My current focus is to share helpful resources, experience and insights on caring for loved ones with brain change and dementia.  In the early 1990s I started in the field of elder care doing therapeutic activities in a skilled nursing facility in Oakland.  I was hired with very little experience, but with a degree in music and love for elders. Thankfully, I was lucky to be mentored by amazing people — mostly nurses and physical therapists who, by example, showed me how to respond to difficult conditions with creative and compassionate approaches as we worked toward solving the problems that people living with dementia face every day. These mentors inspired me and motivated me to never give up because with team work, we are sure to make a difference.  What was missing from my experience and training was the perspective of Occupational Therapy. That gap was filled to over flowing by Teepa…

According to the National Institute on Health, 1 in 7 Americans aged 71 and older have some type of dementia. The primary cause of dementia is Alzheimer’s — a neurological breakdown in the brain, causing neurons to die. The second leading cause is vascular dementia, where blood flow is diminished or cut off, causing brain cells to die. Both conditions can be unpredictable in the way they progress. And yet, the brain can still be incredibly resourceful.  In tandem, we as caregivers can develop our own resourcefulness to meet their needs with dignity and compassion. (See Resources page for helpful links.) Often the first thing we think of with dementia is memory loss.  While the hippocampus, our brain’s amazing memory coordinator, is an unfortunate target of Alzheimer’s Disease early on, every area of the brain is experiencing change.   Along with memory loss (usually short term memory to start) there are other brain changes going on that effect movement, vision, language, and sensory perception. How we understand these…