Teepa Snow's videos should be mandatory viewing for anyone dealing with someone with dementia and Alzheimer's (father, aging)

[MauiPartTimer]

As you might recall from a previous thread, my family has been dealing with a very difficult situation with my father-in-law. Unfortunately, he was diagnosed fairly late (about a year ago) because the family always blamed his "confusion" on his bad hearing. Even then, we had received some literature about dealing with someone with dementia, but it wasn't super helpful.

My wife found these videos from Teepa Snow on youtube and they're by far the best thing we've found. She's an expert on caring for people with dementia with over 30 years of experience and gives seminars on the subject.

Here's what I love about these videos:

• Without getting overly-scientific, she explains what's happening to the patient's brain. She makes a big deal about dementia not being just memory loss and not concentrating, but rather "brain failure", similar to heart failure or kidney failure.
• She explains how a dementia patient perceives things and why normal reasoning (or arguing) with them can be so utterly pointless.
• She talks about the other symptoms besides memory loss, like being suspicious, sexually impulsive, short-tempered, loss of peripheral vision, etc. (For example, dementia wreaks havoc on the frontal lobe, the part of the brain that controls impulses.)
• She gives VERY helpful techniques of how to deal with the patient; everything from what to say/not say, to how to position your body to theirs when talking, walking or helping them with things. (For example, she teaches a technique on how to hold their hand and gently pulse-squeeze that has worked wonders in helping my father-in-law calm down when he's getting anxious.)
• She actually makes a difficult subject quite entertaining. Without warning, she goes into dementia patient character and picks on members of the audience to try to deal with it. It comes of as anything but mean. In fact, it's quite refreshing and comforting to see her act out many of the things your own family member is doing, as it makes you realize your situation is not unique.

I found an earlier thread that talked about her, but it was prior to the videos linked above being published and it really didn't explain just how great her videos are. I highly recommend the "Making visits valuable/count" series. There are 15 of them and each is 5 to 12 minutes long.

Sadly for us, we found these too late to get as much use out of them as we could have. I really really really wish we had found them sooner and think this is a wonderful gift of knowledge to anyone dealing with someone with dementia.

[cb at sea]

Thank -you! I've read a book the doctor gave me...but a video might "stick" better! Anything that helps is great!

[MauiPartTimer]

Originally Posted by cb at sea

Thank -you! I've read a book the doctor gave me...but a video might "stick" better! Anything that helps is great!

Glad to help and yes, I think seeing her role-play scenarios brings it to life and is far more "a-ha!" than just reading things like "Re-direct the conversation". (Without showing you how like Teepa Snow does, it's hard to do when they get fixated on something.)

[JanND]

I totally agree! She is fantastic and inspirational. I went to a training of her's recently in person...She was exciting, and so knowledgeable....She even had us stick in the mud North Dakotan's laughing out loud all day. Our local facility's staff contributed all year towards her fee....Fantastic group of folks!

I wish I'd known about her years ago when I was a Soc. Service Director at a small town nursing/accute care hospital.

LOL...I had to go through the DON "Stress, we don't have any stress"..... to give presentations to the staff about managing stress.....What a wonderful professional experience, when afterwards this same DON asked me when I could do her nurses....Love Teepa! Got a hug and a short visit with her after.

[JLB001]

Thank you so much for posting a link to these videos!
I have learned so much on how I can relate with my Grandmother. Truly a gift!

[maggiekate]

researcher also are finding that music helps some lots also mostly older tunes they may recall

[yukon]

Thank you for posting the links. I've passed it on to a few folks helping my mom in another state. They said they're great. I've only watched a few so far, but I agree.