How Can You Tell If a Loved One is Getting Dementia

Here is a great dementia resource for caregivers and healthcare professinals,

Here is information on being the best caregiver you can be

Here is a way for nurses administrators, social workers and other health care professionals to get an easyceu or two


You may want to give the gift of attention and time. Not only will elderly loved ones appreciate your caring, but you may be able to spot some important cognitive or emotional changes that may be indicate a memory disorder.

Women usually live longer than men so consequently more women are affected by Alzheimer's disease and related dementias. Also women make up approximately sixty percent of caregivers to people with Alzheimer's disease. Do your loved and you a huge favor. Take this time to recognize changes in them to improve their quality of life by looking for these signs

Do they have difficulty finishing tasks that were once routine to them, like making their favorite recipe or figuring out how much they should tip the waitress at a restaurant?

Is your loved one unusually withdrawn, and/or are they more dependent upon another person, like their spouse, for appropriate social cues?

In defense of Antipsychotic drugs for dementia

Here is a great dementia resource for caregivers and healthcare professinals,

Here is information on being the best caregiver you can be

Here is a way for nurses administrators, social workers and other health care professionals to get an easyceu or two

Here are more interesting dementia brain boosting activities



By Daniel Carlat CNN

Although it's true that a prescription for antipsychotics to treat agitation in dementia is "off-label," this hardly means they are ineffective or that Medicare claims for these drugs are "erroneous." In fact, large placebo-controlled trials have shown that antipsychotics are the most effective medications for the agitation that often bedevils patients with dementia.

When these drugs are successful, they soothe the inner turmoil that makes life intolerable for these patients, improving their quality of life dramatically.

Off-label prescribing simply means the medicine has not undergone the vastly expensive process of gaining FDA approval. Doctors are allowed to prescribe medications off-label; indeed, without this prerogative, much of medical care would grind to a halt. More than 60% of drugs prescribed by both pediatricians and oncologists are "off-label," and almost all drugs prescribed by obstetricians fall into that category. Has your doctor every given you Valium to help you sleep? If so, your doctor was "erroneously" billing your insurance, according to the Office of the Inspector General, because Valium is FDA approved for anxiety, not for insomnia.

The unfortunate fact is that not a single medication is FDA-approved for the agitation of dementia, and yet the condition is common. About 15% of people over 65 have dementia, and half of them will develop agitation at some point. Anybody who has visited a loved one in the Alzheimer's unit of a nursing home understands agitation only too well; it includes combativeness, shouting, verbal abuse, extreme hyperactivity and sometimes outright violence to caregivers and family.

Agitation is often due to psychosis. For example, I recall one unfortunate gentleman with Alzheimer's disease who ripped an IV line out of his arm because he woke up in a strange room and believed his wife was in the next room calling his name. The room that seemed strange to him was a nursing home room he had occupied for three years, and his wife had died 15 years earlier.

This kind of agitation is dangerous for the patient, for staff and very upsetting for family members. When geriatric psychiatrists are asked to treat agitation, they look first for potential triggers that can be solved without resorting to behavioral drugs. Infections, drugs interacting with drugs, or pain are sometimes the culprits. At times, changes in the environment can help, such as increasing contact with a caregiver, changing roommates, or even adjusting the room's temperature.

But in many cases, such measures don't help enough.

Antipsychotics, such as Risperdal, Seroquel, and Zyprexa, have all been shown to be convincingly more effective than placebos in quelling agitation in the elderly. Their vaunted "lethal" risks are based on data that is surprisingly unimpressive. When each antipsychotic was studied separately, no significant difference in mortality was found between patients on drugs or on placebos. But when data on thousands of patients were combined, the mortality rate with four specific drugs was 4.5% in the medication group vs. 2.6% in the placebo group. The most common causes of death? Heart failure and pneumonia, which are the most common causes of death for all patients with dementia.

Physicians are not prescribing these medications in order to do harm to their patients. They are using them because there are no better options. Antipsychotics, by helping patients to be calm, are humane treatments for patients who are reaching the end of their days.

The solution is to expand research on safer and more effective treatments of dementia. It is not, as proposed by Levinson, to hire government auditors to decide whether doctors are prescribing drugs "appropriately." God help us if they do.

Smart Medication Management Can Promote Compassionate Caregiving

Here is a great dementia resource for caregivers and healthcare professinals,

Here is information on being the best caregiver you can be

Here are more interesting dementia brain boosting activities

Sharon Brothers MSW

Are you a family caregiver?

View a FREE training module, Becoming a Caregiver

invited Katie Huffstetler from the company Senior Living Communities to share an innovation her company is implementing to help with the challenge of medication management. Here's her guest article:

It's hard to move out of a family home into an assisted living community. If that community feels like home, however, that move can be just a little easier.

The company I work for recently announced a new initiative designed to reduce drug error rates and enhance residents' quality of life by taking the med-cart out of medication management. In our communities, assisted-living residents will enjoy an in-suite, secure cabinet that houses their pre-packaged medication. Each pouch has a bar-code that nurses will scan into a community-wide computer system, recording when the medication is given and ensuring accurate dosage practices. With caregivers inputting information electronically, transcription errors are virtually eliminated.

For caregivers that means one thing ... peace of mind. The added bonus of a decrease in institutional scheduling means residents can dictate when they would like to take their medication, just as they would if they were living independently. Although they will continue to take their medications as prescribed by their physician, residents will not be on a rigid, operational timeframe. Morning medication can be taken before or after their first cup of coffee, according to their individual preferences.

Did you know recent statistics estimate more than 25 percent of assisted living residents enter facilities as a result of poor medication management?

New technology gives us a tool to help people avoid this need, by better managing their medication at home. In our independent living retirement communities we've partnered with Concept Medical Technologies to provide MedAssure to the residents living there. MedAssure is a counter-top computer capable of storing and dispensing pouch-packaged medication at a scheduled time. Residents or caregivers program alerts into MedAssure and the computer notifies its user when it is time to take their medication. The machine continues to prompt users to take their medication until the correct pouch is removed.

MedAssure is also capable of sending text or e-mail messages to residents, family members or caregivers if they prefer a text reminder instead of an audible alarm. The computer gives caregivers a sense of safety without compromising Mom and Dad's independence or their health.

These improvements are broad in scope, but it's the little successes that mean the most when you're a caregiver. The industry as a whole faces huge challenges when it comes to implementing operational changes that make residents feel at-home in their surroundings, but if we can agree to think like caregivers, we'll understand that it's not so much about efficiency or productivity as it is about putting a smile on the face of someone we love. For more information about Senior Living Communities, visit our Web site at www.senior-living-communities.com.