Page 32 - BusinessWest March 4, 2024

“Some people contact me when they’re almost at the end of their rope and they just need somebody to say, ‘it’s OK. You’ve done a great job, but there needs to
be more support around them 24/7, and you need to sleep.’”
LAURA LOVOIE
Helping the Helpers
Laura Lavoie straddles both the world of family caregiving and residential senior-care facilities through her consulting business, Our Dementia Life, which offers assistance to families dealing with the challenges of memory care and workshops and training to assisted-living facilities and other settings.
With the latter, “it’s really focused on relationships between the staff member and the person living with dementia so that they can give them better care,” she explained, adding that facilities are man- dated to offer just two hours per year of dementia training, which isn’t nearly enough. “So many people, not only in memory care
but in assisted living and independent living, have dementia, and nobody’s taught how to actually work with these people in order to support them and let them be as autonomous as possible and let them feel as empowered as possible, while still asking for help.”
Meanwhile, Lavoie said, “I also deal with families, especially people who have their loved one in their home, who are really strug- gling with how they can understand what’s happening, what’s going on inside their brain, and how they can communicate better so that they can care for them better.”
Sometimes those conversations lead to a realization that the family simply can’t do it alone. “Some people contact me when they’re almost at the end of their rope and they just need somebody to say, ‘it’s OK. You’ve done a great job, but there needs to be more support around them 24/7, and you need to sleep.’”
Lavoie said she got into this work almost three decades ago. “My grandfather had dementia. He had a brain tumor, and then he devel- oped dementia because of it and lived with us for a couple of years. And I watched my mom care for him 24/7 with zero training, and she did a beautiful job, but I remember the struggles that she had.”
With people living longer and the over-65 population growing, the need for her services is only growing.
“The mindset at many facilities needs to change and grow with it, and we need people to be well-trained to work with these people in order for them to have a really good quality of life,” she told Busi- nessWest. “Just because you get a dementia diagnosis does not mean you stop living. Some people have dementia for many years,
and why do they have to be bad years?”
She emphasized that the crux of her beliefs lies in looking at
the person living with dementia and discovering — and cultivating
— what they still have, rather than focusing on what has been lost. “There is a mass culture change that has to happen as the Baby Boomers begin to explode into the various realms of dementias, and I hope to be a part of that even more than I am now.”
Baker also wants to cultivate what residents enjoy, which is why residents at the Atrium are encouraged not to spend the majority of their time in their apartments, but rather in the common areas, tak- ing part in activities that range from trivia and conversations about history to physical activities like cornhole or bowling, as well as out- ings to local restaurants, parks, and community events.
“We’re trying to keep our residents as engaged as possible throughout the day,” she explained, “with the understanding that we know not every single resident enjoys every single activity that we offer, but the idea is to offer such a variety that there’s something that our residents will enjoy.”
Being the Problem Solver
Meanwhile, what families enjoy is spending time with their loved ones without the burden of constant caregiving, Baker said.
“I often talk with families and say, ‘our goal is to relieve you of all that caregiver stress.’ We want them to be able to come and visit their loved one and just be their daughter, son, niece, nephew, hus- band, wife, and not be worried about whether they got their medi- cations on time, did they take a shower, did they get whatever level of personal care that they may need? We want our families to visit their loved ones and let us worry about all of those other pieces.
“Sometimes you can visibly see the stress relieved from some- body,” she went on. “They just look so much more relaxed once their loved one acclimates.”
Ballini said the need for quality memory care is only growing, and most facilities have waiting lists — and, as a result, many peo-
ple end up in nursing homes before they need to because there’s not
Memory
Continued on page 34
>>
[email protected] 8 AM - 5 PM, Monday-Friday 413-363-1086
Liberty Medical Building 125 Liberty St., Suite 304 Springfield, MA 01103
SAFE HARBOR
Adult & Senior Services
SERVICES:
We serve individuals with Alzhiemer’s and other dementias We provide meals, socialization, med reminders, and other ‘cognitive forward’ activities
Call or Schedule a tour today! 413-426-4481 47 Braywood Circle, Indian Orchard, MA
32
MARCH 4, 2024
MONTHLY FEATURE
BusinessWest