In 2019, a pair of #Winnipeg#moms launched #Lullaland, the Province’s first-of-its-kind #baby#sensory program with the goal of promoting early #bonding between #caregivers and their little ones. Fast forward five years, the pair are set to bring their program to families across #Canada.
“We wanted to create something that was just as engaging and fun for the grown-up as it is for the baby,” explained Fran Hiebert, a co-owner of Lullaland.
It is an honor to participate in the #Kensington#RedwoodCity Open House for #Caregivers. The event will take place on May 2, and if you are in the neighborhood, please consider coming. My #memoir -- Finding the Right Words -- which I wrote with #UCSF#neurologist Dr. Bruce Miller, will be the departure point for the discussion, which will lay the groundwork for a supportive conversation about #caregiving, #grief, #love, and #dementia.
Remembering the #Congresspeople who blocked #Biden's plan to help #caregivers. "Families & other caregivers take on an array of tasks, scheduling appts & feeding & caring for people w/#Alzheimer's or #dementia. The report said 11.5 million relatives & caregivers provided more than 18 million hours of unpaid care last year. That amounted to a full-time job for caregivers who spent an avg. of nearly 31 hours a week caring for a person w/Alzheimer's or dementia."
@cobalt. Thank goodness #Biden hasn't given up. As you point out, though, the need is tremendous, and not supporting #caregivers is, again as you point out, not only inhumane but irrational.
"Imagine a future with home care and elder care so seniors and people living with disabilities can stay in their homes and family caregivers get paid what they deserve!" From #Biden's #SOTU
So glad he is going back to and ready to fight again for this part of the #InflationReductionAct -- support for #caregivers -- that unfortunately (and cruelly) didn't pass.
Because today is the 1st #WorldLewyBodyDementia day, I'm sharing a page from the informative & whimsical glossary from my memoir written w/#neurologist, #Dr.BruceMiller. Our goal is to give readers, #caregivers, persons with #dementia, a greater understanding of the diseases of dementia. Providing definitions of terms used by #doctors was especially important to me (not an MD) to include in the book b/c when my dad got sick, we didn't know any of this & it would have helped.
Although I am not a neurologist, I think a lot about the #variants of #PrimaryProgressiveAphasia. I wrote a #memoir about my father's #early-onset #Alzheimer's with #neurologist, #Dr.BruceMiller of #UCSF's #MemoryAndAgingCenter. It explains where in the #brain the initial assault happens and helps us understand why people can't find the right words and/or garble them and/or repeat them. After many years, I learned that my father had the #logopenic variant.
@wlf_warren. You are welcome and thank you for sharing. The neurology is moving forward by leaps and bounds (never fast enough), and the help for #caregivers, which was non-existent when my mother was caring for my father, has improved a lot (never enough, of course).
2020: 7 million in the US w/#dementia
2040: estimate of ~12 million in the US w/dementia
Dementia is the umbrella term. The "other diseases" include #FTD (FrontoTemporalDementia), #CTE (repeated concussions), #VascularDementia, #LewyBodies, Creutzfeldt-Jakob, #Alzheimer's, #early-onset Alzheimer's & more.
Let's revisit (& pass) #Biden's plan to support financially #caregivers, who often die before the person w/dementia for whom they are caring. Then what?
I wrote this column for #LiliFiore, whose work with Much Love, Lili is meant to help #caregivers and people dealing with #grief (and more). It talks about what I wish I knew, what I wish we had done when my father was sick with #early-onset #Alzheimer's. I hope you find it helpful .