Elder Services of Merrimack Valley is hosting ‘Powerful Tools for Caregivers,’ a six week educational program designed to help take care of you while you are caring for a relative, friend or loved one. You will benefit from this class whether you are helping a parent, spouse, friend, someone who lives at home, in a nursing home, or across the country.

The educational program meets once a week for six weeks and covers the following topics:

• Taking Care of You
• Identifying and Reducing Stress
• Communicating Feelings, Needs and Concerns
• Communicating in Challenging Situations
• Learning From Our Emotions
• Mastering Caregiving Decisions

Cost: The Program is provided at no cost by Elder Services of the Merrimack Valley.

Respite for your care receiver may be available during your participation in the program. For more information or to register please call Renee Merritt at 978-946-1321 or email at rmerritt@esmv.org.

WINTER SCHEDULE

North Andover Council on Aging
Tuesday, 02/01/11 – Tuesday, 03/08/11
1:00 pm – 2:30 pm

Nevins Alzheimer’s Family Care Center, Methuen
Thursday 02/03/11 – Thursday 03/10
1:30 pm – 3:00 pm

YWCA of Greater Newburyport
Monday 03/07/11 – Monday 04/11/11
6:00 pm – 7:30 pm

Senior Living Residences’ innovative Reconnections Program is a curriculum-based adult learning program, designed specifically for individuals with memory loss and Alzheimer’s disease. The Reconnections Program utilizes the stimulation of the senses as well as short and long term memory and cognition. Research suggests that cognitive stimulation may slow the progression of dementia. Learning courses are focused on the residents’ interests- both current and those from the past, occupations, and lifelong experiences, and are specifically designed to elicit an engaged response. Continuous exposure to the course topic promotes learning and “reconnects” the residents with current happenings and the world around them, their learning peers and most importantly themselves. Residents experience the universal “joy of learning” that happens naturally during the course of the Reconnections Program.

Reconnections is provided to all residents residing in Methuen Village’s Compass Memory Support Neighborhood, where residents receive a higher level of staffing, in an intimate, secure setting. Methuen Village is now happy to offer Reconnections as an option for residents living in our traditional assisted living.

This offering is appropriate for residents showing signs of memory loss, which may be characterized by:

-anxiety when in larger groups
-confused by fast-paced activities and conversation
-difficulty determining what to do in between meals and activities
-trouble making friends with others in the community
-reduced interest in socializing or favorite hobbies
-repetitive questions

The Reconnections Program for traditional assisted living residents is held in our Game Room, a quiet space that accommodates up to 12 residents. The group spends their day together with our Reconnections Program Director, flowing from one activity to the next, including dining together in the Riverwalk Dining Room. The residents in the group are active and engaged throughout the day. For more information on this program, please contact Benjamin Boulter or Heather Carroll.

Senior Living Residences is proud to announce the launch of its new assisted living based Alzheimer’s care and treatment brand, “Compass Memory Support Neighborhoods”®.

Undergoing internal development for the past three years, SLR has worked with leading clinicians and researchers, including staff from the Boston University School of Medicine’s Alzheimer’s Disease Center, to create an array of cutting edge research-based programming designed to treat the symptoms of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease in the residential-style assisted living setting. Compass Memory Support widens the traditional “Alzheimer’s Care” customer base by treating individuals with varying levels of memory loss and diagnoses, and emphasizes addressing the needs of those with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI).

The Compass Memory Support Neighborhood® research-based non-pharmacological programming encompasses discrete disciplines that work together as a whole to treat the symptoms and potentially slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.

These programs include:

1. Reconnections, a curriculum-based adult learning program developed by SLR that is backed by research that cognitive stimulation may slow the progression of Alzheimer’s.
2. Memory Preservation Nutrition® Program, based on research that shows a diet of “brain healthy foods” can actually reduce the risk of developing Alzheimer’s. SLR is the first assisted living company in the nation to offer residents this innovative nutrition program, developed by internationally recognized expert Nancy Emerson Lombardo, PhD, one of the co-founders of the Alzheimer’s Association.
3. State-of-the-art post-hospital Rehabilitation Respite Stay program for seniors with memory loss.
4. Clinical “rounds” with a Boston University Medical School clinician and comprehensive medication assessments with a geriatric-specialized pharmacist in an effort to avoid hospitalizations.
5. Lifetime Achievement Award program designed by SLR to combat the isolation and anonymity experienced by seniors with memory loss.
6. Exercise program based on research that shows aerobic and strength training exercise is associated with a reduced risk of developing Alzheimer’s. Additionally, SLR’s strategic affiliation with the Boston University School of Medicine’s Alzheimer’s Disease Center offers residents top notch clinical consultation and opportunities to participate in clinical research studies, including trials of new treatments.

A new study suggests that walking a mile a day can decrease the chances of developing Alzheimer’s disease or dementia in older adults.

The study monitored the exercise habits of 299 participants over thirteen years in total, beginning in 1989. Participants were evaluated based on an initial measurement of walking, then reevaluated nine and thirteen years after the initial examinations with high resolution MRI scans.

In the past, studies have been completed that focused on the effectiveness of physical exercise on brain function in older adults for periods of six months to one year, but never over such a long time frame. “This is the first study that really looked over a several-year span and was able to assess this,” said study author Kirk Erickson, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Pittsburgh.

It turns out that walking that distance can increase the size of a person’s gray matter, which is beneficial because gray matter shrinks as adults age, increasing the risk of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. The researchers also found people who walked that distance reduced their risk of cognitive impairment by about half. However, walking more than one mile every day did not further improve brain volume.

At Senior Living Residences, exercise is an important component of Compass Memory Support. All of our communities offer on site Wellness Programs that include supervised exercise and walking groups, and many also feature strength training, dancing, gentle stretching, yoga, tai chi, and more.

Last Friday, October 1st, Methuen Village hosted their second annual Casino Night.. this time to raise funds for the Boston University Alzheimer’s Disease Center. The event was a HUGE success! Over 150 people attended, including family members, residents, and professionals. An astonishing $4200 was raised, to support important research studies being conducted at BU. We are so proud to be partnered with BU, and to have this check to hand them, as a contribution to research that will take us closer and closer to finding better treatment, and one day finding a CURE for Alzheimer’s. We are still accepting donations.. if you are interested in being a part of the CURE, see Seth Dudley at Methuen Village. Your support is appreciated!

A recent article in Science Daily reports that husbands or wives who care for spouses with dementia are six times more likely to develop the memory-impairing condition than those whose spouses don’t have it. According to results of a 12-year study led by Johns Hopkins, Utah State University and Duke University the increased risk that the researchers saw among caregivers was on par with the power of a gene variant known to increase susceptibility to Alzheimer’s disease.

“Caregiving has positive aspects, as well as negative ones. If we can boost the positive aspects and reduce the negative ones, we may be able to reduce a caregiver’s risk of developing dementia,” says Peter Rabins, M.D., M.P.H at Johns Hopkins.

Senior Living Residences appreciates the opportunity to help out families in all stages of the disease process, and likewise in all stages of the research process.  For this reason, we offer a support group for families who have a loved one with Alzheimer’s, which meets the third Thursday of each month, at 6PM, here at Methuen Village. Often times we have educational seminars on different topics that affect families and our residents.

Many people have questions about how the new Health Care Reform is going to affect their families, especially those families who need a lot of care – like those dealing with a loved one with Alzheimer’s Disease. Congress has included significant provisions in the final healthcare reform legislation to address the health concerns of a growing Alzheimer population. This article discusses the changes and how they are going to help people with Alzheimer’s disease.

If you or your family members have additional questions about options for those living with Alzheimer’s Disease, please contact us here at Methuen Village. We have a specialized neighborhood for residents with dementia, called our Compass Memory Support Neighborhood, and our professional dementia practitioner- Heather Carroll, would be glad to meet with your family.

Senior Living Residences Alzheimer’s Care Specialist Erin Whalen writes a blog for caregivers of those with Alzheimer’s Disease. She discusses the latest research, offers tips and resources and in general gives a lot of information that can be very useful for families.

Today an interesting article popped up in the Scientific News. I’m not sure if you all use Google Reader, but it’s the greatest. It alerts me to articles that pertain to a list of keywords I’ve entered… one of which is “Alzheimer’s.” The article was just a reminder of this epidemic we are seeing with Alzheimer’s Disease and other types of dementia. Did you know that the incidence increases significantly with your age? This study was just performed on a 90yo plus cohort. Rates increased with age from 12.7% per year in the 90-94 age group, to 21.2% per year in the 95-99 age group, to 40.7% per year in the 100+ age group! Now sitting here as a young professional in my 30s, the 90s seem far away, but the truth is that our generations are more likely to live into our 90s than those that came before us. This means that not only will there be a larger number of elders living in our society with the Baby Boomers cohort aging, an alarming number of them will be afflicted by dementia of some type.

I’m proud to work for Senior Living Residences, where we are taking gigantic steps in creating a social and residential treatment model for those living with Alzheimer’s. In our Memory Support Neighorhoods, our residents are stimulated throughout the day with an adult learning program, that allows them to KEEP LEARNING! Imagine that.

We provide a brain-healthy diet, and through our affiliation with the BU Alzheimer’s Disease Center, our professional program directors are able to offer our residents and their families valuable advice and assistance as they journey through the disease process. We truly are on the cutting edge, and we hope that others are as committed to meeting the needs of the many individuals that will be impacted by Alzheimer’s in the future.