The brochure does a pretty thorough walk through the steps that you need to take to prepare you and your loved one for a natural disaster. The major parts include:

• The Calm Before the Storm
• When to Start Planning? Long Before Disaster Strikes!
• Start with Conversations
• Then, Take Action
• A Disaster Is Imminent – What Should You Do?
• Can You Stay – or Should You Go?
• Getting Out of Harm’s Way
• Your Time Away
• The Return Home
• Planning Makes a Difference
• Checklists
• Resource

The checklist section alone is worth the trip. Check it out.

In some cases, a blood vessel may be completely blocked, causing a stroke. Not all strokes cause vascular dementia. It depends on the severity of the stroke, where the stroke occurred and the portion of the brain that’s affected. Vascular dementia also can occur when blood vessels in the brain narrow, reducing the amount of blood flow to those sections of the brain.

The prevalence of vascular dementia ranges from 1 to 4 percent in people over the age of 65. Because few treatments are available for vascular dementia, prevention is crucial.”

Helpguide.org outlines the physical signs and symptoms as:

• Memory problems
• Dizziness
• Leg or arm weakness
• Lack of concentration
• Moving with rapid, shuffling steps
• Loss of bladder or bowel control

Helpguide.org also lists behavioral signs and symptoms to be aware of:

• Slurred speech
• Language problems
• Abnormal behavior
• Wandering or getting lost in familiar surroundings
• Laughing or crying inappropriately
• Difficulty following instructions
• Problems handling money

Whatever the cause, dementia is characterized by memory loss, attention loss, and/or disorientation. In order to effectively manage the day-to-day activities, while treating the person with respect, a different approach is required when interacting with someone with dementia.

In order to avoid confusion, consider these tips:

• Be direct – Instead of asking what they want for dinner tonight, you can say, “I thought I’d make lasagna for dinner.”
• Be brief – Focus on the core activity. Instead of discussing all of the activities associated with getting ready for bed, try, “Let’s get ready for bed now.”
• Set the context – When someone comes to visit, give names and a few points about the people, “Paul and Susan, our friends from next door are here for a visit.”
• Speak slowly – Don’t expect an immediate reply. Be patient.

Don’t assume too much about how someone with dementia is processing what you say. In some cases, or some days, it may be very little, or it may be everything. Instead, keep an eye on their behavior. Also, don’t assume that they can always tell you what they need. Do they have any unmet needs that they are unable to communicate?

• Do they need to use the restroom?
• Are they thirsty?
• Are they hungry?

Are they trying to tell you something else?

• Has their routine been disrupted?
• Are they too hot or too cold?

Be aware of how your tone of voice and body language may affect them. Though they may not always fully understand what you say, it doesn’t mean that they won’t perceive your frustration, or anger. Having a relaxed, positive demeanor can make them feel at ease and more comfortable with the situation. And related to that, be patient. Know that you won’t always get somewhere on time. Things won’t always go as you intially imagined. Being prepared to change plans, or have them changed for you. Roll with the punches as they say.

Remember, these tips are as much for the benefit of the caregiver as they are for the person receiving the care. They should help you avoid the anger an frustration that can result from trying to communicate with someone whose communication skills may, or may not, always be there.

Courtesy a4gpa via Flickr

We’re always looking for the best resources on the Web that can help the busy, perhaps harried, caregiver do what they need to do with confidence and compassion, while maintaining a balance in life. Sometimes it’s not easy. One thing working in our favor is that we do have the Internet and its abundance of resources. We also have the networks of caring people with which to share information and ideas. But sorting through the huge volume of information can be challenging and time consuming.

While surely not a definitive list, we thought we’d provide our picks of some of the best caregiver resources among the embarrassment of riches. Our picks were chosen to get someone a little more thoroughly grounded in role of caregiver. If we’ve missed a great resource, let us know in the comment section below.

Family Caregiver Alliance

While there’s much to be had on the Family Caregiver Alliance site, we honed in on the “Caregiving Issues and Strategies” section of the site. This page provides links to printable pages on a good number of topics, including:

• Caregiver’s Guide to Understanding Dementia Behaviors – Includes Ten Tips for Communicating with a Person with Dementia
• Caregivers’ Guide to Medications and Aging – “Any symptom in an elderly patient should be considered a drug side effect until proved otherwise.”
• Caring for Adults with Cognitive and Memory Impairments – A very thorough over of the topic, from tips on getting started to more resources.
• Caregiving and Ambiguous Loss – Addressing the stress caused by unpredictable memory loss that, “comes and goes—one moment here, the next moment gone”.
• Dementia, Caregiving and Controlling Frustration – A great guide to dealing with the personal challenges that we have to deal with.

There’s plenty more from Family Caregiver Alliance

Alzheimer’s Association CareFinder

This area of the Alzheimer’s Association website focuses on help for a person with Alzheimer’s, or their caregiver. This part of the site is well organized and serves as a good, high-level guide to addressing needs of someone with Alzheimer’s. The major sections of this site include:

• Planning Ahead
• Care Options
• Coordinating Care
• Support and Resources

The site also include an interactive tool called, “Your Personal CareFinder” that asks a number of questions about the patient so it can then recommended care options and questions to ask when screening a caregiver or facility.

Particularly helpful are the “Topic Sheets & Forms“. Included are a number of pages and PDF files categorized as, Forms, Daily Living, Financial, Legal and Insurance Issues and Home and Residential Care. Some, of particular note, are Individual Needs Assessment, Wandering: Preparing for and Preventing, Caregiver Stress and a couple of real thorough documents on taxes and Alzheimer’s.

AARP, Navigating the World of Caregiving

As you might expect, AARP has a good area on their site that helps caregivers find the kinds of information that they’ll need while helping a senior. The major, and best, parts of this site include:

• Planning Ahead
• Providing Care at Home
• Preparing Your Home
• Housing Options
• Legal and Insurance
• End of Life

There’s a lot of good detail here. While none of them are really deep, they’re helpful in that they give a good overview of each topic area.

The site has a couple of “interactive features” that are rather unimpressive. One is a quiz to see how stressed you are. You rate yourself on a number of factors and then it scores you on how stressed you are. I like that it has a button below your score that says, “Try Again”. Will me stress go down if I keep doing the quiz? There’s also a video section on the site with a lot of short videos on a variety of topics related to caregiving. Dr. Bill Thomas stars in many of them. The AARP also has a Caregiving area that has more timely articles.

Some Quick Hits

We also have a couple of quick hits for caregivers:
10 Tips for Family Caregivers (PDF) – Good tips from the National Family Caregivers Association
Stages of Caregiving – Also from National Family Caregivers Association on their Family Caregiving 101

Did we miss your favorites, or an obvious one?

Part 1: The Memory Loss Tapes

Part 2: Grandpa, Do You Know Who I Am? with Maria Shriver

Part 3: Momentum in Science

Part 4: Caregivers

Visit the HBO site for a trailer of the program. 

This worthwhile look at Altzheimer’s Disease is being backed by The National Institute on Aging, the Alzheimer’s Association, Fidelity Charitable Gift fund, and Geoffrey Bean Gives back

If you are finding it difficult to encourage your loved ones to get out and start enjoying their family, friends, and all of the activities that have brought them joy and happiness in the past, the following research may be the motivation needed.

Research found in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society reported in MD Consult shows that seniors who participate in regular “social or leisure activities such as traveling, odd jobs, knitting or gardening were associated with a lower risk of subsequent dementia.”

A second research study reported in the American Journal of Public Health (July, 2008) studied 2249 women 78 years of age or older with varying degrees of social networks.  Like the previous study, this study found that “larger social networks have a protective influence on cognitive function among elderly women.  Future studies should explore which aspects of social networks are associated with dementia risk and maintenance of cognitive health.”