Dealing With Dementia
This week’s “Here’s To Your Health” broadcasts spotlight the unsung heros of health care, caregivers. Caregivers are usually family members or close friends who spend a portion of their day helping someone they care about who has a medical condition. UAMS offers support to caregivers who provide help to others. To find more resources for caregivers, or to talk with a specialist at the UAMS Reynolds Institute on Aging, please contact UAMS at 501-686-8000.
Transcript
| Because dementia has a deteriorating course over an extended period of time, certain problems can be anticipated and planned for well in advance. A physician can help family members arrange for education and support that is needed to provide care. In the earliest stages of the disease, it is helpful to encourage caregivers to identify a health care proxy for the person with dementia. A Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care form should be completed, with multiple copies of it available in the physician’s office. Caregivers should become familiar early in the illness with adult day-care services and in-home or in-facility respite services. UAMS and the Schmieding Senior Health Center in Springdale have developed a program to train caregivers on how to deal with older adults in their home. The program is expanding into the Jonesboro area at the UAMS Center on Aging – Northeast beginning April 6. For more information, call 870-336-5095.
This program was first broadcast on April 1, 2010.
T. Glenn Pait, M.D., of UAMS is the host of the program.