Hey there Careblazer! This weekend I had the pleasure of talking with Dr. Regina Koepp about the 6 stages of caregiving and what the goal is within each of these stages.

I am going to link the video of this interview here.

My challenge to you in this video is to watch and see which stage of caregiving you fall in at this moment. You can always come back to this video in the future as you move through the different stages.

Learn more about Dr. Regina Koepp and what she offers at www.drreginakoepp.com

I hope you all have a wonderful week Careblazers! Come back next week for a new blog post! 

Happy Tuesday Careblazers!

This week, I had the pleasure of getting to talk with Dr. Paula Hartman-Stein, a psychologist, consultant, journalist and educator. Click here if you would like to watch our interview!

She talks about the importance of Vitamin N and how we can overcome nature-deficit-disorder to lower cortisol, improve blood sugar, and help with overall cognition. The information she shares can be applied to dementia caregivers and to people with dementia. She explains how to adapt these principles for people with dementia, people who are blind, and how to still get a healthy dose of Vitamin N even during winter months and travel restrictions. The best part is that it's free! Listen to her share what the research has to show about his very important vitamin that most of us aren't getting enough of.

Dr. Hartman-Stein's free webinar on enhancing brain and heart health will be on Thursday, March 25th, 7 pm eastern time. You can sign up here: ...

Welcome back Careblazer. In last week’s post I talked about the top docs that are usually involved in diagnosing dementia. The PCP, neurologist, and neuropsychologist. In today’s video I want to share with you my top 5 most helpful professions when it comes to treating dementia and it’s symptoms. My guess is that your loved one may be struggling with something that one of these 5 types of providers can help with. 

Let’s start first with speech pathology. 

A Speech Pathologist can be extremely helpful not only with swallowing issues that can happen in dementia, but also in the assessment of language abilities and in cognitive rehabilitation- meaning helping the person learn new ways of remembering information and communicating information. For example, in dementia there may be times when your loved one is having a hard time communicating with you. Maybe you can’t understand what they are saying because their words are mumbled or because...

Welcome back, Careblazer. Today I want to spend some time talking about the different types of healthcare providers that are involved in the diagnosis of dementia. It can be pretty confusing to figure out what type of providers specialize in dementia and what ones your loved one may benefit from seeing. So in today’s post, I’m going to cover the most common types of dementia providers and how they can be helpful to you and your loved one. Because there are SO many different types of providers that can play a role in good dementia care, I’m going to focus on those most important for assessing dementia. And in a future post, I’ll talk about those that are really important for giving treatments for dementia and the symptoms of dementia. 

If you would rather watch a video on this topic, click here.

Let’s start first with the PCP. This is where most of you will start the process of getting a dementia diagnosis and it’s a really great...

Welcome back, Careblazer. I’m so excited to talk about today’s topic on how you can have a good relationship with someone who has dementia. If you already have a good relationship with your loved one, that’s great. The 4 tips I’m about to share with you will help you maintain that relationship. My personal favorite is tip #4. 

If you don’t have a good relationship with your loved one, (for example, perhaps your loved one resents your attempts to help them or often resists your efforts to help) then this post will certainly help. 

If you would rather watch a video on this topic, click here.

This information is so important because as you begin the caregiver journey it is so easy to go from being the spouse, partner, or child to being the caregiver. You lose the relationship. Your loved one becomes a patient and you become the caretaker and we lose a lot of the personal relationship. This makes it so much easier for the...

Hello Careblazer! I am so excited for today. In the video below, I interviewed Dr. Michael Yasinski. He is a psychiatrist who does a lot of work with the geriatric population and in this video he shares the 5 things he always asks about with every patient before he starts to consider things like dementia medications and other treatments. These 5 things are so important to the foundation of good health but it’s often overlooked by so many. If your loved one’s doctor isn’t asking about these 5 areas, you may want to bring them up to make sure nothing is being missed and  your loved one is functioning at their highest level. Be sure to let Dr. Yasinski know just how much you appreciate his expertise and time by leaving a comment and a thumbs up. I’m hoping he’ll come back on the show for some other topics. To watch my interview with Dr. Yasinski, click here.

Also, I’m excited for today because it’s the opening day of my care course....

Welcome back Careblazer. Are you ready to learn more about what’s causing your loved one to have those frustrating/difficult behaviors? 

Last week, I shared with you the information you need to gather if you want to get to the bottom of why your loved one is doing what they are doing. So I’m hoping you’ve started gathering that information and writing it down either using my free worksheet I created for you or your own notebook.
Today, I’m going to talk about what to do after you have all that information. Let’s say you’ve gathered several weeks worth of information and no clear patter is jumping out at you. What do you do from there. Well, this is where I want you to jump into the action stage. Last week was about the surveillance stage- the gathering of the information, so if you haven't seen part one of this series, click here. Now we are into the action stage. Let’s take what we know and do something about it. 

...

Welcome back, Careblazer. How would you like to get to the bottom of any difficult dementia behavior? I thought you might like that. 

If you would rather watch a video from Dr. Natali on this topic, click here.

Now in a lot of my content, I’ve shared practical strategies and tips for responding to difficult dementia behaviors. Basically, how you can respond to difficult behaviors after they’ve occurred so they don’t get worse. I’m linking a playlist I’ve put together with some of those videos below so you can get a refresher if you need it. 

But today, I want to talk about getting to the bottom of the behavior. Rather than trying to stop the behavior, it’s about trying to figure out what’s causing it so it doesn’t happen again. In this way, rather than constantly responding to every behavior as they happen, you have the chance to get ahead of the behavior and possibly prevent it from happening all together....

Welcome back Careblazer. Today, I want to share 3 simple things every Careblazer (and human for that matter) can start doing today to feel better without needing any extra time money or hired help. If you are feeling overwhelmed, stressed, and life doesn’t seem to be getting any better over time, PLEASE take note and promise yourself to start doing these 3 things. Literally, you have nothing to lose but so much greater potential to gain. about something that relates more to you in your caregiving journey. If you can practice these 3 things intentionally and consistently in 2021, you will be amazed at how you can feel and how you can approach the world in this coming year. 

 And you won’t want to miss me tell you my response to the common excuses of “it won’t work” or “it’s too hard.” I’ll share that at the very end. 

If you would rather watch a video on this topic, click here.

Okay, the 1st thing to start...

Welcome back Careblazer. We are into the 2nd week of 2021! Before we get any further, how would you like the most popular Careblazer lessons of 2020 broken down to the biggest takeaways in about 10 minutes? I hope you’ll bring these into the 2021 for more peaceful and meaningful interactions with your loved one. 

Let’s start with the 3rd most popular video of 2020. This video shared 5 SIMPLE ways to improve difficult dementia behaviors. The key word here being simple. After watching this video, Christine said it was the “best advice ever!” Well I’m glad it was helpful to her and I’d love for it to be helpful to you.

Here are the 5 simple ways to improve difficult dementia behaviors: 

• #1 Be mindful of your facial expressions. Your non-verbals, especially your facial expressions matter more than what you are saying. If there is anything you take away from this video, it’s this. Be mindful of your facial expressions. You can be...