My good friend Lola is 88 years old and has dementia. She says, “BUSY is the new 4-letter word.” Blaise Pascal, French mathematician, philosopher, and defender of Catholic Christianity in the 1600’s said, “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room.” 100% of my good friends with dementia, given a dementia-aware environment to enjoy,…
You may know that the Better People Care “tag line”, or motto, is: “Helping Older Folks Live Fully in Their Own Homes.” To be sure, sometimes “their own homes” refers to one of the senior facilities in which folks now live. But moreso, “their own homes” means the homes in which they live within the community. Homes they often live…
Last week, about twenty residents of a nursing and rehabilitation facility in Greeley, Colorado, held a protest against Covid restrictions on the sidewalks outside their facility. Their hand-made signs said things like, “Rather die of Covid than loneliness”, and “where are our rights as residents?”. The Governor of Colorado’s statement following this protest was “We absolutely understand how difficult it…
I have a question. Or maybe it’s a couple of questions. Questions that I’ve had since the world shut down due to Covid-19. Questions that need to be asked, and discussed, before it’s too late. You see, my friend Dottie turned 97 today. I had the privilege of spending time with her because I am an Occupational Therapist; an “essential…
We believe that our older folks are to be respected, and treated with dignity. That we should interact with them in such a way that they feel valued. That they readily sense that we appreciate their history and the lives they have lived…regardless of how that history might have played out. We have the privilege of spending time every day…
©Jill Couch At Better People Care, we believe the best approach to dementia care is a team approach; where several minds and eyes and ears, each training in the DAWN Method, are paying attention to the lives of our friends living with dementia. And we believe that as we train families, and friends, and neighbors, and church communities, and the…
© Jill Couch “I feel that many people see the terms Alzheimer’s, dementia, and any other disease that causes dementia as large umbrella terms for their simple interpretation: “mindless old people walking around.” I, too, felt this way prior to being introduced to the DAWN Dementia Method…and thanks to my wonderful mentors with Better People Care. I feel that I…
People with dementia sometimes get VERY angry. And it is no fun for them, or for those of us with them. And it seems like no matter how hard we try, we struggle to help them get un-angry. We both end up frustrated and unhappy and feeling hopeless. So it goes when we don’t understand some of the frequent triggers…
As a dementia specialist and advocate for folks living with dementia and their families, I’d like to propose we take a different perspective. Every person who receives health care from a licensed provider will receive a diagnosis. And with that diagnosis comes a code, a combination of letters and numbers, to simply classify the diagnosis so that the person’s medical…
This is my beautiful friend Carol. I have had the honor of being her friend for just a bit more than a year. She is a remarkable woman. A survivor, a Mom, a nurse, a musician. A friend and a partner. A protector and provider for animals in need of care. She loves to tell me the story of being…
