Welcome back Careblazer. I am so excited for today’s video. I’m going to share with you why your loved one may seem to have a negative reaction toward you and not to other people AND begin to introduce you to the idea that your loved one CAN learn new things in a way that can help improve their behavior. Now I’ve taught on this concept before in previous blog posts and videos on my YouTube channel, but I want to teach it a bit differently here. 

This is what you are going to get from this post: 

#1. Why just because your loved one has dementia, doesn’t mean they can’t learn new things.

#2. How this ability to learn new things is creating strain and tension in your relationship.

#3. How you can begin to help you apply this information to your personal situation so you can see some positive results.

This is going to be so important for your future as a Careblazer, I hope you enjoy it and don’t miss my bonus...

Hey there Careblazer!

Welcome back to Careblazers TV, the place where we talk about everything dementia. If you are caring for a loved one with any type of dementia, such as Alzheimer’s disease, Lewy Body Dementia, or vascular dementia, then this is the place for you! I post every week on the topic of dementia caregiving.

In addition to this blog, I also run a YouTube channel called Dementia Careblazers. Over on that channel, this week I chatted with Denise Brown on the topic of compassion fatigue, caregiver stress, and ways to cope. It was a really informative and insightful interview! Click this link here if you would like to watch that conversation! 

Denise has also written a book called Healing Words: Soothing Strategies for your Caregiving Needs. You can learn more about the book here: https://amzn.to/2T4TAVm

You can also learn more about Denise Brown at The Caregiving Years Training Academy at careyearsacademy.com

In the interview, we also talked...

Welcome back Careblazer! In today’s post, I want to share my thoughts on making your loved one happy. This comes from a recent 14 day challenge I did with a group of amazing Careblazers. We were talking about what they want in caregiving and how they would know if they were doing a good job. 

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

One of the Careblazers in that group was really struggling. One of the ways she was determining whether she was a good careblazer was whether her father was happy. Her father would often get upset if she left the house to do her medical appointents, run errands, etc. So she basically neglected her self care until the point she wound up in the hospital. Now she’s out and she’s still neglecting her appointments and things because she thinks her being a good Careblazer is based on her dad being happy. I believe her exact words were "I want him to be happy and I want there to be peace". 

I have...

Hello Careblazers! Today, Let’s talk about difficult dementia behaviors. When your loved one is doing something that you are finding difficult, challenging, and something you wish would stop, you want to do whatever you can to get that behavior to stop. In many of my behavior posts, I’ve talked about redirection and how you can use redirection to stop that behavior. 

In today’s post, I want to share 3 of the most common redirection errors that are easy to make when it comes to redirection and I’ll give you 3 solutions you can use. By the end of this blog post, I want you to decide which one of these solutions you will use so that you are prepared and ready to respond the next time you're faced with responding to a difficult dementia behavior. Let me know which one you are going to try in the comments below. Also, I give a bonus tip on an activity your loved one may enjoy doing at the very end so don’t miss that.

Before I do, I want to...

Welcome back, Careblazer. Today I want to talk about neuroplasticity and how how you can use the power of neuroplasticity to improve your loved one’s ability to do tasks, improve their thinking, increase their brain size, and also help lower your chances of developing dementia in the future. Sounds pretty amazing, right? 

Before, I get started I have to let you know that the Caregiver challenge is happening right  now and it’s not too late to join. If you want to join the make caregiving 50% easier challenge, the link is below this video.

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

Careblazer, Have you heard of the word neuroplasticity before? Basically the neuro stands for brain and plasticity stands for plastic. So basically it’s the brain's ability to be plastic, in other words, adaptable and malleable. 

Our brains have an amazing ability to adapt and rebuild after injury. This is why it’s so important for...

Hey there Careblazer! Welcome back to Careblazers blog, the place where we talk about everything dementia. If you are caring for a loved one with any type of dementia, such as Alzheimer’s disease, Lewy Body Dementia, or vascular dementia, then this is the place for you! I post every week on the topic of dementia caregiving.

This week over on my YouTube channel, CareblazersTV, I had the privilege of talking with Dr. Jason Karlawish, physician and author. He is a Professor of Medicine, Medical Ethics and Health Policy, and Neurology at the University of Pennsylvania and Co-Director of the Penn Memory Center, where he cares for patients. In this interview we talked about the possibility of being diagnosed with dementia BEFORE memory problems set in, the challenges in being able to diagnose & treat dementia, AND what we can do as a system to help improve the well-being of people with dementia and their caregivers. I'm so excited for you to learn more about this...

Hey there Careblazer!

Today I want to talk about the dreaded and heartbreaking experience of your loved one with dementia no longer recognizing you or remembering who you are. We’ve all heard about this possibility. Many of you talk about dreading when that day will come, if it ever does. Some of you have already experienced this. 

Today, I want to talk about why it’s actually not usually them forgetting you at all. They still very much remember you. I’m going to break down what’s actually happening when they don’t recognize you, I’ll give you some tips on how to help them recognize and remember you, AND I’m going to share what one amazing Careblazer said was actually MUCH worse than his loved one not remembering him. When I read his words, it was the most heartbreaking, heartfelt, and impactful thing I’ve heard a Careblazer say. But here’s my warning, it’s a tear jerker. 

If you would rather watch a video...

Hey there Careblazer!

Welcome back to my blog, the place where we talk about everything dementia. If you are caring for a loved one with any type of dementia, such as Alzheimer’s disease, Lewy Body Dementia, or vascular dementia, then this is the place for you! I post  every week on the topic of dementia caregiving.

This week over on my YouTube channel, I talked with Lauren Dykovitz on lessons she's learned during and after caring for her mother who passed away with early onset Alzheimers. She shares her mom and dad's hesitation with allowing help in the home, how they overcame those obstacles, and how she has been adjusting to no longer being a caregiver since her mom's passing 1 year ago.

If you would like to watch my interview with Lauren, click this link here and it will take you directly to my YouTube channel.

I am attaching all of Lauren's info here if you would like to follow her on other platforms or her book.

Download the first chapter of Lauren's book...

Welcome back, Careblazer.

Today I want to talk to you about a thought that you’re probably having that is keeping you stuck. This thought is preventing you from trying to stop a difficult behavior, figure out why your loved one is having a difficult behavior, figuring out how to respond to a behavior to calm your loved one down. It’s come up in some recent live Q & A’s I’ve done with some of my Care Course members and I want to share it with you here. In fact, I think there are 3 main reasons that are keeping most Careblazers stuck, but today I want to talk about just one. 

“It won’t work” 

Before I do, I have an exciting announcement. I’m doing something I’ve never done before. I’m hosting a 14 day caregiving challenge called how to make caregiving 50% easier. I’m going to be going live, answering your questions, and giving you tools you need to make caregiving easier. I’m also...

Welcome back, Careblazer. In last week’s post, I answered the question about whether cognitive games work. As I talked about, the results are a bit mixed and the overall finding is that they won’t hurt and they may help. 

In today’s post, I wanted to talk about exercise and something surprising. There is plenty of research that has been done to show that exercise is one of the BEST things anyone can do to help maintain and improve brain health. Even people with dementia can regrow brain cells and improve functioning through exercise. BUT recently there has been a new field of study that is showing that there is something better than just exercise. It’s pretty exciting. There will likely be a lot more research in this area in the future and I want to share it with you because this is something you can definitely do for yourself to maintain and improve brain health and depending on your loved one’s severity of dementia. It may also help improve their...