AGE-u-cate Training Institute Blog

Individual preferences determine if one feels they have a high or low quality of life.

Topics: Senior Care Professionals, Family, Stress, Person centered care, staff, Nursing homes

People in care can often feel invisible.

Topics: Senior Care Professionals, Senior Care, Caregiver, compassionate touch, Hospital Professionals, Caregiver Training, Person centered care, touch

I am humbled and honored to work with such amazing and talented people.  As a trainer, I believe we learn as much from those we are training as they learn from us.  We are all practicing when it comes to dementia care.  Every day is a new day and no matter where we fit into the spectrum, we all need each other to learn and grow.  Let's talk about person-centered care practices.

Topics: Person-centered, Senior Care Professionals, Training, dementia, Care Partners, activities, Person centered care

Quite simply, the definition of personhood is the quality or condition of being an individual person.  At the core of personhood is the self- who we are are, our values and beliefs.  It's who makes us who we are.  Being able to recognize the "self" of personhood is key to understanding and practicing person-centered care for persons living with dementia.

Topics: AGE-u-cate Training Institute, dementia care, Person-centered, Senior Care Professionals, Family Caregiver, dementia, Faith Community, Person centered care, Personhood, Work

What exactly is the meaning of Life Enrichment?  

Topics: AGE-u-cate Training Institute, dementia care, The Family Caregiver, Senior Care Professionals, memories, dementia, Hospital Professionals, activities, life enrichment, Person centered care, Joy, Flashback Reminiscence Training

Challenging behavior is a catch-all term that, in the context of dementia, includes one or combinations of things like shouting, wandering, biting, throwing things, repetitive talking repetitive movements, destroying personal possessions and other objects without regard for whom it belongs, agitation and general anger, physical  or verbal attacks on others, waking others at night, making sexually inappropriate comments, disrobing inappropriately, and urinating or defecating in undesirable locations. This is not an all-inclusive list and I am sure you can think of many more examples that fit under the umbrella term of challenging behavior.

Topics: AGE-u-cate Training Institute, The Family Caregiver, Senior Care Professionals, dementia, compassionate touch, Dementia Live, Hospital Professionals, behaviors, Person centered care, Behavioral Expression, staff, Challenging Behaviors

How do you create a senior care community that truly enhances the lives of their residents?  By doing the right things for the right reasons.  Vitality, joy and celebrating the excitement of living was exactly what I felt from the time I entered the doors of Cherrywood Village Retirement Community in Portland, OR last week.

Topics: The Faith Community, The Family Caregiver, Senior Care Professionals, Senior Care, dementia, Person centered care

At least that's what they say here in Texas, when it's 80 degrees one day, and hitting the freezing mark the same night.  We've barely had a winter to speak of this year, so my recent trip to experience the Boston blizzard was an adventure and a treat.  So what does the weather have to do with aging and dementia you ask?

Topics: The Faith Community, The Family Caregiver, Senior Care Professionals, Memory Care, Senior Care, Aging in the Workplace, dementia, Person centered care, weather changes, person-centered thinking

With today’s emphasis on person centered care, communication skills are essential. Any senior care or hospice professional regularly interacts with people with communication challenges stemming from brain injury, stroke, hearing loss; Parkinson’s disease or Alzheimer’s disease.

Topics: Senior Care Professionals, Senior Care, empathy, Person centered care, Hospice, communication