Activities for Nursing Homes and Assisted Living

Activities for Nursing Homes and Assisted Living

Key to Quality of Life and Strong Contributor to Culture Change

An individualized, well though out activities program is at the heart of a quality life for residents in nursing homes or assisted living residences. Activities is not just about bingo and watching television. In fact, activity programs can be quite creative and stimulating for the mind. And the health and well-being benefits of a good program are becoming more and more documented. In short, this stuff works.

Read the full article here, on AssistedLiving.About.com

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Dementia: A good, safe, and dignified life with welfare technology

Come and hear about welfare technology and dementia! It’s free to join – but you must register before 9 September. I wish that I could attend, but unfortunately will be busy that day. If you are attending, please let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

Dementia:  A good, safe, and dignified life with welfare technology 

Come to Welfare Tech’s themed event on dementia. We set the focus on welfare technology solutions that create a good, safe, and dignified life for people with dementia. The events of the day will address the needs of both the person with dementia, the relatives as carers, and present the solutions available on the market. Continue reading

Retirement villages: great idea, but let’s think about their business model

This article come to use from The Guardian, a UK-based news source.

Let me just say, when I read this tag line, my first thought was “of course developers of retirement villages would say that, their business is developing villages and care homes are their competition.” So, I read this article with a skeptical mind, expecting to find some bias to support my initial opinion.

I think this exemplifies one aspect of the booming elder market and the dementia industry. Smart business people have realized that there is an increasing number of older adults and many of these will need some type of care as they continue to age. It really is a booming market and there are people who are profiting – it IS business, after all – but many of these people new to this market don’t have the compassion or the knowledge to understand what housing and care is and means to people. I get a little queasy when I realize that businesses see these wonderful elders in society as revenue and not as individuals with wants and needs and personalities. My best hope for these types of care homes and villages that are started by people new to the market and looking at the growing profit, is that they hire and continue to educate compassionate, knowledgeable staff who will make the place somewhere that is not only financially sustainable but also a good place to live. Continue reading

What’s it like to be an unemployed dementia specialist?

Shortly said, it’s incredibly frustrating.

By 2015, there are very few people who have not hear of Alzheimer’s disease or another type of dementia. Many people have also had personal experience with a friend, family member, or community member who has developed dementia. Many people are also aware that there are more and more people being diagnosed with dementia, and that there is a growing demand for quality care and services. Most governments specifically announce an increased need for qualified professionals in the area of dementia.

In a time when there is a growing demand for dementia specialists, it is both confusing and counteractive to be unemployed.

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Training for better memory

People with dementia train for better memory

Written by Ritzau May 12, 2015

Training helps Alzheimer’s patients to remember and concentrate. Alzheimer’s Association: Give all the offer.
As the first in the world, a group of Danes with Alzheimer proven that physical exercise strengthens the intellectual ability and increase the quality of life.

When the body starts to move, support memory and concentration ability, like exercise has a beneficial effect on the unrest that many patients with Alzheimer suffer.

“We can see that patients who exercise physically achieve an effect in several areas. They function better in their daily lives, and, at best, exercise can have a delaying effect on the disease,” says research leader Professor Steen Hasselbalch of the National Dementia Research Center.

A total of 200 patients affected by dementia since 2012 participated in the project. Half trained through 16 weeks in a community with others and in the presence of physiotherapists. The other group received no training.

The primary goal was to strengthen the ability to remember and concentrate, which was achieved in two out of three patients. It was achieved in the group who showed up to 80 percent of the three weekly training sessions and trained with such a high intensity that they were out of breath.

“They saw an effect on their mental speed, attention, and concentration,” says Steen Hasselbach.

It is still too early to determine why exercise has a positive effect on the brain. But it may be due to the fact that muscles secrete substances that are believed to have a protective and stimulating effect on the neurons during exercise.

But the explanation can also be simple so that patients sleep better and in general feel a greater comfort when they train, and thus find it easier to cope with everyday life.

In the Danish Alzheimer’s Association, President Nis Peter Nissen urges parliament to require municipalities to offer physical exercise to everyone with Alzheimer’s disease.

This will not only benefit patients and relatives, but also save admissions and nursing home places.

iPads and custom apps connect older adults in Japan

This is a re-post from IBM. I came across this article through LinkedIn and am very happy to re-post it. The first person I provided personal dementia care for, was a wonderful and inspiring woman in her early 50’s who had the familial type of early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. She spent her career working for IBM, traveling the world as a trainer for their programs. She would be so happy to hear that IBM is developing this service.

Japan Post Group, IBM and Apple Deliver iPads and Custom Apps to

Connect Elderly in Japan to Services, Family and Community

TOKYO, ARMONK, N.Y. and CUPERTINO, California – 30 Apr 2015: Japan Post Group, IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Apple today announced a first-of-its-kind initiative aimed at improving the quality of life for millions of Japanese senior citizens. Built on the global partnership Apple and IBM announced last year, the new initiative will deliver iPads with IBM-developed apps and analytics to connect millions of seniors with services, healthcare, community and their families.

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Are the Danes the happiest in the world?

Nyhavn in Copenhagen

On March 10th, 2015, I went to a lecture about if we Danes are the happiest in the world. It was a free event at the Tårnby Health Center and open to the public. 
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We are called the world’s happiest people – although several thousand Danes take medication to get out of bed, be around other people, or go to work. When is medicine the best solution and who should evaluate it?

Hear three researchers talk about stress, personality disorders, and alternative medicine.

1. The latest results in the field of stress research with Malene Friis Andersen from Copenhagen University

2. Personality disorders with clinical leader Pia Glyngdal from the Psychiatric Center in Hvidovre

3. Alternative medicine with Lasse Skovgaard from Copenhagen University

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“Having dementia is an adventure, not a disease”

I came across these inspiring articles about living with dementia. You can also find the original articles by clicking on the headlines.

The message is clear: they still have the capacity to enjoy life and want to be involved in their community. So let’s encourage and support them by making sure people with dementia have a good social network and live in the right environment. This is key to their health and wellbeing.

The Momentia movement helps people with dementia contribute to society, and lessens the stigma that can accompany diagnosis

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