10 Quick, Useful Dementia Facts You Should Know As a New Caregiver

hey everybody is speaking with dementia with grace again for those of you have not watched any of my videos let me introduce myself right quick my name is Vicki know and Fitch I am a best of you certified dementia practitioner I've had 20-plus experience 20 plus years 20 plus experience 20 plus years experience in the dementia arena working primarily in skilled nursing facilities and now as a consultant with both assisted livings skilled nursing facilities families on different arenas like that this is going to be a series based on a platform of behavior management that I have developed and the name of that is dementia with grace today this video is going to be about the ten basic things that you need to understand about dementia and I'm gonna try to quick like in the next 10 minutes or 12 minutes or 15 minutes because another time is a commodity for everybody but especially for dementia caregivers time is of the essence and so I want you to be able to get some quick information from these videos some will be longer some will be shorter but this is your primer this is the 10 top things that I think you need to know about dementia once you are diagnosed or your loved one is diagnosed there's all kinds of questions all kinds of questions and let me tell you there is a lot of information on the internet a lot of information a lot of good information from the Alzheimer's Association from the Institute National Institutes of Health you know all kinds of resources and I will link those down below in the content in the little description part in this YouTube video so that you can click over on to those and get some more detailed information because again this is going to be quick dementia is not a disease dementia is a symptom of a disease if you just watch if you watch the welcome video you will know I've said this already but for the folks that are watching this for the first time let me describe it like this eaching is symptom okay if you have chickenpox you can have itching with chickenpox you can have itching with renal failure you can have itching with eczema or poison ivy the disease causes the symptom in dementia and we refer to it that way because it's just simpler sometimes because there's 90-plus causes of dementia so we're going to talk about the quick ones today so number one is what is dementia dementia is not a disease it's a symptom of a disease a lot of folks think about it like an umbrella term where you can have dementia and then you have Alzheimer's type Lewy body vascular dementia alcoholic dementia which is Korsakoff syndrome other kinds of dementia Parkinson's with dementia those kinds of things so number two the number two thing that we want to talk about is is Alzheimer's and dementia the same yes essentially and the terms are used interchangeably in my book that I'm writing I use dementia as an overriding term because it's just simpler and it wouldn't leave somebody out if if your mother has Alzheimer's that may fit for you if I use Alzheimer's exclusively but for somebody whose mother has LOUIE LOUIE body dementia that would feel exclusive and so I don't want to do that so I use dementia as an overriding term to describe all of the possible to even though it's not a disease itself clear as mud yeah all right so the different types again the most common type of dementia this is the number third the number three fact the number one type in America and actually in the world is Alzheimer's number two is vascular dementia number three is Lewy body dementia and then they all kind of sparse out after that but those are usually the number one two and three yeah that's it so you need to know those again down below will be some more information about you know how you can get detailed information about each of those and how they each assault the brain because it's a little bit different the way that you take care of somebody with dementia in the way that you take care of behaviors and things like that it's very very similar but there are some differences in the actual diagnosis now the other thing that that we need to know is how are people diagnosed sometimes it doesn't happen right away not at all a lot of times Lewy body dementia is misdiagnosed as Parkinson's because of the movement disorder and the and the things that happen with Lewy body dementia its misdiagnosed Alzheimer's is usually the moniker that is just just gets hung on somebody I mean if they go to the doctor and they say I'm having some memory issues and the doctor does a little screening and and there's in there does show that there's some cognitive changes they can just they can walk out of there with diagnosis of Alzheimer's if it let me just say as a practicing professional I wish that I wish that there was was a way that doctors could do better more thorough screenings in the in the office I'll talk about your general your GP your general practitioner your medical doctor your family doctor the folks you go to when you have a code it's probably been following your hypertension and your diabetes and your you know all of these issues your author itis I wish those doctors had better tools available to them and hopefully that's going to come you know but if you if you have memory loss and you have some issues like that that's usually the first thing that you notice and we're gonna talk about number five is not all losses or memory related but memory loss is the first loss that you usually come up with I mean that's that's usually what is manifested first I would ask your doctor for a referral to a neurologist to a neuropsychologist some other is more specialized person and the doctor I'm sure would be more than happy to make that referral for you you just you might need to ask for it but that's all and just I'm really concerned I'm really concerned I'm having some issue use that I don't quite understand and I'm really concerned no those are the proactive folks in our population there are a lot of folks that are not proactive at all they don't even go to the doctor when they have a bad headache and you know they end up later on finding out that they've had high blood pressure for a couple of years and it could have been treated you know so I understand there's there's some folks that run to the doctor every time they start their toe and there's some folks that would not go to the doctor if they were coughing up blood so you know there's there's a continuum there of folks so if you as a family member suspect something definitely definitely get on board with your family doctor to say listen and you could call beforehand if you don't want to embarrass your person you could call beforehand and say listen I'm bringing daddy in for his physical his yearly physical and you know I think there's some memory issues could we do a memory screening first of all what the doctors gonna do is get a good medical history what's going on because there's some things that can be can be treated and the memory loss will get better there's delirium there's depression there's things like that they can be treated and we'll talk about that later on the 3ds will talk about all that later in a different separate video then they would do and so they get the medical history then they would do the complete physical to see what's going on they would check a mental status and sometimes that is very quick and dirty I mean it's count back several sevens if they can if they're not really good at math I may say can you spell the word world backwards I'm gonna name three things hat o'clock shoe and name those things what if this is a watch what is this this is a watch you know what if this is she now what are those three things I just asked you for I mean it's very very quick and either you pass it and you don't have dementia or you fail it and you did which is just not ideal but anyway I won't go into that that's not our sphere here you you pretty much know as a family member if something is going on and usually I'll tell you it is so odd but over the years that I have been in practice a lot of folks have told me they recognize it after a holiday after after Thanksgiving or Christmas or something and they go in Mama's dressing is not the same it's just not the same and you get home and you call your sister back and you say you know mama I don't think she put a dab of salt in that dress at all I don't think you know I don't think daddy had had ironed his shirt or I mean he's just crazy things that you just pick up on that maybe they were very fastidious and the way that they kept themselves maybe very fastidious and the way they kept their home their kitchen their refrigerator and you just notice there's things different or something's in the refrigerator that chiton have been you know like their keys or something I mean yeah so you start picking up on things come on contestant this is my cat Contessa and she's wanting to be in the video so I'm gonna let her be in the video she's a rag doll cat can you see I think she's jealous of the of the flamingos behind us are you jealous at Mama's talking to somebody else huh hello everybody out there in YouTube land okay so let me get to number five I think we're on number five we might be on number six I'm not sure it's in the team not all dementia related losses or cognitive a lot of folks think it's just memory loss and it's so much more than just memory loss it is absolutely memory loss but it is also function loss it's also the it's also getting very inflexible it is being off balance it is difficulty swallowing difficulty walking difficulty talking especially in the latter stages we'll go over the stages in a different video I'm trying to make this video quick personality changes are a very big part of it especially in Lewy body and frontotemporal dementia that assaults you in the frontal part of your brain and that is where your personality sits in your manners and your Editions and all that sit right there and so if that is a softer you could definitely see a memories I mean I'm sorry a personality change as long as it as far as the cognitive goes not only memory loss but problem-solving reasoning safety awareness insight all of those things are lost and can be lost in various degrees in various stages over the course of the disease so it's it's um it's difficult to pin down everybody is different but every dementia progresses about the same ways it's every every dementia is progressive every dementia will get worse and every dementia will kill you and it's all a terminal disease I'm sorry but that's the fact of it and I'm trying to go over the facts with you a lot of folks wonder and ask me when they find out that I'm a dementia consultant they want to know is it hereditary you know my momma had it and her sister had it and their momma had it and so am I don't have it there's no let's say there are there are genes in some of the diseases that seem to be risk risk kinds of genes risk factors they're not deterministic genes it doesn't not mean that just because your momma had it her momma had it and her sister had it that you're going to have it it's not a direct correlation read more about that Google that read more about that in the support group that I have a lady let me know that she had done the 23andme chromosome DNA testing and that she had a higher proclivity for it and apparently that's an FDA approved screening tool I don't know that much about it and I'm not gonna speak on things that I don't know that much about there's a lot of information on the internet and it's just I mean we're we're smothered in information now so you know get online and do that contributing factors number eight smoking uncontrolled hypertension uncontrolled diabetes head injuries early in life and and you know if you've had some Falls and things like that if you've had a 1 or 2 files in your life I mean you know don't worry about it I mean if you were a football player and you got a concussion or two or three or five every season then yeah you might want to be more more attuned to it I would say the things the ways that you protect your heart are the same things that you do to protect your Braves are number-9 protective factors exercise a good diet lay off of the junk food and again no smoking stay mentally active protect your head those are the kinds of things that you do to help to help ward it off but let me say and I don't mean it discouraging about this I'm talking about facts okay if it's headed your way is headed your way I mean you know if you're if you were going to get dementia you can eat right and exercise and do all of those things and we don't know yet that any of that is preventive it's not preventive but it's protective and that's that's the difference that's the difference resources again I'm going to leave some information down below Alzheimers org is alz.org G is the Alzheimer's Association there's a book a fabulous book called the 36-hour Day which is a book that I recommend to everyone who's first diagnosed are their family members first diagnosed it's really available on Amazon in every bookstore get the most up-to-date copy the copy I think it was first published back in the 80s and there's been you know several several reiterations of it so get the most most recent copy I think it's 2016 anyway go amazon.com and they will let you know um where it is so okay so let's do some housekeeping things those were my ten I think that was ten I will try to I'm going to try to learn how to over lay these videos and put captions on and things like that and so I will try to try to type those down right there what it was about and I'll try to learn to start some more I'm so sorry I'm not very good at that but I will try you if you have found some value in this please subscribe and let me know in the comment below that you did find this valuable if you did not find it value valuable also let me know listen you talk too fast you're too southern I can't understand you those flamingos are distracting me you know the cat destroyed to be whatever you did not like about this video please also let me know because as you are learning about dementia and the Alzheimer's process and all of those diseases I am learning how to do YouTube and how to share my experience with folks on this platform if you are looking for more support if you if you have stumbled upon this because you have a new diagnosis or your family member has a new diagnosis and you don't know where in the world to turn come on and join us on my facebook support group page it is on Facebook it's kind of dementia with grace you can find me across every media platform on dementia with grace on Twitter dementia with grace Instagram dementia with grace which has a little tip every day and a little photo format so that's that's interesting I hope of course YouTube here and then Facebook dimension with grace I am available for private consulting and and speaking engagements and things like that and my email is down below Vicki at dementia with grace I'm telling you it's dimension with grace all over the internet you can find me I hope you can find me if you have found value again you leave the comment and tell somebody tell three people tell 10 people tell the social workers at the at the hospital tell the doctor tell your medical doctor tell you know tell tell the social worker at the nursing home you know tell everybody because I have figured out a way to help help better the lives of folks with dementia it's it's it's practiced and proven and I'm gonna get into those details in the next videos to come so again subscribe below and then right beside the subscribe button is a little bail and if you click that little bail that little bail will alert you on your phone when I have a new video posted I'm gonna try to post videos on Tuesdays and Thursdays so please if you would subscribe and let me know and ask me any questions we have a Facebook live on Fridays that it's on Facebook so if you are on that support group please do that's the only way you're doing it those lives live I'll probably post them afterward answering questions but the questions that you leave me below I will try to be very responsive to those questions and I will also answer them live on Fridays okay all right I thank you so much for your time I know that you could have spent this eight 10 minutes and 7 seconds doing something else and I appreciate the time you spent with me I really do and I guess I will see you next time thank you so much y'all take care back

Channel: Dementia With Grace

Views: 10,256

Keywords: Dementia, Alzheimers, Lewy Body Dementia, Vascular Dementia, Alz, Alzheimer’s, Difficult Behaviors, Problem Behaviors, Caregiver Issues, Caregiver, Caregiver Help, New Caregiver, Care Partner, Professional Caregiver, Family in Crisis, Southern YouTuber, Southern Lady, Alabama, Flamingo, dementia with grace, memory loss, dementia behaviors, Mentor Teepa Snow, Mentor Naomi Feil, elderly, Vicky Noland Fitch, dementia practitioner, book about dementia, dementia basics

Id: Lq9kAqKf_7c

Length: 18min 18sec (1098 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 02 2018