Fighting back against dementia

Alzheimer’s Association seeks to further care, support for afflicted in Lake County

The Alzheimer’s Association Cleveland Area Chapter has been setting initiatives to continue educating and providing resources for Alzheimer’s patients and caregivers in Lake County and beyond. A community forum was conducted in December, and as a result the association made various recommendations to be implemented from 2019 until 2021 in the county. The main recommendations were to: educate and empower, assure a competent workforce, mobilize partnerships and continue quality improvement.

“It was really our time to just learn from the community,” said Jana Rush, vice president of care and support services, concerning the forum. “It was our chance to listen to what their current experiences are in the community and what the association could do to help bridge and meet some of the needs that were identified from the forum.”

One of the major services the association provides is free resources. This includes support groups for caregivers of patients or of those indirectly affected by Alzheimer’s and dementia, initiated in part as a result of the forum.

“Currently, we have several support groups that are housed directly within Lake County,” Rush said “And we’ve made concerted efforts to recruit and train (support group) facilitators within Lake County.”

Rush said that every support group in the county, except for one in Madison, has a trained facilitator.

“We’re also working to do more community education

programming within Lake County,” Rush said.

She said that the association recently had a meeting with the Lake County General Health District to discuss partnerships, professional development and training as well as collecting data and information regarding demographics so that the association can identify potential gaps in servicing and programming.

Those initiatives, Rush said, will be moving forward in fiscal year 2020.

“We’re also looking at faith-based communities; senior centers as a way to do more education programming,” she added.

Another concern is that a lot of Alzheimer’s patients are not receiving their diagnosis from their general practitioners or physicians. “What we know is that we need to do additional education and training for our healthcare providers within the systems,” Rush said. “We have a lot of work going on in order to help train healthcare professionals about Alzheimer’s and dementia, and the importance of early detection and diagnosis. A big push of that will come from our primary care initiatives that we like to do.”

In many cases, Rush said, a patient’s first exposure to the association is through their primary care provider. By educating the primary care providers, the association can help smooth out the referral process and make resources more readily available to patients and caregivers.

Rush also said a general misconception is that Alzheimer’s and dementia are interchangeable terms. This is part of the focus on education for the public.

“Dementia is the umbrella term and Alzheimer’s disease is the specific diagnosis that is causing the dementia,” she said. “There are hundreds types of things that cause dementia, but Alzheimer’s disease is the primary cause of dementia.”

She noted that the Alzheimer’s Association covers anyone with memory or thinking problems, not just those with a dementia or Alzheimer’s diagnosis. Kathy Whan-Marko is one of the facilitators of the support groups provided by the Alzheimer’s Association. She runs about five groups, having become a facilitator in February.

“It’s a rather large group, 15-16 folks come, and it’s a long-standing group,” Whan-Marko said. “It’s a really nice group, they really know each other’s stories; they’ve been with each other for a long time. So they know who the caregiver is caring for, they typically know where the caregiver is. Every month, we kind of move along and a lot of them say ‘Okay, this is what’s happening this month.’”

The groups meet monthly and are geared toward helping those who are caring for someone suffering from Alzheimer’s and/or dementia. This can also help them have access to resources at the Alzheimer’s Association.

Moving forward, Rush mentioned the possibility of a partnership with Lake Health, which is one of the initiatives currently being worked on.

“We know that a lot of residents in Lake County have to go outside of their community to seek care,” Rush said.

A similar forum in Cuyahoga County is currently in the planning stage, expected to take place in April, Minority Health Month, next year, with a focus on African-Americans as a priority group.

“It’s just not a ‘one and done’ endeavor,” Rush said about the forums. “It’s something that will be ongoing... We also know that the needs and the demographics of communities shift so you have to keep that process going, you can’t just get out there once and think that it’s done. It’s something that has to be a continual feedback loop.”

One of the upcoming education programs is planned for Aug. 7, from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m., at the Mentor Public Library, 8215 Mentor Ave.

In addition to other resources, the Alzheimer’s Association offers a 24-hour helpline at 800-272-3900.

A similar forum in Cuyahoga County is currently in the planning stage.