My involvement in the Osher program – both as an instructor and a member – tends to focus on academic courses. I take as many history and politics-related courses as I can. Once in a while, I fit in a literature or music course, but my go-to part of the catalog is the history and politics stuff. I haven’t taken any “health and wellness” courses.
But I want to tell you about an Osher course that is being offered today, November 1, from 4:30-6:30 pm. Called “Dementia Discussion,” it is being held at Riverside Doctor’s Hospital (about 10 miles from my house) and is being coordinated by Carrie Karnes, who has worked at the hospital for more than five years and currently serves as the volunteer/community relations manager.
The catalog describes the course this way:
A multi-perspective, panel discussion about dementia and memory loss. Learn the signs and symptoms that often indicate decline in cognitive abilities. Experts will provide an in-depth overview of the disorder to include the types of dementia, current tests and treatments, and review encouraging studies and trials currently underway. Paired with this in-depth clinical review, industry and community experts will provide insight in to how to help support and care for those living with dementia including support for care givers. Find out what makes Williamsburg a dementia friendly community. Members include a Neurologist, Leadership from Centers for Excellence in Lifelong Aging (CEALH) and the Peninsula Agency on Aging.
Those of you who are close to my age (75) understand the concern about cognitive decline. Every time we can’t find our phone, don’t recall why we walked into a room, or forget a doctor’s appointment we feel the flicker of concern – Is this how it starts? We know our physical well-being is waning, and we have all read the studies about the impacts of aging on the brain. We encounter friends we haven’t seen for a while and think “well, she’s lost a step,” which is a kind way of identifying cognitive decline. We see obituaries of people close to our age (or even younger) and read that “the family thanks the caregivers” in the local memory care unit. We realize that someone our age not only died with dementia, but had suffered from it long enough to be placed in a care facility because the illness had progressed beyond the ability of family members to provide the needed care.
A course like this one will appeal to a wide range of people – caregivers for spouses who are in the throes of this disease, individuals who are concerned about their own cognitive capabilities or the capabilities of people we care about, children of aging adults, representatives of local government, business owners, and people just generally interested in the topic.
It’s interesting to me that this course describes Williamsburg as “as dementia-friendly community.” I hadn’t seen this term before, so I decided to check it out. You can click on this website if you want to know about this concept. https://www.dfamerica.org/communities-overview
I can summarize this a little bit for you. Creating a dementia-friendly community requires a collective effort to improve the quality of life for those living with dementia and their care partners. The website identifies two key principles of Dementia-Friendly Communities:
Include and involve people living with dementia in the community effort
Establish and maintain a team that works collaboratively to create change
The website goes on to identify key goals of Dementia-Friendly Communities – noting that some communities may work toward one or two goals while others work on several or all goals.
Increase awareness and understanding of dementia and of people living with dementia.
Increase awareness and understanding of brain health and risk reduction.
Collaborate with public, private, not-for-profit, and healthcare sectors to better serve people living with dementia and care partners.
Address the changing needs of people with dementia and care partners.
Create social and cultural environments that are inclusive to those living with dementia.
Improve the physical environment in public places and systems (e.g., parks, transportation) so that it is dementia friendly.
The website distinguishes between a community that is age-friendly and one that is dementia-friendly. These charts are from the World Health Organization (you can find them here, but these screenshots will give you the idea.)
In reading through these categories, I have to admit that I haven’t given much thought to most of this. It may be a function of my own good fortune – my parents both retained good cognitive function until they died (although my father had cognitive side-effects from Parkinson’s Disease in the last year of his life, he didn’t get out much) and so far (knock on wood) both Tim and I are perking along okay. I guess I’ve always thought that dementia had an on/off switch – either you “caught” it or you didn’t, and if you were unlucky your decline was inevitable and inexorable. Over the long run, that’s probably true – although I understand that promising medications and treatments to reduce the severity of the disease or slow its advancement are either already available or in the works.
Do you live in a dementia-friendly community? Does your community have an organization that is working on this? You might want to check this out. The Dementia Friendly America website (again, here’s the link https://www.dfamerica.org/communities-overview) notes that in the U.S., 1/3 of people aged 85 or older, and 1/9 of those aged 65 or older, live with dementia. I can’t find a good number for how many people in my local community fall into these age brackets, but I imagine that Carrie Karnes, the woman who has organized this course, has a good idea about the extent of the problem.
In looking through the information on the charts I provided earlier, I realize that I haven’t thought about most of the criteria used to describe age-friendly and dementia-friendly communities. I haven’t noticed how my community accommodates these concerns. I’m going to pay more attention while I’m out and about.
I’m not signed up for this course, but I wish I had registered for it. I’m going to be on the lookout for other opportunities to learn more about the dementia-friendly community initiative.
I admit I chose to live in Williamsburg for other reasons, but I continue to be very happy with my decision. Your piece certainly highlights an added reason to my decision I never considered. We all hate the prospect of decline, particularly we Baby Boomers, but for our community to be thinking about such things is quite commendable.