Strategies for Success in Dementia Care - Expert Panel

hello everyone and welcome uh thank you for joining us today my name is nurel Don and I'm the director of marketing for Viking Pure Solutions and we are very pleased to host today's panel discussion uh with a great group of panelists as you can see here lined up we're going to be talking about strategies for success in dementia caregiving and really comparing the balance of person versus process uh dementia caregiving is something that really should be on uh based on the individual's needs and Cent around approaches that lead to best quality of care for them as a person and we're going to be getting into that subject today uh so before we get started and before I introduce our panelists I did want to highlight um please feel free to put questions in either the chat um and engage in the chat or uh feel free to put questions in the Q&A section um that's off to the right hand side of your screen the little question mark with a circle around it um or the chat message box um and without fur Ado let's Jump Right In Nicole do you want to introduce yourself Nicole's going to be our moderator today yeah thank you so much for having me so happy to be here founder of will gather and co-founder of think tank with James my business partner is here today and I'm honored to create platforms to amplify initiatives resources in the care economy and I do that through the will gather podcast navigating the world with your aging loved one and share those valuable insights and stories from experts and Educators we also work with organizations to highlight their initiatives and great work and I am looking forward to the panel today with all of these people that I really admire and respect Carrie you want to go next absolutely I'm Carrie Alberts AKA dementia darling and I am a very passionate Advocate and educator in the dementia Community I haven't updated my bio for this uh specific panel I am full time now as myself dementia darling and I am here to fight the tragedy narrative and to prove that there is joy and love to be had and I am just so honored to be here with some of my favorite people in this community so thanks for having me awesome glad to have you Adria please join us hi I'm Adria Thompson I'm a speech language pathologist and dementia care educator I've been in SLP for 10 years working in long-term care and skilled nursing Memory Care Assisted Living home health and acute care and um I create videos every single day on social media to help people know how to care for individuals with dementia wonderful so glad to have you and Andrea um as our you know caregiver joining the panel today please introduce yourself as well hi um my name is Andrea I am on social media as Andrea Crystal I am a full-time professional and a full-time caregiver um to my mom who has young onset Alzheimer's uh so she's lived with me now for the past three to four years um prior to her official diagnosis and then prior to that it was long distance um me you know a good two hours between us so I'm just excited to be able to be here I share a lot of content that just humanizes the caregiving experience kind of tears down some of that stigma that says that your feelings are wrong that you're a bad person because you struggle with this or you feel these hard feelings uh so that's really what I focus on just humanizing the entire experience um for the person with dementia and the person taking care of them awesome thank you so much we're so glad to have you James will you introduce yourself as well happy to hi everyone I'm James Lee I do a couple of different things in senior living but my story started as a caregiver a professional caregiver on the front line 16 years ago and today I'm proud to serve our uh organization Bella Groves uh and we'll get into a little bit of that in our conversation today uh Nicole and I do uh the think tank event together and really all of the things that I do are trying to demonstrate and show that in order for you to make big impact you don't have to be part of big business or big groups uh that small Endeavors can have as just as big of an impact and I hope we'll get to dig into some of that today awesome sometimes better I think abely back and last but not least Dan hey everyone Dan Lawson here Viking Pure Solutions uh just super passionate about removing toxic chemicals from senior living communities and on behalf of nurel and I uh we're just so honored to to be able to host this panel today um just some amazing minds and uh some some great insight and I'm excited for our listeners uh that can join us today and then for those that are going to be able to catch this you know kind of on record in the future I think we're going to you know leave this conversation extremely enlightened and motivated um as we've got some great people here that are really dedicated to to changing or to committing to change in the senior living environment which which we really need so thanks yall absolutely awesome Nicole please please take it away yeah we have a lot to cover today so know that it's going to be a dynamic conversation a lot of different perspectives which I'm really excited about to start us off James what are the logistical realities of long-term care that can affect the quality of care and potentially alter our approaches as we're talking about this topic of caregiving strategies person versus process yeah I think it's a really great question to kick us off for person versus process uh I I've been in the shoes of a personal family caregiver for somebody living with dementia and as I mentioned in my introduction I've been a caregiver on the front line activity director and other leadership roles at the senior living level and now I have the the distinct kind of perspective of being a business owner in that same regard and you know the the shortcut for what I could say here is that I've learned that aligning incentives and and understanding the motivations of each of the parties is really what's at the heart of all of this I think um family caregivers and certainly Frontline uh workers in Senior Living they're closest to the issue they're closest to the problem they're trying to solve which is how do I take care of my loved one uh with dignity in in our profession we may call it person centered care whole person there's a lot of different ways to talk about that um but I think the the push and pull of business versus uh care uh oftentimes I found that owners and investors and people who fund a lot of Senior Living projects uh may not themselves see the value of person- centered care and so I think part of what we're going to dig into to today is um and a big part of what we're trying to do at Bella Groves is how do we create a business plan around person centered care instead of creating a business that happens to provide care and oh let's make it person centered go the other way start from the basis of how do you create person- centered care okay then how do you staff that how do you create a revenue model around it and you work your way backwards yeah it's so true and there's so much that we have to think about right all the different uh Logistics of providing care that we come into play with people with understanding running running a organization right how that all how that all plays out yeah Carrie what is is person centered care and dementia care terminology why is it so crucial for us to focus on these personalized approaches in our caregiving rather than strictly follow standardized processes yeah no this is so important and very you it's very prominent when you can tell when person centered care is happening right so in dementia care we can't do blanketed care like just stop right there dementia care is so different for everyone it doesn't matter if you have the same diagnosis you could have a completely different Journey right and then it's across different ages it's across you know there's so many factors in place and if we're just like oh dementia care is just this this blanketed thing we do it for everyone it works that's that it just can't work we have to know the people we we are caring for we have to know their unique preferences we have to know history right sometimes we revert back to things we've done in our past if we don't know those things how do we meet them where they are and give them the best quality of life and this is what makes dementia care so intricate and so I mean difficult right I mean we're we're trying to take care of so many people and and having to take the time to do that it takes time it takes effort it takes a lot of you know leg work but that's how we give people the care they deserve and that's how we give people the best quality of life is truly meeting them where they are so we can't ever go into you know care settings with multiple people or with one person even saying okay I learned this tip it's got to work it's going to work like you know you can't go into things thinking that um so it makes it really difficult on the care carers right it's you never really know what you're dealing with there's always um you know a lot of go with the flow and you know minute to minute type things but when you're able to be armed and empowered with knowing the person you're going to get a lot further and you're going to have a lot more momentum caring for them so I think think it's just truly understanding dementia is so unique compared to other things people you know might be other diseases and and the care that that per that um asks for and needs this is truly wholly about the person it's it's changing their entire life and being right so we got to understand everything about this person um and so yeah that's why it's so important to be personalized across the dementia Journey as this is progressing and um meeting them where they are and I hope that made sense because I just kind of went because I'm very passionate about person centered care no it totally makes sense and I could not agree more I think I struggled for a while understanding what person centered care was because it's that like it sounds great like focus on the person but I think the thing that helped me understand the difference between person- centered care and maybe anything else that we might discuss is to consider what the opposite would be um so like person centered care the opposite could be deficit Center or disease centered care or diagnosis centered care and that's not just in dementia care like that's across all medical communities right like focusing on Diabetes rather than the person with diabetes or cancer versus the can the person with cancer and so I think that helped me kind of delineate those definitions that might be helpful for someone who is listening it's not like like James said it's not just like you know this person has dementia we're going to treat them in a certain way and because we're a dementia care community and because we're Memory Care like this is the kind of here here on a silver platter is the kind of care we provide that doesn't work in practice and we're gonna talk about that a lot today yeah how would yall how would you all Define the goal of you know treating someone with dementia right like if you were to try to like just kind of in a nutshell this is what we're you know this is what we're trying to do because obviously it's it's it's an ear reversible disease you know there is there is no cure so we can't cure them of that um you know what's what's what's the goal from from your perspective well I think we say a lot you know to caregivers it's you're not there to cure you're there to care and I'm all about quality of life I mean it's I I think that that's my goal in dementia care is giving people the best quality of life throughout their progression I don't know if that was what you're asking but that's where I go like that is the goal for me when I talk to people how can we give this person and the caregiver the best quality of life together absolutely I um second what Carrie just said um as someone who has experienced diagnosis centered care that's been The prominent honestly The prominent theme um with my experience with my mother uh it is when you meet someone who is more people focused and specific to that person you finally feel like um like your person is being validated that they still have a place in this world instead of they are The Walking Dead type of thing which there is this underlining mentality of they have this incurable um de degenerative brain disease just make them comfortable right just make sure that you look after yourself as their family member that's the best you can do um and if you're not a caregiver or a family member who is passionate about their loved one you could very easily fall into okay well it it it just is what it is and we're just going to focus on just coping and that's it um but as Carrie so passionately um expressed you know kind of taking breaking down that Doom and Gloom really starts with personalizing the experience and recognizing all of the humanity that is in in that body in that life that is still here and making sure that we're centering um our Focus practices um processes toward that in my previous career completely unrelated to to what I do now um I was in the pharmaceutical sales industry and and I promoted a product called AOSP which I'm sure everyone here is is familiar with and you know I'll never forget you know sales training you know 101 and there's there's kind of some good and some bad with this in regard to kind of how you view that that entire process but one thing that always stuck with me you know when they were teaching us how to promote this product was the tagline the the parachute effect right that you're giving you know these these patients right that that are that are diagnosed with with Alzheimer's disease this ability to kind of slow their progression that's really the only data that was supportive of really you know taking these medications and taking these medications early you know albeit all the side effects and some of the things that you know make it very difficult to stay compliant with them but I never really like that term parachute effect I don't I I don't think we're trying to slow anyone's life down right like just because you know they have dementia doesn't mean that they're not capable of experiencing new things doesn't mean that um you know that that we can't take you know every day as an opportunity uh to to to do something you know for for the first time so yeah it's just it's just interesting you know coming from my my background you know to see this side it because uh I feel very motivated right like now you having exposure with with many of you and and entertaining you know our our clients who serve these types of residents as um it's just an opportunity to to do something great every day right yeah I don't I don't love the parachute uh metaphor either I think most of us will feel an ickiness to that too I'm going to take a stab at uh your question also and that's what's great about this panel like we're gonna have six different answers for every question um but I to repeat the question what what's the goal of person- centered care um I think it the the goal of person- centered care is that the person has a voice in their care like they are centered in their own outcomes and so if you had a friend who let's say they had an accident and they could no longer speak they could no longer use their voice your job is not to say oh well Dan let me speak on your behalf from here until the end of your life my job as a partner to you would be uh Dan can't speak but he can still speak for himself and so how do we figure that out how do we bring that to the Forefront and then I'm going to partner with Dan in accomplishing the goals that he has so if you think about cognitive handicap if if we were to use that term if you no longer had the ability to uh process like rational thought because of how the the disease is progressing for you our job isn't to speak on your behalf our job is to figure out interpret create those Pathways to figure out what would this person do what does mom actually want in this situation and then how do I help her to achieve that that to me would be the the outcome of person centered care as a speech therapist I really appreciate that answer the metaphor yeah I was looking at yes facilitating someone to communicate their wants and needs right right that's right right yeah absolutely okay love that question Dan look it it started this amazing dialogue um between all the different perspectives and Adria we look at those changes right those decisions at a business level that might seem more simple but they trickle down and really have an effect on that personalized care be it positively or negatively can you speak to this and share a little bit more about your insights on how those changes really affect Us in the care that we provide yeah I want to also just like highlight the fact that even though we're talking about dementia caregiving we might immediately jump to Memory Care um but individuals with dementia are living in every Community right in skilled nursing in assisted livings in independent living uh for a time so this is relevant across uh care communities and I want to share an example actually from a a personal experience my I do this professionally you know working in dementia care but also my grandmother has dementia and she is living in a skilled nursing facility and this when we started like brainstorming this topic this example was just like so glaring and I think I actually shared this with you Nicole at Think Tank several months ago um but basically overall the building um that she was living in they were needing to they're making a financial decision to change cable providers like very simple like okay this this cable package is cheaper this provider is cheaper it makes sense we're going to make this change so that was a a very like highlevel a process kind of decision but what ended up happening in the Fallout was um my mother who is the person that comes and visits most often she she came and my grandmother was so so she's in the moderate stages of dementia she was so disoriented she didn't she didn't think she was in her own room and my mom realized that the TV was off and so she like tried to turn it on to go to the channel and everything was different and she very quickly realized that they didn't have TV Land anymore so this new cable package that they got excluded TV Land but I that is the only thing that my grandmother was watching all day long she loved you know Andy Griffith um all those westerns on there and that was so familiar to her it was locked into her long-term memory she knew like like she could quote the script of certain episodes of Andy Griffith although she couldn't you know remember some of our names and so it was a very it was very comforting to her but it was very orienting to her too is having that on the TV that made her feel like she was at home and so immediately what ended up happening is she's really confused this oriented trying to leave her room and this is happening times 50 right across the community um because people with Dementia or not like this is making a big change uh having to remember new numbers but then also channels being gone completely it was adding stress to the um on floor staff right so like the primary caregivers are no longer you know taking people to the bathroom and helping them change clothes but they're standing there trying to find channels which is such a waste of time and then they were saying you know the building higher ups were saying well just you can use streaming services like you can stream TV Land well the stress that put on the Wi-Fi ended up making it go out nobody was able to watch anything and so it just snowballed into all of these problems that choosing a cable provider doesn't seem like a dementia centered like person centered uh decision but I think that's just a very simple explanation of or an example of what some of these these small decisions can look like and if what a difference could have been made if maybe they had talked to the residents they do Resident Council so like talking to them what channels do you watch like how important is this and we could have avoided so many things yeah that's such a great example of that and I do I remember that conversation really sticking out of we wouldn't think that that would cause this huge ripple effect and then it really actually did yeah how does anyone else have any thoughts on that I was goingon to say too it even rippled down into the because it was involving my mom they were calling my mom like she's confused she's upset and you know medications can start getting uh involved it's it's wild how these decisions make a difference yeah I definitely don't want to make light of it but I can't help but just like laugh to myself a little bit thinking about us being in this position maybe 30 40 years from now and like what are we not going to be able to get Jersey sure like are we not going to be able to get Love is Blind you know like what is uh what's what's the beef gonna be when they switch our cable provider a lot absolutely lot be are those your favorite shows did we just learn I'm sitting here thinking what are the shows I should say but yeah maybe the Phillies I don't know yeah the Phillies aren't all we got problems that's true oh man James with caregiving how how can we identify and address these unique needs right of each person that is living with dementia and the you know side question onto that is addressing that identifying it but also the strategies for really balancing business demands with that human touch necessary for that quality care and what have you seen works well at Bell Groves it's like five questions Nico have to remind me as we go but I'll start with the first one start with the first okay and uh and then and then I'd love to invite Andrea I'd love to hear from her because she could probably give um depth to this answer as well for me when when I talked to family caregivers prior to their joining uh Bella Groves uh we we really talk about the need for partnership and that um we may be dementia experts in that we have a little bit more information than they do but it does not stop at we are the sole source of information we want people to come to the table with their own information so the best advice I would give to family caregivers is to know specifically more about your loved ones diagnosis so whether it's frontotemporal or vascular Alzheimer's or whatever it happens to be whatever is causing some change to your loved On's cognition and and and brain be a deep knower of that thing and that is what you should bring to the table and and I think uh a lot of times families wrestle with the feeling of guilt especially when they're partnered with a senior living provider and they naturally take on this role as their loved ones Advocate and it inadvertently creates this adversarial relationship uh between the family and the um and the senior living provider that we've reluctantly said okay we're going to let you be a part of this so I think um the the thing that we have to do from a business perspective before somebody comes into this partnership we have to agree that it is a partnership first of all and uh and we outline here are your respon possibilities in addition to deep knowing of your person and your loved one here also your responsibilities we're going to give you advice and coaching um and guidance on some of the Care techniques and approaches uh but like a simple example that comes up families ask are we allowed to come visit anytime we want are we allowed to take my loved one home it's not a simple enough answer to say yes of course it's well we're going to help you be successful in that so we're going to give you advice and guidance when and happens so if taking Mom home entire for the entire weekend becomes really detrimental to her for three or four or five days when she comes back let's agree upfront that we're going to partner on that and come up with a better solution so it all really still comes back to the family's main responsibility is is be a co- expert in your loved ones uh diagnosis so that you are not relying on somebody else to tell you oh this is normal Andrea yeah um not taking showers is normal so don't worry about us not giving her showers uh so if you understand what's going on you can Advocate a little better for that I don't know what the other questions are but I'm gonna yeah I'm gonna give my time back to somebody else sounds good anyone else want to have share their thoughts on that uh no I I completely agree it is definitely a partnership um I do think that there has been developed maybe a lack of understanding or just extremes or pass um kind of this imbalance um and this definition like needs to be refined of what being an advocate looks like and what the spirit of advocacy looks like um because I I do think that we can be well intentioned in wanting to Advocate and support and make sure that we are our person's biggest cheerleader um but we can also get in the way uh if we don't check ourselves um if we don't humanize the people people that we're trying to create a partnership with um if we realize that we we can you can be assertive without being like disrespectful or super shamey like it's just it all kind of perpetuates a real lots of ick um around the whole uh experience that we can kind of diminish so it's kind of trying to find a balance between being an advocate that is humanizing and supporting your person while also humanizing and supporting the process of the person that you're seeking support from um and it's not an easy balance again when you're passionate about your person and if you feel like they're being mistreated I have sometimes crossed the boundary I was just like oh I was a little bit aggressive with that nurse reel it in it's okay it's okay you might be having a bad day um but it's definitely a partnership and a collaboration um and there needs to be expectations set on both sides so that everyone feels they know what they're doing and making sure that it all works in the best way possible to be um a cohesive support system for people that need it I find that uh that completely to be true Andrea and like especially when I see my mom caring for her mother who's living in a Care community and for me being on kind of both sides of the fence and and knowing the reality of what it looks like to work in these care commun unities and and be on the front lines of some of these processes but also still like being a human and caring about the person how difficult that can be for the Frontline staff a lot of times being pulled back and forth and so a lot of times I have conversations with my mom about you know this issue that she's she's seeing I can I can take a minute and say like let me just play Devil's Advocate and let me give you the reality of what that Aid is dealing with probably in that moment and like maybe the lack of support that she's having or and we talk it out and it's just like I wish that communication existed between staff and families without like you know someone like me having to kind of be in the middle I think sometimes in care communities we have it's a business yes but like we got to be human you know like we've got to be like hey I dropped the ball you're right and then not necessarily giving excuses but sometimes giving perspective can really help too I I agree I think it's just really important for us to I'm really passionate about validating emotions because like being a human's really hard and I just want to always validate both professional and family caregivers and like you're saying in that connection like it's okay to say like Andre when you had a hard day like it's okay to be like sorry I was rough but like handling a lot and that's so valid like you're it's okay like you're not bad to like have those days and that's why that communication is so important because because yeah I think and and the professional caregivers too I never felt like I had support when I was a professional caregiver in the in my emotions so then that would kind of come out and I would have like breakdowns at work all the time you know and you so it's like there's such a balance for all the caregivers yeah we all need to be on the same page and have have communication but I think there's a fear on both sides and there's there's just a lot to go into it yeah but it we need to start talking about the emotions and and how much because this industry is heavy we're we dealing with heavy stuff and we're allowed to have emotions about it yeah well that I was going to say with Adria bringing that conversation up of you wish those conversations could happen right and with James you know that kind of Segways to that second part of the question of how maybe do we facilitate that and how do we balance right you understand kind of the business demands with being able to have the human touch necessary right um I will pref this by saying that Bell Groves we we're intentionally trying to be outliers here so I understand that this is not exactly the parameters that most Senior Living providers are going to be working with but with that said let's let's dream in moonshot um language um I fundamentally understand so everybody on this panel what we're talking about um this is This Is My Jam I'm having aha moments while we're talking by the way and I want I want to share one here in a moment uh but the business plan around Bell Groves is how do we Foster better Partnerships and our end goal is how do we help caregivers whether they're professional or family or community in general how do we help caregivers to upskill and be better at what they naturally want to do so that's the problem that Bell Groves is trying to solve um having a Care Community is almost incidental to that it's like a secondary thing but the primary thing is we want to help upskill uh any caregiver in the dimension caregiving Journey um so I think because of that we naturally tend to pair a little bit better for uh fostering these types of conversations and collaborations um we do we seriously do talk about families UPF front this is going to be a partnership and here's what here's what is expected of you how many Senior Living providers are going to say that to a customer that they're trying to court that here is your responsibility in this equation and we have uh declined moving forward with families that we feel like aren't going to live up to that uh partnership because that that breaks apart the whole thing um so I think going back to that introduction I gave we have to figure out what is our mission first and then figure out the business around it and I think a lot of Senior Living providers are doing the opposite they're trying to build a business and oh what's the feature that we're going to provide to differentiate ourselves and I think that's a really different way to go about it um and I want to quickly give credit to my uh fellow panelists here I just had an aha moment that um while we were talking while y'all were talking that we encourage encourage and advocate for family caregivers to uh practice self-care right like we all in some of your social media channels are all about that about love the caregiver too and it just dawned on me that when family caregivers choose a care partner like Bell Groves or whoever that self-care now extends to other caregivers so you've invited other caregivers to now be part of that care team so it's counterintuitive to be um like angry at the caregiver or to be passive aggressive towards the caregiver and and it didn't dawn on me until just now why that is paradoxical because you're in essence hurting yourself you're hurting your own care efforts so if you're going to practice self-care and you choose new Care Partners to join the journey well now that responsibility of self-care extends to everybody on the care team which includes us good good thoughts on that and I I love that we're all learning from each other and I think we pull out those things that we do find super meaningful and valuable as we like look at our work and move forward and Andrea I love to hear your perspective on you know you're really in that role with your mom and how family members and professional caregivers how do we collaborate effectively to ensure that personalized care how you know as families what role do we play in that approach and what have you found um and what working with with your mom yeah so in my experience really the the process of collaboration starts and is led by the family or the loved one of the person with dementia because no one knows your loved one like you do um and at the end of the day these professionals are here to meet your needs and the needs of um of your person so it's up to you to educate them on what those needs are uh so when I recently brought in a professional caregiver as part of my support um team and part of my mom's support team the first thing I looked at was my why knowing my why what was the result that I was hoping from partnering with a professional caregiver for me I wanted my mom to get more socialization outside of myself and my aunt who I had moved in um with me for additional support um but still keep it kind of in a controlled enironment with stuff she knew and things that she was familiar with and I also wanted to create space for myself so I can just be me outside of work and caregiving um and so with that my why LED everything um everything that I put together for this caregiver and how I wanted the partnership to look and how I communicated with this person um so I asked questions you know I got to know the caregiver what are they strong in what do they love about their role what do they love about being with clients um what are the things they do but they're not strong in um and then I kind of took some of that information built it into what my expectations were and I put those expectations in writing um we got to make sure that our caregivers are caring for many many people that are very diverse in what they need how they express their needs all of that so put it in writing um is just a kind way to uh communicate to that person um and then be open be open to change be open to there's a lot of perspective that this caregiver brings and potentially experience depending on the the professional that you're working with but there is a lot that they can bring to the table so I think making sure that you as the the family member or the support system of this person is always in a stance of I am um both a teacher and a learner uh is a big part of the collaboration process making sure that we humble ourselves and remember that we don't know it all and then just make sure that you're hosting those regular check-ins that are intentional um with them because we know how quickly things can change um and there are things that can happen in a day like little details and little things that maybe your caregiver doesn't communicate because it's just part of their experience like it's but for you it would have been super important to know those things because it's a new symptom my mom's never done that before all of these things so making sure that you're hosting regular check-ins that's kind of my my process that I've been using to have a partnership with um a with a caregiver um and once I get a caregiver that's steady I'm sure this system will go really really well what type of what type of uh Improvement you know do you see you know just you know from like a 30,000 foot perspective right like when when you kind of when you've built this Synergy how do you see your mom respond in a positive way yeah uh she definitely feels heard more um because the caregiver has been educated on the language of my mother um she's been educated on how she expresses herself when she's frustrated when she's overwhelmed she goes to her room it's okay she's safe leave her alone allow her to decompress um and so she doesn't feel like uh this pressure to necessarily learn another person because they're so outside the scope of her experience so now she doesn't feel that um she can just be she can just sit in herself in her space and just be um because you don't have a caregiver that's poking and proding and trying to like figure things out um clumsily which can be an energy suck for those with dementia um so I've noticed my mom just relax CU she doesn't have to try to teach someone who she is this person already knows to an extent right right yeah well as I was listening to you I think we could honestly take that framework for so many parts of our Lives you talk about you know what's the why and that guides you setting expectations be adaptable be uh teach teacher and a learner and have good communication I mean let's just remember that the rules for humaning right right yeah I love it I love it thank you for sharing that and with that personalized you know approach and having practical processes in place right that can guide what we do Dan you're going to be on the hot seat for a little bit it's a longer question so you can kind of take it in phases but for you what are some ways that we can take these processes such as cleaning or infection control how do we work them into a personalized approach safely and how with you know service providers like Viking pure and others that provide caregivers with that support to be able to um do their role well train personalized enrich um all of that for safety which I think is like all of our number one um motivators yeah I mean I appreciate you asking and I I certainly don't want to you know to to diverge from some of the amazing things that we're you know we're discovering about each other um but I uh I just know you know how passionate we are about extending you know our commitment to safety you know not just you know to the resident but to the caregivers you know who are responsible for for keeping up this environment and you know we understand you know many times as a service provider for communities that that we kind of fall more into like the backbone right like if uh you know if the community isn't clean um you know if the if the community you know has even a perception of not being clean you know that's that's a tremendous impact to the culture uh it's it's it's an impact to the perception of those you know what I mean who are kind of on the outside looking in um and then certainly sometimes those that are living within the community they don't they don't feel safe they don't feel happy and there's been some tremendous research you know that has been done and and this PE viewed that you know that shows very positive correlations between you know a clean and a safe environment and and either the uh the reduction of of prevalence you know of of Dementia or U to just the overall Improvement you know and kind of caregiving in those spaces we don't want cluttered rooms know we want don't want to be presenting you know trip hazards and injury hazards you know we don't want clutter for the opportunity for dirt dust and and kind of grime you know to develop either and contribute negatively to someone's health so um understanding that an environment needs to be clean is kind of priority number one and then we try to help you know do it in the safest possible way and then our fortunate enough to have a technology that um you know can can really uh circumvent the need to use dangerous and toxic chemicals you know the products that that our machines produce you meet all EPA regulations for being used in these you know these these these important and and um know imuno compromised environments you know but also Pro uh provide no no health risk to uh to the resident you know or or to the person you know who's applying the chemical so from our perspective we want to develop a bunch of enthusiasm for that you know we want our team members to to be proud that they're leaders uh you know at the executive levels or you know leadership levels within the community deem their job as as as important as it is and and want them to be safe doing it want them to keep coming back to work every day uh because they don't just act as environmental service workers or uh just as dietary workers and one of the most amazing common denominator that I've always been exposed to in the senior living space is everyone's a caregiver first uh and then you know your job is is is is second um it's it's amazing to me to see you know an environmental service worker take a moment out of her day cleaning a floor or you know whatever uh you know to just help someone you know a resident get from their room to lunch you know because they know it's important you know for that Resident to be the first in line you know at lunch every day they want to they want to be in their table first so their job comes kind of second in that moment to to make sure that they're servicing their resident so um but in the in the same time we know that they may be leaving their cart behind they may be leaving some you know some product potentially you know uh into the environment and it's just kind of nice knowing that if they're utilizing bikeing pure a resident gets their hands on that somebody else gets their hands on it that maybe shouldn't you know there's it's a safe you know safe equation um but I think you know the commitment from from other providers really just needs to be um you know that that determination to to to weave yourself into the fabric or the culture you know of of set environment and to understand you know how um you know those actions that go above and beyond you know what you actually are committed to to providing from a service perspective uh you know meet the the overall resident needs um I think that's that's that's got to be priority number one yeah completely well you and I had conversation how safety for families is like a top I don't know the date like top three concern of they want that environment um to be safe and just the brain health piece and a service provider can I believe support or even derail your personalized approaches right so just how important that is to have uh those people in that yeah definitely uh you know we understand that that our customer are committed uh ultimately you know to their residents and and you know we have to to share in that level of responsiveness and it's it's extremely important to me that that you know as a customer you you look at Viking pure you know or whoever else you know you're using you know throughout your environment as somebody who's in alignment with you is equally committed to that level of responsiveness and ensuring that uh that your building your community uh stays you know stays stays afloat and safely operational so yeah absolutely yeah thank you so Adria the example with your grama was I think we could really see how that plays out and can really affect us what are some other really good examples of quote unquote good policies that can have unintended negative effects or even vice versa I suppose yeah so actually while Dan was talking it made me think of one which is I'm a big component for montau based activities which is where we involve individuals with dementia into really purpose filled tasks and things that are familiar to them that they've done a thousand times in their life and so cleaning is one of them and I have gotten push back from communities in the past where or um I've talked to a lot of speech therapists where some of these examples will come from but sometimes they'll say like oh my community says that um like residents can't work like that's undignified for them to work and so them folding towels or like wiping down the table after lunch is looked at as undignified because on paper we can't have residents work that looks bad but what if that fulfills them like what if that gives them purpose and a sense of of belonging so I think that's what one that when Dan was talking that reminded me of is some communities might not like the idea of of cleaning supplies being available or even around residents at all for that reason um hug a therapists in your life because speech occupational and physical therapists especially that work in skilled nursing facilities are under a policy of productivity and so um when I was working in these communities I would have an it's very common to have a 90% productivity standard and so what that means is that in an eight hour day I would only have 48 minutes to do things that were unproductive according to Medicare so all of the things that can't be billable by insurance by by Medicare specifically I had to fit in 48 minutes of my entire day so that's going to the bathroom um that's walking from Resident room to a resident room that's communicating with staff when the um patient isn't present so that's insane like so when you said like service providers like going above and beyond like how that that's like so desirable no I get penalized like we would be reprimanded and disciplined if we did anything that was not billable by insurance and it took more than 48 minutes in an entire day those policies suck um I've heard from many speech therapists over the last year in a lot of my trainings about doing making signs for people with dementia to make them more independent so WR making a sign that says like I will always lock my breaks on my wheelchair before I stand up to decrease risk of Falls even though that intervention is effective sometimes State surveyors come in and they will make them remove signs because they're hipo violations or it's a dignity issue and I like to say I have signs in my house everywhere to remind me of things and I don't have like that's you know we've also I've also been in many communities where um if a resident has an injury with a certain piece of equipment so a bed rail a transfer pole a Rollator um certain features on a wheelchair if there's been an injury of any kind in any Community that's owned by the same company even if it's 20 states away and it was one time they remove it from everyone and I know that's liability concerns but that has deeply impacted people's Independence and I've I have seen residents in memory care have to be moved into nursing homes because now without that piece of equipment that helps them move they can no longer fit the criteria of the place that they lived yeah which is really disappointing and I think the last one I'll give which is an insane policy that I experienced one time which on paper sounds great um I in a community I worked in they said if a resident in your presence say that says that hurts or you hurt me you have to immediately suspend yourself like walk away report yourself write an incident report and you are suspended pending an investigation which makes that sounds great but you know how many physical and occupational therapists were suspended because they were rehabbing someone who has a brand new knee or um they're just postop after a hip replacement and doing normal exercise made them say oh that hurts and it's it was no exceptions if someone else heard a resident say that and you were present and you were like participating with them you could be fired you could lose your license it was Madness for a while when we had to have conversations about can we talk about this in a more common sense way um because it was it was really bad for a while so those are just a few examples off the top of my head when I made a list the other day of of some policies I've seen and it only goes from there and it's a lot of these policies sound good on paper and it protects community but it has detrimental effects for the for the individuals right let me let me defend senior living here I'm just kidding I Adrian was like okay go for it James but uh no I mean it's incredible I would listen to an hourong thing of each of our panelists here um on on just things they want to talk about but this is you know this is getting at the heart of person versus process and how do we as an industry and an affiliated Industries how do we get better at this stuff uh because everything that Adrian just just exemplified I'm like yep I've seen that before done that before and as she was talking I I put it in the chat comment but I can't tell you how many time studies I've been a part of in different Senior Living organizations and the only purpose of that time study was to determine what is your Staffing ratio going to be so in essence how long does a shower take oh well somebody with dementia is going to take this long somebody without dementia is going to take this long and it's some you know it's some quantitative calculator to to depersonalize someone's needs and so you're putting process way way way ahead of that person and so for us we took a best guess at it so having uh 26 room communities and Staffing them at a one caregiver to four resident ratio one to four ratio that's a best guess as to having enough time to allow for variability throughout the day um so here's the crazy idea we do not have an activities calendar so when people come in and ask you know hey can you give me your activities calendar because it is mandated by state so technically we have one that we put on paper so we can give it to state if they come visit damn it I just said that out loud uh but for families I think about it it strikes them when they're like what do you mean you don't have an activity calendar I said well show me your activity calendar you like what what do you use for your own life's activity and like well I don't have one but my mom should have one and we and it and it goes into this dialogue about look we're not shooting from the hip here we're well researched we have a very specific philosophy about person's enter programming activities purposefulness and I'm happy to tell you about all of that but there's no way I can predict what Andrea's mom is going to want to do next Thursday and I'm sure he not going to put it on a calendar so we have ideas and and principles and Frameworks for how to do programming but we're not going to commit it to an activity calendar to say next Thursday she's really going to want to go for ice cream yeah yeah so true I mean that's personalization right there right yeah yeah it it has to you know our processes have to allow for this flexibility in real time like trying to determine what what do I do with the given information that I have now and that is what our professional caregivers those one caregiver to every four residents they have to f figure out in real time what do I do right now that's purposeful what do I do right now given the set of circumstances with everybody here um and that really is the work we have to have processes around training and helping them to think and helping them to adapt helping them to to take all of that variability and do something productive with it but we can't mandate do this at 8 o' do this at 8:30 do this at 8:40 right yeah we can't we can't at all and with Adria's perspective with your mom when you've seen these approaches that are personalized implementing how how have you found that to be successful from when they're not and how does that create I mean obviously we know it creates it so much more meaning in that environment but to see it really play out in in in real time for you I'm sorry did you say Andrea or Adria I said but I very well could have said Andrea because I was practicing earlier with Carrie I'm like I got to get it right Adria okay can you repeat the question because I thought I I lost the question too because Dan is distracting everybody with ice cream jokes so to be fair repeat the question this is for Andrea Andrea Andrea okay everybody need but Andrea for Success yes when we Implement those personal Iz care approaches in dementia caregiving yeah um so I feel like when it comes to what success looks like I feel like there's three metrics that you kind of that I look at at least I'm looking at um what success looks like for me what success looks like or may feel like um for my mother and for the paid caregiver um again making sure in order to make sure that we're really a cohesive like system um so I feel like for success for a family member of the person or a support um to the person with Alzheimer's would be having um a safe place with that professional to be able to express the things that I love the things that I want the things that I don't like um and knowing that we can be able to work through those things um that the person isn't going to become Super Hyper sensitive and then maybe now I'm worried that they're going to take it out on my loved one like having a safe space for communication and transparency is super important um and is a key to a metric for success with with all three of the the elements there um consistency I think is super important as well um if there's like a consistent you have a plan you're communicating you've got a plan and you're consistently um like it's like a well oiled machine you guys know what to expect you've communicated and now you're just going to run with the plan at that point um I feel like is a piece of success for all three as well consistency obviously is a big theme when it comes to someone who has dementia knowing that they feel like they have systems and people that they can re rely on even if they don't realize that it's a part of like a whole system but just knowing that they can they have something they can count on in their cont stantly changing world that they're already experiencing um and then I feel like success also looks like um just making sure that um expectations are are being me met I think that sometimes as a caregiver because you've got five million things going on I know I've been tempted to sometimes just settle for having someone here I I'll I'll take it because I just I can't deal with anything else someone's here a body is here but that's fine but really it's not doing anyone any justice if I uh basically just allow a body to fill a need without creating any system of accountability um and so I feel like success looks like having a system where there's also that accountability and that your uh professional is open to those accountability systems in working with you um I I've I've noticed that with the one caregiver so far that I've had success with this is has kind of been what the experience has been for us and I'm like yes this is what this gives me hope this is what it's supposed to look like and feel like right absolutely well I know we we said we had a lot to cover and we're a little over time Nal how how are we doing we have time for one she's like L the plane guys yeah let's let's keep going I think we'll uh Reserve any questions from the audience um you guys can feel free to put those in the chat and um I will email them to the appropriate panelist and we'll get back to you for sure but uh yeah let's let's finish strong here we go with uh looking at what's happening right in the future Carrie what are some emerging Trends and Innovation that you are seeing in dementia care that you believe will enhance how we offer that personalized care in the future so great question I am very passionate about age Tech and um I some of us on here are part of the ARP htech collaborative and it's such a beautiful thing to to see what's coming out um but I I went to sit down when I thought of this question when I got this and I was like oh I'm Gonna Make a list of things and then I said no you're not because that's what we're talking about is person centered care so not any you know I can tell you all these companies but that's that's kind of blanketed right it's not like you know there's a lot of options but I want I don't want to just throw out a couple companies because again that's kind of blanketing what we need so what I want to say is I'm excited about the education that's coming out the awareness the companies that are waking up to building things that can support us as we age and as we live with dementia and caregivers and so I think there's there's a plethora of things and it excites me and just thinking specifically to like you know meaningful engage engagement person centered engagement there's a lot of Beau beautiful companies coming out and a lot of innovations that are specific to dementia care which is very exciting and you can take those tools and then personalize it yourself and use them in specific ways for the people you're caring for but I think really right now what the emerging trend is just awareness the emerging Trend right now is oh we need to build for dementia we need to build for givers we need to build these these um personalized approaches and Innovations so I will say that you know I I've talked to someone before um who works in dementia specific engagement and she said to me uh you know isn't it interesting how children have a plethora of of Engagement items to choose from you can have you know very personalized things kids have a whole Toy Store right and and then people living with dementia might have two choices of an engagement item you know and finally we're getting more choices and more person centered approaches because you finally have choice so I know I'm annoying that I'm not like throwing out specific things but I want to say it's it's on us to find the personalized things that are coming out for the people we're caring before so I invite you to look at what is coming out in the age World specifically and and finding the different things there and I also think you know um really focusing on the caregiver and how to make the caregiver's life as you know supporting them in their life as much as possible Innovations are coming out apps and things like that to keep communication well between communities professionals you know and the and the um the caregivers so I just think there's a lot of emerging Trends in just seeing the awareness and seeing what we need to focus on now going forward if that makes sense but I didn't want to L and statement you know certain um Innovations because again it's all different so for us all we all need different things so yeah but there's awesome Innovations I'm excited and feeling very hopeful for the future I am too and as James said in the chat to Shay Cary right if we're talking about personalized care to say specifically here's what you need so I love that there's that's so true there's so much momentum that's happening right now more awareness conversations like this to build that uh awareness and education is so important so we're so thankful everyone came today Nel I don't know if you have any closing thoughts but thank you everyone yes thank you that was really all I had to say thank you to each of our panelists Andrea Carrie Nicole uh James and Adria and of course Dan as well um you guys have been amazing and I think this conversation was super super valuable and um kind of I can't remember who said it but um it's important to keep this awareness going and I'm glad that we've kind of participated today um but I really hope that I know you all will will continue this going um but I hope that our attendees will as well and um again attendees feel free to um pop a questions in um or I will be sending out an email later today with the replay from today's panel feel free to share that around feel free to respond to that with questions that you have and um we'll make sure that we get them answered but again thank you to everyone it's been a real real pleasure thank you thanks guys thanks everyone thanks everyone for being here bye-bye

Channel: Viking Pure Solutions

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Id: FUfK3BBT8hI

Length: 64min 19sec (3859 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 24 2024