful or not helpful.
And just you know a way that they're not helpful,
a ways that we've already talked about. But I don't
know about you. One of the most confusing places that
I go to on a regular basis are hospitals, especially
(02:29):
different hospital systems, and the buildings have all become connected
and they're very large in a lot of cases, and
the directional signs just aren't helpful.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
That's a whole nother podcast, Okay, because you're about to
get me started. But everybody knows what you're talking about,
right absolutely. I maylie corridor A, you know, Sweet seven
oh two, which is on the fourth floor. Yeah, and
you got to get on an elevator and then take
an escalator from that third floor down to the second
floor and then back up to the fifth where you
(02:59):
got I mean.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
Everybody absolutely, because the north tower only goes the four floors,
even though the rest of the hospital goes to eight floors.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Absolutely.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
But as you're progressing through with dementia, signs actually will
become critically important to help you keep your independence longer
and no matter what stage you're in, so signage is
extremely important.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
All along the way.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Yeah, we made fun of signs that don't mean anything.
But we're going to tone that down and talk about
how you can make signs or labels in your world
and that you live in to make things more helpful.
One of the ways is we've talked about how to
color code different things, but labeling can be very important
in ways such as increasing your independence as long as
(03:47):
and as far as reminders as well.
Speaker 4 (03:49):
Absolutely so as you progress when dementia and we already
talked about before, but just as a reminder as the
disease progresses, oftentimes it will cause people to lack initiation
to start something. So so what that turns into is
I'm constantly having to remind my husband to brush his
(04:12):
teeth because and we don't know why, we're just thinking.
A lot of times people misinterpret that is they just
don't want to do it, when really they're not seeing
the cues to help them, help reminder, have a reminder
in place. You got to brush your teeth, So those
reminders can simply be in your bathroom. First and foremost,
(04:34):
get yourself in a structured routine with all the key
components of your day, so put things in the same
place all the time. Get used to doing that. Toothbrush
always goes in the same place, toothpaste always in the
same place. What it may come to though, is if
you're progressing, specifically in the middle stages, you may stop
thinking to look and seek out that toothbrush if it's
(04:56):
in a drawer, or the toothpaste if it's in a
different location. So that's when you want to move to
having baskets and have baskets that are similar but yet
different from each other if they're going to be if
they're related to different tasks. So your toothbrush and your
toothpaste may be in a similar small basket or the
same small basket, but then you want to have a
(05:18):
big sign that says brush your teeth or toothbrush and toothpaste.
And keep in mind, just from the montessory perspective, two
things that keep in mind. One, the ability to read
is often maintained throughout the course of dementia to the
very end stages. So reading is important. That's where signage
(05:39):
comes in, and it's so helpful in addition to that
as the ability to read and interpret the message that's
in the written word, As that starts to get harder
for the person living with dementia, have a picture there
as well, so you can get online and you can
google any kind of pictures and you can easily print
(06:00):
them out if you have them. There's even places you
can order them. Some are even free, but you can
order pictures of toothbrush and toothpaste. Put it right there
on that basket, nice and big and bold and that.
Then you're gonna label things, so you're you're gonna end
up with a lot of baskets, a lot of things labeled.
You don't want to overload as far as the cognitive
(06:21):
overloading of too many things, but have that basket there
in the key area that they're going to go to.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
And daily routine and daily reoccurring like brushing your teeth.
Right let me talk to the to the care partners
right now. Okay, I understand that you may say, well,
my loved one right now knows that they need to
brush their teeth. That's not a problem. But let me
let me encourage you to go ahead. And now even
(06:47):
if your loved one says, why in the world are
you putting brush your teeth right here by my toothbrush, well,
I promise you need to act and not react because
it will reinforce as the disease progresses to always remember
that that sign has been there, and it will help
them to remember absolutely.
Speaker 4 (07:08):
So what you're doing is just like you said, You're
starting as soon as you know that you have a
diagnosis and as soon as you start to have complications.
Do yourself a favor, do your loved one a favor.
Start to put your systems and approaches and routines in place.
It will do nothing but help you down the road
and help you and your loved one stay independent longer
(07:31):
because you're building in those approaches that give them the
visual reminders and the cues to do the tasks that
they need to do every day to stay healthy.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
How important is it to contrast the colors.
Speaker 4 (07:45):
It's going to become very important because what you want
to do is you don't want to have For instance,
if the hearing aids are skin color, flesh color, and
your toothbrush is white, your toothpaste tube is typically white,
and you have all in a white basket altogether. As
the as the aging process happens normally visual acuity changes,
(08:08):
colors become harder to differentiate if they're similar, So you
want to have contrasts. So if the hearing aids are
light colored or skin colored, put them in a light
bass or a dark basket so there's a big contrast.
And then that sign that you have on there, the labeling.
You want to have it to be contrasting too, So
maybe a big white sign on the backside of the
(08:31):
of the basket with bold big letters. Don't get very verbose,
don't put a lot of wording on it. I know
that the tendency is to be decorative.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Yeah, I can play with fonts, That's what I was thinking.
You get the font so scripted that you can't read it.
Speaker 4 (08:48):
No big bold, block letters and watch your loved one.
You can start off with smaller letters. You may even
get a little bit fancy with them. I wouldn't go
with script because that's it's going to be harder just
on even on my eyes, it's hard to read sometime
and script on the size. But watched colors, you want
to have a bowl a big contrast between the word
(09:10):
and the color background. So lime green is a really
good color to use. It's one of the proven to
be one of the colors that are most most vibrant
to older people as the age and the eyes are changing.
So lime green is a really good color. Doesn't necessarily
always go with your decorations in your house or the
way you've you've assembled your colors, but to key, it'll
(09:33):
do you a favor to have it be labeled in
a contrasting way so that they can do things more
on their own and save you the time in the
long run as a care partner.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
If you're an Oregon football fan, you may have to
get away from green because that's their color. So you
may have to go red and white. That's or something
like that. But that's just a little funny. But you
get website. It needs to be uh, it does need
to be. Contract. Listen, how about how important is it
to label appliances in the kitchen?
Speaker 4 (09:59):
Extreme important? You know, it's been interesting. I've always known
that that's a difficult thing to do. But if you
look at even your microwave right now, typically they're black
and their color.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
The wording is small.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
There's not a lot because everything's gotten to be a
most touch screen.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
There's not a.
Speaker 4 (10:16):
Lot of raised areas on the panels any longer. It's
difficult to read and it's difficult to navigate your way around.
And we're actually working with a family right now where
we're helping them remodel a home for their elderly mother
who has beginning signs of dementia. The microwave's been one
of the most challenging things for her and for us
(10:37):
to find ways to adapt. But we did find tactiles stickers,
so they're actually raised stickers that are made for appliances.
So google this, guys and I'll actually I'll find a
Lincoln stick it on our Facebook page, on our website.
But you can get raise stickers that you can put
over the appliances and then you work to you at
(11:00):
a routine with your loved one on knowing what the
different stickers are in the different areas. There's so much
information on a panel and a microwave. Now they have
buttons for this and buttons for that, and you know,
microwave button or popcorn and baked potatoes, and they don't
necessarily need to know all that. They just need to
know the key buttons of start stop in the minutes,
So you can you can actually create an overlay for
(11:23):
a microwave. But whether it's a microwave or it's an oven,
so many accidents happens with ovens and stovetops, dishwashers, hot
and cold on sinks, or hot and cold and showers.
That those are all big things where by labeling it,
we're hoping to prevent an accident too.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
All right, I want to take the label into another
step now, out of the home. Let's say you're looking
for a facility to take your loved one in. One
of the things you can look for, and we were
talking earlier, is like name tags and what to look
for when you go looking for help outside the home.
And I know my dad lived to be ninety seven
(12:03):
years old. He never had dementia, but at ninety seven
there are certain things that are hard to remember, whether
it's dementia or not. One of them was he was
in a retirement village and the lady that served him
his meal every day at lunch, he couldn't remember her name.
Because I look back on it now, that name tag
(12:24):
had a lot of stars on it and a lot
of cute stuff and had her first and last name.
All he needed to remember was her first name. And
so you know, there's some things like that that I
know you specialize in that can help people on what.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
To look for.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
Yeah, it's actually One of the tips that I helped
my clients with when they're starting down that process of
one day, should we need additional help or should we
need to look outside our home for some place to live?
How do I know I'm picking a good place? And
you hit it on the nail that One of the
easiest things I tell them to look for is look
at the name tags of the people that will be
(12:59):
help helping you. And if the name tags have logos
on them and you're first and last name, and how
long you've been there, and maybe stars around quality that
you've done, or even banners or ribbons on it for
what If there's too much stuff on that name tag,
it's causing visual chaos, which is going to cause cognitive
(13:21):
overload that we talk about. So what you need and
what you're going to need down the road is a
bright name tag, bold contrasting first name only, and maybe
a simple wording of what department you're in.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
But that's all you need. You don't need all of
the rest of this, because, let's face.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
It, the name tag is for you. You the person
that's going to be living there. You're the person that's
seeking out that regular care partner that is now becoming
your care partner in the facility. So that's one of
the areas that you can look at, but there's some others.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
Yeah, that's what I was going to say. That's just
one small thing. But there's a lot of other things
as well. But that we were talking about signs and
that it's just one of the things you can look
at when you walk in.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
Absolutely another thing to look at. So maybe the name
tag is not quite as clear as you'd like it
to be, but some other things to look at. And
what you're looking for, guys, is you want signs to
show you as you're on your tour that they may
be telling you all these great things and all the
programs they have around specifically the needs for people living
with dementia. But the signs that you look for are
(14:26):
those subliminal messages that you're getting. So look at things
like name tags. Then look at the activity board. Every
community is going to have an activity board, that big
bulletin board size that tells you what activities are planned,
what recreational things are planned throughout the day and throughout
the week or throughout the month. When you look at
(14:47):
these boards, what do you typically see.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Yeah, a mass confusion. Yeah, they want to show you
how many active it is they have that day and that.
Speaker 4 (14:57):
Week, yeah, or even a month. Lot of them are
a month at a time. So it's a whole bulletin
board that has thirty thirty one days full of five
or six activities happening each day, all written typically in
the same color, and they'll have a time and an
activity name. Sometimes they get cutesy with the activity names,
so you really don't even.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Know what it is.
Speaker 4 (15:19):
And for somebody that has aging vision or has some
dementia setting in, that means absolutely nothing to them.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
So what you want to see is.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
A bulletin board that is you bring it in the
Montessori approaches, so there's bold contrasting colors, the words are bold.
There may be even a systematic way that things are labeled,
such as we'll look for bengo. Bengoes like the big
thing that we'd love to do. So every day that
there's bingo, it's an orange. It's the only thing on
the calendar in orange is Bengo. So if I'm looking
(15:54):
for bingo, I know to look for orange. But then
also it may just be instead of having thirty day,
it's going to have a week, and then it's going
to have really big what today's activities are, what today's day,
today's date, and the activities just for today, and those
are the things to look for as well as it
may even pull in pictures so you may see a
(16:15):
Bingo card there at a time instead of just having
the word bingo. That's where you're really pulling into understanding
those and understanding the needs of people not only need
the word, but also need a picture to associate it.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
All right, Well, that's how you can look for things
to look for if you're looking at moving outside the home.
We've discussed how to use colors today, how to label things,
how to be bowed and gudy. What else.
Speaker 4 (16:41):
One other area that I really want to bring out,
thanks for asking, Jerry, is the third area to look
for when you're touring a facility. Look at the dining room.
Look at how the dining room is set up. You
should see contrasting color. So if the plates that they
use are white, then you want to see a darker tablecloth,
and then you want to see on vice versa, they're
(17:02):
using a light tablecloth. You want to see dark plates,
dark cups or cups that can indicate very easily visually
that they need to drink something. You also want to
look at their menu board. They'll always have a menu
board talking about what today's menu are is today's menu
is going to be. These are usually much better than
the activity boards because it usually only deals with one day. Now,
(17:25):
what you would love to see is what the menu
options are. First of all that there are options for
each meal, but then also not just the words, but
the pictures. So if they have the pictures of a
plate of countryfiede steak, green beans and macarani and cheese,
you want to be able to see that picture, just
like in a restaurant, right all right.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
Like we talked about you may have You know, there's
restaurants out there that have pictures on the menu. You
know what a cool idea for someone that's having a
little bit of problem transferring that followed in their brain
to see it and point that's what I want right there.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
Yeah, if you think about it, even look at commercials
now that we watch on TV. The ones that are
more stimulating are gonna have They're not just gonna tell
us they have tiba and steak. They're gonna show us
that that steak grilling right, or they're gonna show it
on the plate with the overloaded baked potato and the
asparagus spears, and it's going to look enticing to you.
(18:24):
That's what you want a menu board to look like.
That's what you want when you see a meal being served,
that's what you want it to look like. You don't
want it to be on a tray sitting in front
of somebody with no tablecloth and everything's monochromatic, it's all
the same color. Not only is that not appealing to
you and I, but for someone that has visual problems
or cognitive problems, that's not gonna cue them that they
(18:46):
want to eat or that they need to eat things
on their plates, they may not be able to find it.
So those are things to look at. Theo's easy ways
when you're torn a center of you know, for your
potential future, that you want to check out these things.
That tells you that they're not only telling you they
have dementia programs, but they're living the dementia friendly way.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
So somebody's up at six am listening to this podcast
and they want a t bone steak for breakfast, Thank.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
You, Judy.
Speaker 4 (19:11):
Absolutely, if you could just smell the girl in the background,
that'd be perfect.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Well.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
We hope this information has helped you and you remember
always to plan and to make sure you get these
things done.
Speaker 4 (19:24):
Don't procrastinate, absolutely plan ahead and thrive on everybody.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Thank you, thanks for listening, and be sure to follow
us on Facebook at Karen Thrive and visit our website
www dot Karenthrive dot org. Subscribe to this podcast to
your favorite podcasting platform. This podcast is produced by your
podcast now dot com. Let us produce a podcast for you.
(19:49):
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(20:11):
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Speaker 3 (20:23):
The purpose of This podcast is to educate and to inform.
It is not a substitute for professional care by a
doctor or other qualified medical professionals.
Welcome to Dementia Real Talk by Karen Thrive, a podcast
to help you navigate life with dementia, presented by Blair Pharmacy.
Whether you're living with dementia or a care partner for
someone with dementia, join us to learn more about what
to expect and practical approaches to adapt your world to thrive.
Now welcome our host Jerry Young and certified dementia practitioner
(00:30):
and trainer Judy Pritchard.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Love you're not seeing do this, don't do that cause
you read the sign.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
You know, sometimes when you read a sign, it still
doesn't make sense, you know, like, uh saw stop stop
sign and write beside it another sign that says keep
moving right. I mean things like that happen, okay. And
direction signals on the highway. You know you left three
lanes turn left. The middle lane is the only one
that goes straight, and there's seven lanes on your right
(01:09):
that turns right. Oh yeah, I mean it's just hard
to decide which one of those fourteen lanes you're supposed.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
To be in.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
Oh and now the latest one I saw, speaking of
red lights, it was you know you're in the turn lane,
so you know your turn left. Well, then all of
a sudden, now they have instead of it being a
yellow light, now it's a blinking yellow arrow, which means
if it's blinking, then you have to read another sign
that says, as if blinking.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
You could turn, but only cautiously.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
And so I mean it's when nobody's coming at you. Okay,
how about this? How about a sign at the end
of the sidewalk that says sidewalk ins here. Okay, I
mean it makes no sense right.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
Well, especially because you know, I'm going to say this
a thing against millennials, and I have two of my own,
which I love dearly.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
But are they not going to see it anyway because
they're on their phone.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
So they're looking down, so they're run into the side
because they're texting and walking.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Unless it's written on the sidewalk, let's see it. But yeah,
so what.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Are we going to talk about today? I know this
is a little bit more in depth about ways to
label and how to use signs to your advantage. Correct.
Speaker 4 (02:07):
Yeah, we've talked about this and touched on it before
on other episodes, but I really want to talk more
about how signs can be so very helpful or not helpful.
And just you know a way that they're not helpful,
a ways that we've already talked about. But I don't
know about you. One of the most confusing places that
I go to on a regular basis are hospitals, especially
(02:29):
different hospital systems, and the buildings have all become connected
and they're very large in a lot of cases, and
the directional signs just aren't helpful.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
That's a whole nother podcast, Okay, because you're about to
get me started. But everybody knows what you're talking about,
right absolutely. I maylie corridor A, you know, Sweet seven
oh two, which is on the fourth floor. Yeah, and
you got to get on an elevator and then take
an escalator from that third floor down to the second
floor and then back up to the fifth where you
(02:59):
got I mean.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
Everybody absolutely, because the north tower only goes the four floors,
even though the rest of the hospital goes to eight floors.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Absolutely.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
But as you're progressing through with dementia, signs actually will
become critically important to help you keep your independence longer
and no matter what stage you're in, so signage is
extremely important.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
All along the way.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Yeah, we made fun of signs that don't mean anything.
But we're going to tone that down and talk about
how you can make signs or labels in your world
and that you live in to make things more helpful.
One of the ways is we've talked about how to
color code different things, but labeling can be very important
in ways such as increasing your independence as long as
(03:47):
and as far as reminders as well.
Speaker 4 (03:49):
Absolutely so as you progress when dementia and we already
talked about before, but just as a reminder as the
disease progresses, oftentimes it will cause people to lack initiation
to start something. So so what that turns into is
I'm constantly having to remind my husband to brush his
(04:12):
teeth because and we don't know why, we're just thinking.
A lot of times people misinterpret that is they just
don't want to do it, when really they're not seeing
the cues to help them, help reminder, have a reminder
in place. You got to brush your teeth, So those
reminders can simply be in your bathroom. First and foremost,
(04:34):
get yourself in a structured routine with all the key
components of your day, so put things in the same
place all the time. Get used to doing that. Toothbrush
always goes in the same place, toothpaste always in the
same place. What it may come to though, is if
you're progressing, specifically in the middle stages, you may stop
thinking to look and seek out that toothbrush if it's
(04:56):
in a drawer, or the toothpaste if it's in a
different location. So that's when you want to move to
having baskets and have baskets that are similar but yet
different from each other if they're going to be if
they're related to different tasks. So your toothbrush and your
toothpaste may be in a similar small basket or the
same small basket, but then you want to have a
(05:18):
big sign that says brush your teeth or toothbrush and toothpaste.
And keep in mind, just from the montessory perspective, two
things that keep in mind. One, the ability to read
is often maintained throughout the course of dementia to the
very end stages. So reading is important. That's where signage
(05:39):
comes in, and it's so helpful in addition to that
as the ability to read and interpret the message that's
in the written word, As that starts to get harder
for the person living with dementia, have a picture there
as well, so you can get online and you can
google any kind of pictures and you can easily print
(06:00):
them out if you have them. There's even places you
can order them. Some are even free, but you can
order pictures of toothbrush and toothpaste. Put it right there
on that basket, nice and big and bold and that.
Then you're gonna label things, so you're you're gonna end
up with a lot of baskets, a lot of things labeled.
You don't want to overload as far as the cognitive
(06:21):
overloading of too many things, but have that basket there
in the key area that they're going to go to.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
And daily routine and daily reoccurring like brushing your teeth.
Right let me talk to the to the care partners
right now. Okay, I understand that you may say, well,
my loved one right now knows that they need to
brush their teeth. That's not a problem. But let me
let me encourage you to go ahead. And now even
(06:47):
if your loved one says, why in the world are
you putting brush your teeth right here by my toothbrush, well,
I promise you need to act and not react because
it will reinforce as the disease progresses to always remember
that that sign has been there, and it will help
them to remember absolutely.
Speaker 4 (07:08):
So what you're doing is just like you said, You're
starting as soon as you know that you have a
diagnosis and as soon as you start to have complications.
Do yourself a favor, do your loved one a favor.
Start to put your systems and approaches and routines in place.
It will do nothing but help you down the road
and help you and your loved one stay independent longer
(07:31):
because you're building in those approaches that give them the
visual reminders and the cues to do the tasks that
they need to do every day to stay healthy.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
How important is it to contrast the colors.
Speaker 4 (07:45):
It's going to become very important because what you want
to do is you don't want to have For instance,
if the hearing aids are skin color, flesh color, and
your toothbrush is white, your toothpaste tube is typically white,
and you have all in a white basket altogether. As
the as the aging process happens normally visual acuity changes,
(08:08):
colors become harder to differentiate if they're similar, So you
want to have contrasts. So if the hearing aids are
light colored or skin colored, put them in a light
bass or a dark basket so there's a big contrast.
And then that sign that you have on there, the labeling.
You want to have it to be contrasting too, So
maybe a big white sign on the backside of the
(08:31):
of the basket with bold big letters. Don't get very verbose,
don't put a lot of wording on it. I know
that the tendency is to be decorative.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Yeah, I can play with fonts, That's what I was thinking.
You get the font so scripted that you can't read it.
Speaker 4 (08:48):
No big bold, block letters and watch your loved one.
You can start off with smaller letters. You may even
get a little bit fancy with them. I wouldn't go
with script because that's it's going to be harder just
on even on my eyes, it's hard to read sometime
and script on the size. But watched colors, you want
to have a bowl a big contrast between the word
(09:10):
and the color background. So lime green is a really
good color to use. It's one of the proven to
be one of the colors that are most most vibrant
to older people as the age and the eyes are changing.
So lime green is a really good color. Doesn't necessarily
always go with your decorations in your house or the
way you've you've assembled your colors, but to key, it'll
(09:33):
do you a favor to have it be labeled in
a contrasting way so that they can do things more
on their own and save you the time in the
long run as a care partner.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
If you're an Oregon football fan, you may have to
get away from green because that's their color. So you
may have to go red and white. That's or something
like that. But that's just a little funny. But you
get website. It needs to be uh, it does need
to be. Contract. Listen, how about how important is it
to label appliances in the kitchen?
Speaker 4 (09:59):
Extreme important? You know, it's been interesting. I've always known
that that's a difficult thing to do. But if you
look at even your microwave right now, typically they're black
and their color.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
The wording is small.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
There's not a lot because everything's gotten to be a
most touch screen.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
There's not a.
Speaker 4 (10:16):
Lot of raised areas on the panels any longer. It's
difficult to read and it's difficult to navigate your way around.
And we're actually working with a family right now where
we're helping them remodel a home for their elderly mother
who has beginning signs of dementia. The microwave's been one
of the most challenging things for her and for us
(10:37):
to find ways to adapt. But we did find tactiles stickers,
so they're actually raised stickers that are made for appliances.
So google this, guys and I'll actually I'll find a
Lincoln stick it on our Facebook page, on our website.
But you can get raise stickers that you can put
over the appliances and then you work to you at
(11:00):
a routine with your loved one on knowing what the
different stickers are in the different areas. There's so much
information on a panel and a microwave. Now they have
buttons for this and buttons for that, and you know,
microwave button or popcorn and baked potatoes, and they don't
necessarily need to know all that. They just need to
know the key buttons of start stop in the minutes,
So you can you can actually create an overlay for
(11:23):
a microwave. But whether it's a microwave or it's an oven,
so many accidents happens with ovens and stovetops, dishwashers, hot
and cold on sinks, or hot and cold and showers.
That those are all big things where by labeling it,
we're hoping to prevent an accident too.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
All right, I want to take the label into another
step now, out of the home. Let's say you're looking
for a facility to take your loved one in. One
of the things you can look for, and we were
talking earlier, is like name tags and what to look
for when you go looking for help outside the home.
And I know my dad lived to be ninety seven
(12:03):
years old. He never had dementia, but at ninety seven
there are certain things that are hard to remember, whether
it's dementia or not. One of them was he was
in a retirement village and the lady that served him
his meal every day at lunch, he couldn't remember her name.
Because I look back on it now, that name tag
(12:24):
had a lot of stars on it and a lot
of cute stuff and had her first and last name.
All he needed to remember was her first name. And
so you know, there's some things like that that I
know you specialize in that can help people on what.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
To look for.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
Yeah, it's actually One of the tips that I helped
my clients with when they're starting down that process of
one day, should we need additional help or should we
need to look outside our home for some place to live?
How do I know I'm picking a good place? And
you hit it on the nail that One of the
easiest things I tell them to look for is look
at the name tags of the people that will be
(12:59):
help helping you. And if the name tags have logos
on them and you're first and last name, and how
long you've been there, and maybe stars around quality that
you've done, or even banners or ribbons on it for
what If there's too much stuff on that name tag,
it's causing visual chaos, which is going to cause cognitive
(13:21):
overload that we talk about. So what you need and
what you're going to need down the road is a
bright name tag, bold contrasting first name only, and maybe
a simple wording of what department you're in.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
But that's all you need. You don't need all of
the rest of this, because, let's face.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
It, the name tag is for you. You the person
that's going to be living there. You're the person that's
seeking out that regular care partner that is now becoming
your care partner in the facility. So that's one of
the areas that you can look at, but there's some others.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
Yeah, that's what I was going to say. That's just
one small thing. But there's a lot of other things
as well. But that we were talking about signs and
that it's just one of the things you can look
at when you walk in.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
Absolutely another thing to look at. So maybe the name
tag is not quite as clear as you'd like it
to be, but some other things to look at. And
what you're looking for, guys, is you want signs to
show you as you're on your tour that they may
be telling you all these great things and all the
programs they have around specifically the needs for people living
with dementia. But the signs that you look for are
(14:26):
those subliminal messages that you're getting. So look at things
like name tags. Then look at the activity board. Every
community is going to have an activity board, that big
bulletin board size that tells you what activities are planned,
what recreational things are planned throughout the day and throughout
the week or throughout the month. When you look at
(14:47):
these boards, what do you typically see.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Yeah, a mass confusion. Yeah, they want to show you
how many active it is they have that day and that.
Speaker 4 (14:57):
Week, yeah, or even a month. Lot of them are
a month at a time. So it's a whole bulletin
board that has thirty thirty one days full of five
or six activities happening each day, all written typically in
the same color, and they'll have a time and an
activity name. Sometimes they get cutesy with the activity names,
so you really don't even.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Know what it is.
Speaker 4 (15:19):
And for somebody that has aging vision or has some
dementia setting in, that means absolutely nothing to them.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
So what you want to see is.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
A bulletin board that is you bring it in the
Montessori approaches, so there's bold contrasting colors, the words are bold.
There may be even a systematic way that things are labeled,
such as we'll look for bengo. Bengoes like the big
thing that we'd love to do. So every day that
there's bingo, it's an orange. It's the only thing on
the calendar in orange is Bengo. So if I'm looking
(15:54):
for bingo, I know to look for orange. But then
also it may just be instead of having thirty day,
it's going to have a week, and then it's going
to have really big what today's activities are, what today's day,
today's date, and the activities just for today, and those
are the things to look for as well as it
may even pull in pictures so you may see a
(16:15):
Bingo card there at a time instead of just having
the word bingo. That's where you're really pulling into understanding
those and understanding the needs of people not only need
the word, but also need a picture to associate it.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
All right, Well, that's how you can look for things
to look for if you're looking at moving outside the home.
We've discussed how to use colors today, how to label things,
how to be bowed and gudy. What else.
Speaker 4 (16:41):
One other area that I really want to bring out,
thanks for asking, Jerry, is the third area to look
for when you're touring a facility. Look at the dining room.
Look at how the dining room is set up. You
should see contrasting color. So if the plates that they
use are white, then you want to see a darker tablecloth,
and then you want to see on vice versa, they're
(17:02):
using a light tablecloth. You want to see dark plates,
dark cups or cups that can indicate very easily visually
that they need to drink something. You also want to
look at their menu board. They'll always have a menu
board talking about what today's menu are is today's menu
is going to be. These are usually much better than
the activity boards because it usually only deals with one day. Now,
(17:25):
what you would love to see is what the menu
options are. First of all that there are options for
each meal, but then also not just the words, but
the pictures. So if they have the pictures of a
plate of countryfiede steak, green beans and macarani and cheese,
you want to be able to see that picture, just
like in a restaurant, right all right.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
Like we talked about you may have You know, there's
restaurants out there that have pictures on the menu. You
know what a cool idea for someone that's having a
little bit of problem transferring that followed in their brain
to see it and point that's what I want right there.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
Yeah, if you think about it, even look at commercials
now that we watch on TV. The ones that are
more stimulating are gonna have They're not just gonna tell
us they have tiba and steak. They're gonna show us
that that steak grilling right, or they're gonna show it
on the plate with the overloaded baked potato and the
asparagus spears, and it's going to look enticing to you.
(18:24):
That's what you want a menu board to look like.
That's what you want when you see a meal being served,
that's what you want it to look like. You don't
want it to be on a tray sitting in front
of somebody with no tablecloth and everything's monochromatic, it's all
the same color. Not only is that not appealing to
you and I, but for someone that has visual problems
or cognitive problems, that's not gonna cue them that they
(18:46):
want to eat or that they need to eat things
on their plates, they may not be able to find it.
So those are things to look at. Theo's easy ways
when you're torn a center of you know, for your
potential future, that you want to check out these things.
That tells you that they're not only telling you they
have dementia programs, but they're living the dementia friendly way.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
So somebody's up at six am listening to this podcast
and they want a t bone steak for breakfast, Thank.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
You, Judy.
Speaker 4 (19:11):
Absolutely, if you could just smell the girl in the background,
that'd be perfect.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Well.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
We hope this information has helped you and you remember
always to plan and to make sure you get these
things done.
Speaker 4 (19:24):
Don't procrastinate, absolutely plan ahead and thrive on everybody.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Thank you, thanks for listening, and be sure to follow
us on Facebook at Karen Thrive and visit our website
www dot Karenthrive dot org. Subscribe to this podcast to
your favorite podcasting platform. This podcast is produced by your
podcast now dot com. Let us produce a podcast for you.
(19:49):
When caring for your family, your local pharmacy should be
an important part of your team. Blair Pharmacy in Alabaster
is a family owned full service pharmacy giving its clients personalized,
accurate search. They offer services like medpack, flavor Rx, and
free delivery. Kim and Daniel Blair are members of the
community and are here for you and your family. They
offer everyday items you would find in the big box stores,
(20:11):
but also support local vendors by offering unique handcrafted items.
Blair Pharmacy a full service pharmacy caring for each of
our patients individual needs. Www dot Blair dash Pharmacy dot com.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
The purpose of This podcast is to educate and to inform.
It is not a substitute for professional care by a
doctor or other qualified medical professionals.
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