Alzheimer’s Speaks: Resources

*The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

Welcome to the answers for elders radio show. meet the trusted experts who will give you straight answers and we’ll help guide you on the path of later life care. Now here’s your host, founder, caregiver and CEO, Susanne Newman, and welcome back everyone to the answers for Alder’s Radio Network with Lori Libay from Alzheimer’s speaks Dot Com. And Lori is an amazing resource for all of us on an expert on Alzheimer’s and Dementia and Um. Lorie, thank you again for being and sharing this hour with us. It’s so nice to have you on the show. Oh, it’s wonderful to be here. So you have been talking. We’ve we’ve kind of covered your personal story and the need and out there of how why you started Alzheimer’s speaks. But I hope that all of our listeners today, if you know of somebody that has a loved one, you know, direct them to this azing site because Laura, you have an incredible resource just right there. There’s so many resources. Tell us about some of the resources that’s on your site. So I’m trying and we just readid the site. So we try to make it real simple. So we have a free educational resource tab and we have one if you’re looking for programs and services, and then we have one for marketing and branding as well. Um. And the site, you know, the name is Alzheimer speaks because back then no one talked about dementia. But it covers all dementia. So if you’re dealing with Louis Body or you know, if you’re dealing with fascular you know, you’re all welcome. And the first thing that I learned from people living with the disease was saying how their symptoms overlap, so that’s that’s one of the first things to know. But if you go to that free educational resources Um, these are things that we started because we wanted to raise the voice of all. So you’re gonna hear from people living with dementia, you’re gonna hear from their families, and you’re gonna hear from professionals in all different levels as well as authors and playwrights and musicians and and advocates. Um. And it’s to me, it’s fascinating. And so the radio show you can access there, I call it true talk radio. We want to get a full story, like you do here. Um, we have dementia chats where the true experts are those living with dementia, and those are a video and people love those. Those are great for people diagnosed is well is their families. I had a hospital over in the U K U contact me and say can we use these for training? I’m like absolutely, they’re like, what do you want? They’re free, they’re free use them. That’s why we do them. Um, we have there’s some quick tips that I do dementia quick tips, which are some things that I learned in my journey. So one of the things I was going to mention, and I think it might have been your first section. You had talked about learning through the process, and one of my lessons is literally asking what’s the lesson? So, for example, when I’m up against a wall and I’m feeling exhausted and tired, and I don’t know what to do to help my loved one, and I find that sometimes I’m spinning so fast and I think I’m looking really hard for the answer, but I’m not, and I have to stop and say, what’s the Lasson? What is the lesson here? And and then all of a sudden, I’m focused on the right thing. So all my tips are are simple things that you can apply right away, but they just make you kind of stand back. Well, and I think one of the things that you’re mentioning is is that I think we can get so wrapped up you can’t see the forest for the trees. And I get one of the things. I always laugh because some of my greatest Aha moments in my life is when I’m in the shower for some reason, when I have that hot water coming on on me and I can just let go for five minutes this type A personality, right, and just all of a sudden, it’s like it gives me the space to gain perspective. And I think that is really you know, maybe it’s a shower moment, maybe it’s whatever. Anybody is different. I know, that’s kind of when I get my greatest inspirations, you know, about things, or when I’m driving, you know, a long drive or something like that, where my mind is kind of just out there. You know, I’m not thinking about the you know, the task at hand. And you’re absolutely right. We can get so intense about things that need to be done that we forget, and we also forget as caregivers that you know, everybody’s doing the best they can in in a in a moment, and sometimes we tend to forget that, you know, we tend to find default with others, different things like that. I know I’ve done that, um so, and or we forget to set boundaries, personal boundaries for ourselves. That’s part of it. Yeah, well, and a lot of times when you’re caring for someone else, you’re a magnet for everyone else for you to take care of them. And I found that out really hard, and I was just exhausted and literally I think I had an epiphany moment and I wrote a story about it, Um and it was it was the difference between being a caregiver and being an enabler and what I found like with my with my mom, I was definitely giving care for her, but there were so many other people I was really enabling them. You know, you do a good job, and it’s like, we’ll do it for me too, you know. There’s kind of that that thing that happens out there, so Um you know. Some some other resources that people will find on the site is the Purple Angel Project, which was started by norm’s mcdimia over in the UK, which is a symbol that anybody can use. You can, you know, put it in not that too many people use checks anymore, but um marketing pieces, Um facebook pages, all you know, email signatures. You can utilize symbol which is a globe and an angel Um just to get people to ask what is and it opens up the door for the conversation. You know. That’s what dementia friendly communities and businesses and is about. And there’s a whole section on that with videos and how to set those up and and why um I briefly mentioned the memory cafes which are for the cure partner and the person with dementia, and those are a different type of group I hate to even call the support group. They’re really more like a gathering friends. And you know, people don’t want to just talk about the bad things all the time. Their friends fall away, family kind of step back many times, and so this is a place for them to have peer support and they can laugh and they can cry and all together. I mean, it’s just such a beautiful, beautiful thing. We have be absolutely a poetry section and articles that people ever written that are just incredible about their journey, and people really love that section. They can access our blog. We just started a dimension in the arts where I interview people around the world with dementia and they share their artwork and they talk about why they do it, and you know, some have never done art before and you look at it and go, they should be commissioned artists. Um. Others have done art um all of their life. But they talk about how do they adapt as a disease progresses? What do they get out of it? The calm, the profound Um, I don’t even know how to how to word it, but this this calmness in their soul that it gives them to to produce these pieces of work. And some of them have great messaging, you know with them. Um. We’ve got a section of just free tools that you can go ahead and down weld. So your memory chip was something that I developed when I wasn’t the perfect care partner for my mom and I snapped on her because I didn’t think it was funny when she repeated the same question forty times in ten minutes. I had stuff to do and and I just I yelled, and I felt horrible. And we’ve all been there. We’ve all been there, and I thought she deserves better, and we also have a responsibility too when we get to that point, Um, to find the tools to gain perspective, and and I gave I think that’s the key of of all of this is finding what works for you. Because everybody’s print, you know, and everybody’s challenges are different. But Um, and certainly their interaction with their parents or their or their wife or their husband or whoever they’re caring for, there’s certainly that element of you know, the dynamic that has con before, yes, plays into it exactly. So you can you can download these tools. You can access our youtube channel that has all kinds of great stuff. You can find out about public events Um as well as Um we have a section for a memory wall, and the memory wall, I you know, I hate to say, isn’t for everybody, but it’s Um just because I wouldn’t be able to keep up with it per se. But it’s for people who lived with dementia who have made a profound difference in the world. And you know, we try to highlight those and I listed my mom there because I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing without her, you know, and Absolute Yep, and so those things are really important. And then you know, people a lot of times want programs, and so I offer a lot of different programs that can do virtual in person. But I’ve got a big long list and um all different types of designs, so from webinars and support groups to Um town hall hall meetings or screenings of of a wonderful film I have called the timeless love is available. And then we have you know, marketing opportunities too, because a lot of times people have businesses Um and that they want to market and they want to lift. And then I have one whole section just about us. And the part that I love about this one is I have a long section about the mother behind the movement, because again Um wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing with and you know, so people will hear that she was an Avon Lady and really social and connected and kind of Goofy, but very purposeful, always engaged, always trying to help. You know, she was involved in in hockey and Church and girl scouts and boy scouts, and she was a real person and that continues throughout the disease and that never gets lost and you know, learning that I think two of the most important things you had mentioned Oprah and Oprah was really big about talking about living in the moment, you know, because again that’s the only place that we can develop or recognize joy, and sometimes we get so set on the right or wrong or projecting into the future or feeling our grief that we miss that and so that is really really critical, and setting up the moments for joy, I think is a piece of it, because again, Um, holiday, you know, holidays can be difficult and they can be amazing. It’s what you do and how you structure them around your loved one. And that’s the part that I think, you know, it’s just giving some tips on how to make it easy and how to help it flow. And I think that’s one of the things that you know, people once they have those tools, it help helps life go so much easier and you appreciate those special moments which really carry you forward. So Lori, how do we reach you really easy? JUST GO TO ALZHEIMER’S SPEAKS DOT COM to us is in the middle and you can reach us and scope out everything and you have a free all the free resources in the world that we’ve just talked about. And guess what, Laurie and I will be back right after this. We it answers for elders. Thank you for listening. Did you know that you can discover hundreds of podcasts in our library on senior care? So visit our website and discover our decision guides that will help you also navigate decision making. Find US AT ANSWERS FOR ELDERS DOT COM