Care Giving for Alzheimer’s Disease: A Compassionate Guide for Clinicians and Loved Ones
Verna Carson, Katherine Vanderhorst, Harold Koenig
Teaches how to calm patient’s spirit and diffuse agitation.
Demonstrates how to find joy and humor in the role of caregiver.
Provides clear-cut strategies for professional caregivers and families
Veteran clinicians offer a unique framework for understanding the psychological origins of behaviors typical of Alzheimer's and other dementias, and for providing appropriate care for patients as they decline. Guidelines are rooted in the theory of retrogenesis in dementia--that those with the condition regress in stages toward infancy--as well as knowledge of associated brain damage. The objective is to meet patients where they are developmentally to best be able to address the tasks of their daily lives, from eating and toileting to preventing falls and wandering. This accessible information gives readers a platform for creating strategies that are respectful, sensitive, and tailored to individual needs, thus avoiding problems that result when care is ineffective or counterproductive.
Featured in the coverage:
Abilities and disabilities during the different stages of Alzheimer's disease.
Strategies for keeping the patient's finances safe.
Pain in those with dementia, and why it is frequently ignored.
"Help! I've lost my mother and can't find her!"
Sexuality and intimacy in persons with dementia.
Instructive vignettes of successful caring interventions.
Given the projected numbers of individuals expected to develop dementing conditions, Care Giving for Alzheimer’s Disease will find immediate interest among clinical psychologists, health psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and primary care physicians.
Becoming an Alzheimer’s Whisperer® - A Resource for Family Caregivers
Dr.Verna Benner Carson, PMH/CNS, BC and Katherine J. Vanderhorst, R.N., B.S.N.
This book is an amazing resource for family members who are struggling with the management of a loved one who has Alzheimer’s or another dementia. This resource guide deals with so many of the challenges that face caregivers from bathing, wandering, sexuality, incontinence, taking a vacation with a loved one with Alzheimer’s, celebrating the holidays and so many more. This resource also supplies a tool for caregivers to evaluate their own level of stress.
The guide is written in a straight forward fashion- easy to read and easy to apply. Caregivers will be asking themselves “how did I manage without this resource?”
A Loving and Gentle Approach to Challenging Behaviors with Alzheimer’s Patients
The DVD features Dr. Carson speaking to a group of caregivers at a Continuing Care Retirement Community. In this presentation, Dr. Carson explains the Theory of Retrogenesis, developed by Dr. Barry Reisberg and how an understanding of this theory leads caregivers to arrive at both creative and “cognitively and functionally” appropriate interventions. Dr. Carson takes the viewer on a “Walk through the Brain” and links specific challenging behaviors with brain damage. Somehow knowing that a behavior like repetition is the result of damage to the Hippocampus makes it easier for the caregiver to accept the behaviors. But there is more, Dr. Carson teaches concrete and easy strategies to respond to challenging behaviors!
The accompanying workbook is a straight forward review of the key points that Dr. Carson makes in the DVD. The workbook allows the user to test the knowledge that he/she just learned from viewing the DVD.
Managing Challenging Behaviors - Parts I and II
This DVD focuses on the management of some of the most challenging behaviors that confront caregivers to those with Alzheimer’s or another dementia. The following behaviors are addressed using the Theory of Retrogenesis: Bathing-learn why the shower might be “dangerous to the health of the caregiver”; repetition, agitation and aggression, dressing, brushing teeth, washing hair – all are addressed. Learn how a “tootsie roll” pop can be a powerful tool as you bathe someone with Alzheimer’s!
Managing Challenging Behaviors - Sexuality in Alzheimer's Patients
So many adult children are horrified to discover that their elderly father or mother who has Alzheimer’s or another dementia is also still having sex! And to make it worse for adult children, the partner may very well be someone other than the other parent! This is a challenge for families to accept – sometimes responding with embarrassment, anger, and even shame. This DVD explores what is behind this sexual activity and should we be doing anything to stop it.
Double Trouble - Dementia, Depression & Other Psychiatric Disorders in the Elderly
Double Trouble is a two set DVD. The first DVD entitled Depression and Dementia..Kissin’Cursin’ Cousins deals with the overlap of depression and dementia and presents the use of the Geriatric Depression Scale (Short form) and the Mini-Cog as two screening tools that can be used to identify the overlap of depression and dementia while at the same time “teasing them apart. The second DVD entitled Double Trouble: the Overlap of Dementia and Psych Disorders presents on the incidence of variety of psychiatric disorders such as anxiety, bipolar disorder and even Schizophrenia – and how these disorders interact with Alzheimer’s.