Frequently Asked Questions for Caregivers
What is Dementia?
Dementia, at its core, is simply a decline in mental ability that is severe enough to impede everyday life. One of its most common symptoms is memory loss, but other symptoms might include impairment in:
- Communication and language
- Ability to focus and pay attention
- Reasoning and judgment
- Visual perception
Dementia can be caused by injury but is more commonly associated with Alzheimer’s or stroke, which in combination accounts for more than 80 percent of cases. While certain types of dementia can be reversed, such as those caused by vitamin deficiencies or thyroid disorder, most are irreversible and progressive.
Due to the ongoing nature of dementia, adopting a cohesive caregiving approach is key for the success of healthcare providers, patients, and their families.
Why Should Organizations Elevate On-the-Job Training for Caregivers?
Creating dementia-friendly environments, engaging people with dementia in meaningful activities, assisting with personal care, communicating to reduce distress, supporting grieving family members, adjusting interventions throughout the disease progression—these are just some of the daily duties for dementia caregivers in a wide range of settings. With the growing demand for a dementia-capable workforce and dementia-friendly communities, we believe that you and your partners deserve dementia care training that is engaging, personalized, transformational, and highly practical while meeting your state’s education requirements and ensuring safety for everyone involved.
Partnerships for Health offers in-person and online trainings, educational films, and comprehensive program development designed to enhance the wellness of people with dementia and their caregivers. By promoting best practices in dementia care and the most effective training methods, we help you improve individual- and organization-level outcomes, increase public awareness, and equip caregivers with the practical skills needed to provide the highest quality dementia care—without sacrificing their own health in the process.
To us, that’selevating dementia care.
What is Research-Informed Training and Consultation?
While the rates of Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia continue to surge worldwide, the good news is that research exists regarding types, symptoms, disease progression, as well as effective dementia care strategies. All stakeholders agree that dementia care training is an important factor in improving life for the growing number of people with the disease and their caregivers, but not all training programs actually improve care. In fact, current dementia care often does not reflect what research evidence suggests would improve outcomes—and the gap is not a lack of hours spent in training.
How Are Our Training Programs Designed and Implemented?
At Partnerships for Health, we understand that knowledge alone is inadequate to help caregivers resolve their toughest dementia care challenges. Based on extensive experience and data, we believe the gap between knowledge and practice is due in large part to an essential design flaw in dementia care training: many dementia care teams often lack opportunities to plan, test, evaluate, and reflect as a team on the process of adapting research-informed responses to real-world challenges.
Thus, our programs go beyond merely disseminating information about the disease and research-informed interventions. Our programs are designed to help diverse teams engage in a collaborative process of collecting knowledge (both information and hands-on skills), sharing their knowledge with others, and calling on their collective expertise to solve real-world problems through teamwork. Our evidence-based approach guides every step of the program development process—helping our clients achieve their dementia care goals with measurable results. To us, that’selevating dementia care.
Why Partnerships for Health?
Partnerships for Health provides high-quality, evidence-based dementia care training and consultation for healthcare professionals, families, students, and community organizations in a wide variety of settings. Partnerships for Health is dedicated to helping people with dementia and their caregivers live a safe, meaningful life together adapting through all the challenges that dementia will inevitably throw their way. It’s all in our vision of a world where elevated dementia care supports people living with the disease and their myriad caregivers to live fully in communities that accept and enable them throughout the journey—until a cure or disease-modified treatments are discovered.
Partnerships for Health is recognized for epitomizing the humanitarian values, knowledge, courage, collegiality, and visionary leadership needed to pioneer new models of practice. It is through the quality of our partnerships with people who have dementia, their caregivers, and the organizations that serve them, that people at all stages of the disease and their caregivers can enjoy improved quality of life despite a life-changing illness.
No two healthcare organizations, patients, or families are alike. And like the seasons, dementia progresses and changes. Partnerships for Health elevates how we see, understand and experience dementia care through customized, innovative, and results-oriented training.
Our Partners Include:
- Healthcare organizations (i.e., long term care companies, hospitals, home health, non-medical homecare, and hospice agencies)
- Professional caregivers of all disciplines
- State and national associations
- Community-based groups
- Colleges, universities, and their students
- Family caregivers
- People living with dementia
Learn more about our partners and how we help them.
While dementia can feel frightening to those experiencing it and their caregivers, there is reassurance. At Partnerships for Health, we have worked alongside countless people living with dementia and a vast community of caregivers, scoured over research, and developed effective evidence-based strategies to improve life for people in all stages of the disease and their myriad caregivers.
