Beyond the Burnout and GARD--Notes from the AARP November 2021 Webinar nad GARD November 2021

 AARP of California at Institute on Aging presented Beyond the Burnout Hear. They had 3 voices of caregiving speak to the issue of caregiver burnout, including author Patti Davis, Ronald Reagan's daughter, Roy Remer, Zen Caregiving Project's Executive Director, and Lily Liu, a family caregiver.

Notes:
In 2020, 48 million Americans are providing care to someone over the age of 18 (that's 1 in 5 Americans). Our healthcare system is dependent on unpaid family caregivers. And 93% of family caregivers report receiving no training on how to be a caregiver. 

November is Caregiver Month. I'm glad that caregivers are being recognized and given space to talk. But where is the tangible support? And how are things made better for them? There's a lot of talk about how hard caregiving is. How do we address the structural issues that make caregiving so hard? 

"We can lose ourselves in the information and avoid our emotional process," noted Roy Remer.

For Follow Up:

• What models exist for training cargivers? Remember to use https://bpc.caregiver.org/
  
  

 

GARD November 2021 Quarterly Meeting

Georgia Alzheimer and Related Dementias Collaboration meets quarterly.

Abby Cox, Director of the Department of Human Services, Division of Aging Services (DAS), provided the following:

The state has new funding. The State Aging Plan needs updating. Main issues are still housing and transportation. The third issue is supporting individuals and families caring for individuals living with dementia. New state plan guidance must now address malnutrition, isolation, caregiving, and the Biden-Harris priorities that include building a caregiving infrastructure, etc. 

Whitney Oeltmann. Co-Founder and Executive Director of Dementia Spotlight, whitney@dementiaspotlightfoundation.org:

There are 1293 Dementia Friends in Georgia. They need more volunteers to be a spokesperson 1-2x/yr and to help run Memory Cafes, or Connection Cafes. They want to create a Community Guide to help with Memory Cafes. Maybe senior centers, libraries, and other safe spaces would be ideal for hosting memory cafes. There are other dementia friendly efforts in the state going on that are not connected to Dementia Friends/Dementia Spotlight. Kim McRae pointed out that we need to be dementia inclusive not just dementia friendly. Decatur has connected with Whitney. :-)

 Workgroup Update
Workforce Development--Using Culture Change Network Youtube Videos--Culture Change Network of Georgia - YouTube

Outreach and Partnerships--Advance Care Planning--Plan in a Can developed by NE GA Health System Libby D.--should be tied into the forms that Alliant has created and to the partnerships and progress that Yellow Dot Program has created.

Research and Data--Mortality Data--Researching where is dementia mentioned on the death certificate (first, second, co-morbidity) to investigate the accuracy of number of dementia-related deaths.

Policy--Dementia Care Specialist at every AAA

Georgia Memory Net--working on primary care clinics and sending out press releases to spread the word and get more cognitive screening.