What You Can Do to Help Reduce the Impact in Your Community
There are several things that can be done to help persons with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, their caregivers, and persons at risk for dementia.
Caregivers can:
- Encourage those with symptoms to speak with their healthcare provider.
- Plan for the financial and health-related impacts that caregivers often experience over the course of caring for a person with dementia.
- As the disease progresses, new caregiving skills may be necessary. It is important to take advantage of community resources to better understand and cope with the behaviors and personality changes over time.
Healthcare providers can:
- Recognize the early signs of dementia for racial/ethnic groups through culturally appropriate strategies.
- Educate persons/caregivers about available services related to care, care planning and coordination of care.
- Listen for concerns about cognition, observe for signs and symptoms of cognitive impairment, and note changes in cognition that occur abruptly or over time.
- Develop and maintain routine procedures for detection of cognition and referral for diagnostic evaluation.
- Work with the person living with dementia, the family, and the person’s physician to create and implement a person-centered plan for possible medical and social crises.
- Build culturally sensitive programs/plans that are easily adaptable to special populations.
- Identify characteristics of the social and physical environment that trigger or exacerbate behavioral and psychological symptoms for the person living with dementia.
- Provide a thorough orientation and training program for new staff, as well as ongoing training.
- Develop systems for collecting and disseminating person-centered information.
- Evaluate systems and progress routinely for continuous improvement.
Public health professionals can:
- Collaboratively work with diverse community stakeholders to promote the concepts of dementia-friendly communities and better serve dementia patients and care partners in the District.
- Work with partners to develop, promote, and spread effective strategies to train healthcare workers about early signs of dementia using a culturally sensitive lens.
- Improve access to treatment and care management for persons and caregivers.
- Educate the public about brain health and cognitive aging, changes that should be discussed with a health professional, and benefits of early detection and diagnosis.
- Educate persons/caregivers about available services related to care, care planning and coordination of care
- Shift mindsets and normalize discussions about cognitive health in the routine delivery of health care to support early detection.
- Emphasize the many advantages to receiving a formal diagnosis, including access to treatments that help with symptoms, time to build a care team, and the opportunity to specify care and legal plans for the future.
- Develop programs to accelerate risk reduction and promote cognitive health.
- Develop strategies to address social determinants of health and cognitive decline.
- Reduce stigmas and myths surrounding the disease.