A way to trigger happy memories in those with dementia

Activities directors and other healthcare professionals here is a great dementia resource for caregivers and healthcare professinals.

Here is information on being the best caregiver you can be

Here is a way for nurses administrators, social workers and other health care  professionals to get an easyceu or two


caring.com

Old Sayings or Adages

What you need:

A prepared list of sayings (or a good memory for old adages)

What to know:

• Finishing sentences from prompts can feel good, and using well-worn adages that are deeply embedded in memory makes it easy.
• Start by bringing up a complete old saying: "A penny saved is a penny earned." Talk about what that means. This can be a wonderful jumping-off point about saving money, living through the Depression, piggy banks, and so on.
• You can couch this activity as a game or make it more naturally part of conversation: "I thought of this old saying but I can't remember how the whole thing goes, do you know it?" Or, "What's that old saying you used to tell me when I was a kid? A penny saved is what?"
• Sample sayings:
• "Penny wise and... pound foolish."
• "The early bird catches... the worm."
• "Early to bed, early to rise... makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise."
• "Pretty is as... pretty does."
• "Seen but not... heard."
• "He who lives by the sword... dies by the sword."
• "The way to a man's heart... is through his stomach."
• "A stitch in time... saves nine."
• "Ask not what your country can do for you... but what you can do for your country."
• "Many hands make... light work."
• "An ounce of prevention is worth... a pound of cure."
• "If you can't say anything nice... don't say anything at all."

Essential Tips for Dementia Caregivers (part 2)

Activities directors and other healthcare professionals here is a great dementia resource for caregivers and healthcare professinals.Benevolant Society

Here is information on being the best caregiver you can be


Here is a way for nurses administrators, social workers and other health care  professionals to get an easyceu or two


Follow alzheimersideas on twitter

Marguerite Manteau-Rao

6. Put your emotions out, either in writing, collages or other expressive art forms.When emotions run strong, and you don't know what to do anymore, one practice is to put your emotions out through simple, expressive art techniques. No need for fancy supplies. You can journal, you can write poetry. You can do self-collages, tearing images that grab you in old magazines and placing them on a sheet of paper, without giving too much thought to it. You are turning off your rational brain and letting your heart speak through words or found images. The point is not to be a poet or an artist -- it is about you literally "expressing" what is inside of you.
7. Share your joys and struggles with other care partners like you.
There are plenty of support groups out there, where you can find emotional relief in the telling of your story and the sharing of your joys and your struggles. You need to guard against the temptation of isolation, however. As a family caregiver, you are at high risk of depression and consequently are more likely to be tempted into retreating and not reaching out to others for emotional support. A good rule of thumb is this: The less you want to socialize, the more you need it for your own sanity and also the well-being of your loved one.
8. Get others to help you.
If it takes a village to raise as child, it takes a whole care team to provide good care to a loved one with dementia. It is not humanly possible for a single person to do this, particularly as the years unfold and your loved one requires more and more assistance cognitively, emotionally and physically. If you are someone who has always prided herself in being self-sufficient, you will have to shift your attitude. Getting the help you and your loved one need is a sign of psychological strength. There are many who are there to help you: geriatricians, neurologists, geriatric care managers, nurses, home health agencies, other family members, physical therapists, psychotherapists, financial planners, volunteers, etc.
9. Get enough sleep, eat well and exercise.
As important as your emotional health is keeping your body strong and healthy. With the stress from dementia caregiving, one may be tempted to eat not enough or too much, or stop exercising altogether. Worries about your loved one wandering or accumulated nervous fatigue from a long day of care may dampen one's ability to sleep. Associated with these lifestyle changes are recent statistics from the Alzheimer's Association showing that caregivers are at a substantial increased risk for hypertension and cardiovascular disease. You need to remember that your physical health comes first. Make it a point of having only healthy foods in the home and of walking as much as possible.
10. Validate the person's reality.
The person's experience of the world and their relation to it has changed, and there is nothing he or she can do about it. You, on the other hand, have it in you to make some adjustments. Not doing so will only cause more suffering for your loved one and more trouble for you, since your loved one will have to act out his or her suffering in one way or another. Yes, you may be attached to the idea of your loved one as your husband, but if he insists on calling you his daughter, go with the flow and remember that for him, you have fallen into the more general "love" category. The fine distinctions we usually make between various roles no longer apply.
11. Still see the person as a whole person, and behave accordingly.
Beware of falling into the trap of positioning the person as incompetent, as a child or someone who is no longer there. Holding these ideas will act as a self-fulfilling prophecy and influence your behavior in such a way as to cause the person to behave more and more as if there is no one there. Rather, operate from the premise that the person is still very much there, no matter what it may look like from the outside. Do not expect anything and welcome the surprises when they come, as they often times do with persons with dementia. A smile, a word, a sentence, singing an old song, dancing -- you never know.
12. Meet the person's five universal emotional needs.
Regardless of their cognitive, emotional, physical state, human beings all have five universal emotional needs: 1.) to be needed and useful, 2.) to have the opportunity to care, 3.) to love and be loved, 4.) to have self-esteem boosted, 5.) to have the power to choose. When caring for your loved one, make sure that each of these needs is being met. Failure to do so will negatively impact his or her well-being and will lead to either shutting down or agitation. For someone who no longer speaks or moves, honoring that person's need to be needed may mean telling them how sitting next to them brings you a sense of peace.
13. View the person's difficult behaviors as expressions of unmet needs.
Adopt the point of view that any behaviors, particularly difficult ones, are the person's attempt to communicate distress, using the limited means of communication at their disposal. They are not being difficult, they are simply telling you that something needs to be attended to urgently. Too much noise or not enough, a brief that needs to be changed, being thirsty, not being "seen" for the person they are, pain somewhere in the body, temperature that's too hot or too cold, a sense of personal space that's being invaded, words that don't come out as intended ... so many possible reasons to get upset that may not be obvious to you. You need to become a detective and figure things out. But before you do, take your loved one's distress seriously, not personally.
And remember, this is not just for you alone to practice. Instead, get the whole care team to join you, and together become more mindful and understanding. It will be good for you, and it will be good for your loved one.

Thanksgiving activity

Activities directors and other healthcare professionals here is a great dementia resource for caregivers and healthcare professinals.Benevolant Society

Here is information on being the best caregiver you can be


Here is a way for nurses administrators, social workers and other health care  professionals to get an easyceu or two


Follow alzheimersideas on twitter


Its hard to believe, Thanksgiving is almost here

Here are song links for the Thanksgiving Alzheimer’s activity

“We Gather Together” lyrics and music

“Now Thank Thee All Our God” lyrics and information

“Count Your Blessings”, lyrics and music

“This is the Day”(Video with music) lyrics

“Count Your Blessings”, lyrics and music

Prayers lift spirits

Activities directors and other healthcare professionals here is a great dementia resource for caregivers and healthcare professinals.Benevolant Society

Here is information on being the best caregiver you can be

Here is a way for nurses administrators, social workers and other health care  professionals to get an easyceu or two


Beyond Blue

The Serenity Prayer by Reinhold Niebuhr
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him Forever in the next.
Amen.

Prayer by Thomas Merton
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this
you will lead me by the right road
though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always
though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.


The Third Step Prayer
God, I offer myself to Thee …
to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt.
Relieve me of the bondage of self,
that I may better do Thy will.
Take away my difficulties,
that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help
of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life.
May I do Thy will always!

The Memorare
Remember O Most gracious Virgin Mary,
that never was it known that anyone who fled to your protection,
implored your help,
or sought your intercession
was left unaided.
Inspired by this confidence,
I fly to you, O Virgin of virgins, my mother.
To you I come;
before you I stand, sinful and sorrowful.
O Mother of the Word Incarnate,
despise not my petitions,
but in your mercy, hear and answer me.
Amen.

Prayer by John Henry Newman
Dear Jesus,
Help me to spread Your fragrance everywhere I go.
Flood my soul with Your spirit and life.
Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly,
that my life may only be a radiance of Yours.
Shine through me, and be so in me
that every soul I come in contact with may feel Your presence in my soul.
Let them look up and see no longer me,
but only Jesus!
Stay with me and then I shall begin to shine as you shine,
so to shine as to be a light to others;
the light, O Jesus will be all from You;
none of it will be mine;
it will be you, shining on others through me.
Let me thus praise You the way You love best,
by shining on those around me.
Let me preach You without preaching,
not by words but by my example,
by the catching force of the sympathetic influence of what I do,
the evident fullness of the love my heart bears to You.
Amen.
St. Teresa of Avila’s “Bookmark”
Let nothing disturb you.
Let nothing frighten you.
All things are passing.
God alone is changeless
He who has patience wants for nothing
He who has God has all things.
God alone suffices.

Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury,pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek?to be consoled as to console;?to be understood as to understand;?to be loved as to love.?For it is in giving that we receive;?it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;?and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen
image courtesy of wikipedia

List of positive affirmations

Activities directors and other healthcare professionals here is a great dementia resource for caregivers and healthcare professinals.

Here is information on being the best caregiver you can be

Here is a way for nurses administrators, social workers and other health care  professionals to get an easyceu or two



by Evelyn Linn

Positive Daily Affirmations For Self Esteem

Examples of positive daily affirmations for self esteem include:

1. I am sure of my ability to do what is necessary to improve my life.

2. If I make mistakes, I am able to give myself the benefit of the doubt.

3. I feel basically worthy as a person.

4. I am able to take risks and try new things without fear.

5. I feel good about the way I do my job.

6. I feel about myself pretty much what others think of me.

7. I have compassion for myself and the way my life has developed.

8. I am deserving of all the good things in my life.

Positive Daily Affirmations for Abundance

1. All the things I want and need come to me.

2. I always receive more than what I need.

3. I have a bank account with more than enough.

4. I am an abundant person.

5. I create abundance in all that I say and do.

6. I accept abundance.

7. I welcome, and am open to receive all abundance that comes.

8. I draw abundance to myself today and every day.

Positive Daily Affirmations For Success

Examples of positive daily affirmations for success include:

1. I am successful.

2. Everything I do turns into success.

3. I am filled with success.

4. Success comes effortlessly to my direction.

5. My success is contagious, other people like it, seek it and respect it.

6. I attract positive-minded people to me; I draw all things positive to myself.

Positive Daily Affirmations For Health

Examples of positive daily affirmations for health include:

1. I am glowing with health and wholeness.

2. I behave in ways that promote my health more every day.

3. I deserve to be in perfect health.

4. I am highly motivated to exercise my body because I find exercise as fun.

5. I love nutritious healthy food, and I enjoy eating fresh fruits and vegetables.

6. I am healthy since my practices are healthy.

7. I let go of the past so I can create health now.

8. I create health by expressing love, understanding and compassion

Focus on: Advanced Marketing Skills

Activities directors and other healthcare professionals here is a great dementia resource for caregivers and healthcare professinals,

Here is information on being the best caregiver you can be

Here is a way for nurses administrators, social workers and other health care professionals to get an easyceu or two

Here are more interesting dementia brain boosting activities

Fighting the never-ending census battle? try easyceu

Looking for some high-level, excellent CEUs? try easyceu
We've got your course: the ONLINE Advanced Marketing Skills course.  

Join the thousands of administrators who've invested in their marketing team with easyceu.   For just a few dollars - significantly less than those "high-powered" marketing seminars - you can train your entire sales and marketing teams.  You do the math to calculate the return on the investment as you watch your census grow!

If you want to get the leg up yourself, take this course to meet your own CEU requirements.  It's a great 20 CEU course.

In just the past few months, we've added more than 30 NEW CEU courses - all 100% NAB approved.  These new courses include several in resident care areas (arthritis, pulmonary, and HIV care; infection control and skin integrity, among others) as well as Ethics and Cultural Competency courses.
Go to easyceu

How to celebrate Columbus Day with those who have dementia

Activities directors, caregivers, and healthcare professionals,here is some great information
Here is a great dementia resource for caregivers and healthcare professinals,

Here is information on being the best caregiver you can be

Here is a way for nurses administrators, social workers and other health care professionals to get an easyceu or two



Follow alzheimersideas on twitter

In early October we celebrate Columbus Day. Most people with dementia remember learning about Columbus in school. You can design a trivia game using simple facts. First you can tell the story of Columbus sailing to
America to your audience of one or more.

Then you can have a discussion about Columbus Day.


After the discussion, you can make up your own trivia game using facts in the story as well as any information the group member(s) want to include.

Here are some sample trivia questions:


The person who discovered
America was______________(Columbus)
The year Columbus discovered
America was___________(1492)
The ship that starts with the letter N that was in the Columbus fleet was the ________________(Nina)
Design as many questions as you can think of.
A little while later, see how many questions the person with dementia can answer.

Then you can sing some patriotic songs.

Finally you can discuss what most Americans do on Columbus Day.

Hopefully you have the day off and can have a nice relaxing day with your friend with dementia.

Remember to leave your comments and questions

A good book to share with those who have dementia

Adorable Photographs of Our Baby-Meaningful Mind Stimulating Activities

Poetry for those with dementia

Activities directors and other healthcare professionals here is a great dementia resource for caregivers and healthcare professinals.

Here is information on being the best caregiver you can be

Here is a way for nurses administrators, social workers and other health care  professionals to get an easyceu or two

Philly.com

She suddenly found that the final stanza of Philip Larkin's "Talking in Bed," for instance, "captures a truth about trying to talk to a person with dementia that I have rarely seen acknowledged, let alone so crisply and authoritatively put":
It becomes still more difficult to find
Words at once true and kind
Or not untrue and not unkind.
As for her own poems, the one that may capture what she has gone through as crisply and authoritatively as Larkin's is "Hotel," originally titled "Dementia Blues," Hadas' "sole experiment in the blues form." Here are the first two stanzas:
Living with dementia is like riding on a carousel.
I said dementia is a big old carousel.
And you can't get off, but it turns into a hotel.
Year after year they reserve you the same space.
Year after year they save you the same old place.
They forget your name, but they never forget your face.
The way literary habits come to her aid is perhaps clearest in the chapter called "Similes." As Hadas explains:

What to know about World Alzheimer's Day

World Alzheimer's Day


Activities directors, caregivers, and healthcare professionals,here is interesting information
Here is a great dementia resource for caregivers and healthcare professinals,

Here is information on being the best caregiver you can be

Healthnews-stat.com



Author Susan Berg says "It is everyone’s duty to embrace this day because there is no time to lose when fighting the battle of preventing this terrible disease." Here are some simple things you can do

What do you know about Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias?

How can you decrease your chances of getting these disease?

How can you help someone with Alzheimer’s disease or a related dementia?

This year’s theme is 'Faces of Dementia!'
Yes, there is an urgency for all to learn about these diseases and do what they can to prevent them in themselves. Also legislators need to contacted so more funds can be allocated for research. World Alzheimer’s day, on Sept 21, is the perfect time to do this.

Approximately 5.5 million people in the United States already have Alzheimer’s disease or a related dementia. The number will continue to grow as the baby boomers reach the age of retirement.

What can you do right now to lessen your chances of getting these diseases?

1. Stop smoking! There is nothing positive about smoking. Studies have shown that smoking not only raises your chances of developing dementia, but it also increases your chances of getting other diseases.

2. Eat a healthy diet. Research suggests that the Mediterranean diet staves off the onset of dementia

3. Keep mentally active. Again studies have shown this, to be a way to delay the onset of dementia.

4. Keep physically active. Research indicates that moderate exercise at least a half an hour three times a week is another way to keep dementia from affecting you.

How can you help others?

Donate to the Alzheimer’s Association. Give your time and/ or money. Help with special events. Organize fund raisers.

Susan Berg has written a book called, Adorable Photographs of Our Baby, for those with dementia, their caregivers, and interested professionals.
She is donating money to the Alzheimer’s Association for each book she sells. She is passionate about educating others on these diseases. Visit her blog at http://dementiaviews.blogspot.com.

You or someone you know could develop symptoms tomorrow. The cost of caring for those with Alzheimer’s disease or a related dementia is expensive monetarily, physically, emotionally, and psychologically.

So please acknowledge World Alzheimer’s Day, September 21

Focus on: Alzheimer'​s and Dementia Care

Activities directors and other healthcare professionals here is a great dementia resource for caregivers and healthcare professinals, Here is information on being the best caregiver you can be

Here is a way for nurses administrators, social workers and other health care professionals to get an easyceu or two

Looking for advanced skills in caring for individuals with dementia?

Need dementia-specific CEU courses and don't want to re-take the same old stuff?

We've got your courses: over 35 hours of dementia-specific courses - all ONLINE, all NAB approved for you.

Try the newest dementia course in our catalogue, Alzheimer's Disease: A Challenge for Care (6.25 CEUs), or the 7 CEU course titled "Identifying, Understanding and Managing Difficult Behaviors," written by David Hahklotubbe, one of our most popular instructors.  If you only need a few hours, we also have smaller courses, starting at just 2 CEUs.  

Bottom line: if you need dementia training, you need easyceu

In just the past few months, we've added more than 30 NEW CEU courses - all 100% NAB approved.  These new courses include several in resident care areas (arthritis, pulmonary, and HIV care; infection control and skin integrity, among others) as well as Ethics and Cultural Competency courses.  

While you're there, check out the new Certificate courses we've added, including:
Assisted Living Administrator Certification
ADVANCED Assisted Living Administrator Certification Program
Assisted Living Nurse Certification
Nursing Facility Administrator in Training
Nursing Facility Director of Nursing Certification
Whether you want to advance up the career ladder yourself with these additional Certifications, or you want to build the professional skills and reputation of your team, these are valuable additions!  Imagine your resume or your team's credentials with these Certification courses listed... you get the picture!

use easyceu

November 1 is author's day

Activities directors and other healthcare professionals here is a great dementia resource for caregivers and healthcare professinals.Benevolant Society

Here is information on being the best caregiver you can be


Here is a way for nurses administrators, social workers and other health care  professionals to get an easyceu or two


Follow alzheimersideas on twitter

famous authors

Thumbelina “, “The Ugly Duckling “, “The Little Mermaid “, “The Emperor’s New Clothes “, and “The Princess and the Pea all by Hans Christian Anderson

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll

The Last of the Mohicans and The Deerslayer.by James Fenimore Cooper

A Christmas Carol , Oliver Twist , Nicholas Nickleby, A Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield and Great Expectations all by Charles Dickens<샄Ы>

Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Scarlet Letter or The House of the Seven Gables . By Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling

The Call of the Wild and White Fang by Jack London

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

The Raven, Murders In The Rue Morgue, The Mask Of Red Death, The Fall Of The House Of Usher, The Black Cat, The Pit And The Pendulum and The Tell-Tale Heart. By Edgar Allan Poe<샄Ы>

Hamlet , Macbeth , Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer , The Prince and the Pauper, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court , and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. by Mark Twain

Journey to the Centre of the Earth , From the Earth to the Moon , 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea , The Mysterious Island and Around the World in Eighty Days. By Jules Verne

The Invisible Man, The Time Machine, The Island of Doctor Moreau and The War of the Worlds. by H.G. Wells

The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Importance of Being Earnest. By Oscar Wilde

Old Man and the Sea, For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Ernest Hemingway 

Residents' rights materials

Activities directors and other healthcare professionals here is a great dementia resource for caregivers and healthcare professinals.Benevolant Society

Here is information on being the best caregiver you can be


Here is a way for nurses administrators, social workers and other health care  professionals to get an easyceu or two




Follow alzheimersideas on twitter

Theconsumervoice.org

2011 Residents' Rights Month Packet of Materials
Each year, the Consumer Voice develops a packet to help you plan your Residents’ Rights events. The packet is completely downloadable and features ready-to-use items, including promotional materials, activities to celebrate Residents' Rights Month, training tools and resources.
Introduction & Overview

• A History of Celebrating Residents' Rights
  
• Letter from Consumer Voice Executive Director Sarah Wells
• Residents' Rights Month Outline and Overview

Training Materials

• Tips for Building Community Involvement in Long-Term Care Facilities
• Ombudsman Challenge: Opening the Door by Celebrating Relationships

Promotional Materials

• Residents' Right Month 2011 Flyer
• Reasons Why Ombudsmen Should Participate
• Reasons Facilities Should Participate in Residents Rights’ Month
• Sample Ombudsman Newsletter Article
• Sample Letter to the Editor
• Sample Press Release
• Proclamation - Governor
• Proclamation - Mayor
• National Residents' Rights Month 2011 Logos (pdf)
• National Residents' Right Month 2011 Welcome Home Logo (jpeg)
• National Residents' Rights Month 2011 Welcome Sign Logo (jpeg)

The Resident's Voice Challenge 2011
The Resident’s Voice is an opportunity for residents from facilities across the country to share their ideas about this year’s Residents’ Rights Month theme with other residents, ombudsmen, families, community members and nursing home staff.
Residents are encouraged to think about and respond to the following questions:

1. What is your favorite memory of growing up in your community?
2. What was your favorite community event growing up?
3. What does it mean to be part of a community?
4. Why is it important to you to have community members come into your home/facility?

Residents can respond to the questions in writing (poems, stories), through art of any kind or with video’s/recordings. We will use one or two of the entries for the Residents’ Rights Month packet and community outreach kit. We encourage facilities/families to frame resident entries and hang them in residents’ rooms or other areas of the facility.

• Resident's Voice Challenge 2011 Information Sheet
• Resident's Voice Criteria
• Photo Release Form
• Biopoem - This format can be used to collect information from residents to develop a poem about their lives.
• Resident Hero - This form can be used to collect information about residents to present in a faciltily open house or other activities. This information can be included with Resident's Voice entries posted within facilities or the community.

Resources

• Residents' Rights to Access and Visitation
• Learning Circle Exercise from the California Culture Change Coalition
• Tips for Visiting Residents

Residents' Rights Month 2011 Advisory Board

Nursing home residents-Residents Rights Month

Activities directors and other healthcare professionals here is a great dementia resource for caregivers and healthcare professinals.Benevolant Society

Here is information on being the best caregiver you can be


Here is a way for nurses administrators, social workers and other health care  professionals to get an easyceu or two




Follow alzheimersideas on twitter

Theconsumervoice.org

Residents' Rights Week changes to Residents' Rights Month

Residents' Rights

Residents' Rights Overview

---

Residents’ Rights are guaranteed by the federal 1987 Nursing Home Reform Law. The law requires nursing homes to “promote and protect the rights of each resident” and places a strong emphasis on individual dignity and self-determination. Nursing homes must meet federal residents' rights requirements if they participate in Medicare or Medicaid. Some states have residents' rights in state law or regulation for nursing homes, licensed assisted living, adult care homes, and other board and care facilities. A person living in a long-term care facility maintains the same rights as an individual in the larger community.
View a Consumer Voice fact sheet on Residents' Rights.
Select on a below link to learn more about Residents' Rights.

• What are Residents' Rights?
• Residents' Rights in Other Languages
• National Residents' Rights Month
• Previous Residents' Rights Celebrations

What are Residents' Rights?

---

Residents' Rights Guarantee Quality of Life
The 1987 Nursing Home Reform Law requires each nursing home to care for its residents in a manner that promotes and enhances the quality of life of each resident, ensuring dignity, choice, and self-determination.
All nursing homes are required "to provide services and activities to attain or maintain the highest practicable physical, mental, and psychosocial well-being of each resident in accordance with a written plan of care that… is initially prepared, with participation, to the extent practicable, of the resident, the resident's family, or legal representative." This means a resident should not decline in health or well-being as a result of the way a nursing facility provides care.
The 1987 Nursing Home Reform Law protects the following rights of nursing home residents:
The Right to Be Fully Informed of

• Available services and the charges for each service
• Facility rules and regulations, including a written copy of resident rights
• Address and telephone number of the State Ombudsman and state survey agency
• State survey reports and the nursing home’s plan of correction
• Advance plans of a change in rooms or roommates
• Assistance if a sensory impairment exists
• Residents have a right to receive information in a language they understand (Spanish, Braille, etc.)

Right to Complain

• Present grievances to staff or any other person, without fear of reprisal and with prompt efforts by the facility to resolve those grievances
• To complain to the ombudsman program
• To file a complaint with the state survey and certification agency

Right to Participate in One's Own Care

• Receive adequate and appropriate care
• Be informed of all changes in medical condition
• Participate in their own assessment, care-planning, treatment, and discharge
• Refuse medication and treatment
• Refuse chemical and physical restraints
• Review one's medical record
• Be free from charge for services covered by Medicaid or Medicare

Right to Privacy and Confidentiality

• Private and unrestricted communication with any person of their choice
• During treatment and care of one's personal needs
• Regarding medical, personal, or financial affairs

Rights During Transfers and Discharges

• Remain in the nursing facility unless a transfer or discharge:
• (a) is necessary to meet the resident’s welfare;
• (b) is appropriate because the resident’s health has improved and s/he no longer requires nursing home care;
• (c) is needed to protect the health and safety of other residents or staff;
• (d) is required because the resident has failed, after reasonable notice, to pay the facility charge for an item or service provided at the resident’s request
• Receive thirty-day notice of transfer or discharge which includes the reason, effective date, location to which the resident is transferred or discharged, the right to appeal, and the name, address, and telephone number of the state long-term care ombudsman
• Safe transfer or discharge through sufficient preparation by the nursing home

Right to Dignity, Respect, and Freedom

• To be treated with consideration, respect, and dignity
• To be free from mental and physical abuse, corporal punishment, involuntary seclusion, and physical and chemical restraints
• To self-determination
• Security of possessions

Right to Visits

• By a resident’s personal physician and representatives from the state survey agency and ombudsman programs
• By relatives, friends, and others of the residents' choosing
• By organizations or individuals providing health, social, legal, or other services
• Residents have the right to refuse visitors

Right to Make Independent Choices

• Make personal decisions, such as what to wear and how to spend free time
• Reasonable accommodation of one's needs and preferences
• Choose a physician
• Participate in community activities, both inside and outside the nursing home
• Organize and participate in a Resident Council
• Manage one's own financial affairs

Return to Top

Residents' Rights in Other Languages

---

The Center is pleased offer Residents' Rights in the following languages, English, French, Hindu, Korean (Illinois specific, not federal version) and Spanish. Select on the links below to access each version.

If you have a copy of Residents' Rights in a language not listed here and would like to share it with NORC, contact Becka Livesay, program associate, at rlivesay@theconsumervoice.org. Thank you!

• English
• French
• Hindu
• Korean (Illinois specific, not federal version)
• Spanish

Return to Top

National Residents' Rights Month 2011

---

How music can help those with dementia

Activities directors and other healthcare professionals here is a great dementia resource for caregivers and healthcare professinals.

Here is information on being the best caregiver you can be

Here is a way for nurses administrators, social workers and other health care  professionals to get an easyceu or two

Huffington Post
Leann Reynolds

Celia shares a picture of herself as a 7-year-old girl. Her young mother is leading her in a dance. Then she pulls out a second photograph, taken one week before her mother passed away from Alzheimer's at the age of 78. In this image, they are dancing again. This time, Celia is leading.

"As soon as I felt her lose herself to Alzheimer's, I would bring in my iTunes and play Spanish music for her," said Mrs. Pomerantz. "Then I could convince her to do anything -- we would dance over to the shower or out to get a meal."

Mrs. Pomerantz intuitively found what experts say is useful tool in helping people with Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia.

"Music speaks to a person's feelings, so it is a sensory and not intellectual experience," said Martha Tierney of the Alzheimer's Association. "That is partly why it works -- there is no pressure to understand it and they can just experience it."

Tapping into her mother's lifelong love of salsa music by world-renowned musicians such as Tito Puente, Celia Cruz and Pancho Sanchez, from her native Puerto Rico, Mrs. Pomerantz found a way to interact with her mother even after her mother lost her ability to talk.

"When my mother would hear music, she would give life to the music," she said, adding that her mother became known as the "dancing queen" at her final nursing home. "It brought her back to happy moments of maybe dancing with her own mother, or even her grandmother. It gave her a confidence, peace and serenity." Mrs. Pomerantz chronicled her mother's Alzheimer's in a Kindle book, "Alzheimer's: A Mother Daughter Journey."
While not everyone can rely on a history of family dancing and cultural music, it is important to find out what type of music your loved likes and keep playing it for them.

"I had a client who attacked his wife while they were driving," said Nataly Rubenstein of Alzheimer's Care Consultants in Miami Beach, Florida, explaining that the patient's dementia led him to feel agitated in a car. "It turns out his favorite music was the Bee Gees, and now he sits in the car holding the CD case while listening that music."
After her own mother was diagnosed with Tick's Disease (a form of dementia), Ms. Rubenstein was her primary caregiver for 16 years. She recalled that one day when her mother was in a particularly "nasty" mood, the sound of Tom Jones' "What's Up Pussycat?" on the radio calmed her down.

Despite being an expert in dementia care, Ms. Rubenstein stumbled into this soothing tool to help her mother's combative and belligerent nature, which she said is very pronounced with Tick's disease. However, she cautions caregivers to be extremely sensitive to finding music that their loved one will feel a connection to and not just randomly turn on the radio.

"If it wasn't familiar music to them, then it could aggravate them," she said. (She added half-jokingly: "If I ever get dementia, please dear God, I hope my caregivers don't play rap!")

Alzheimer's robs people of their short-term memory, explained Ms. Tierney, but their long-term memory can remain largely intact. "They maintain vivid memories of the past," she said. "A woman may look at her elderly husband and not recognize him as her husband because he does not look 35 years old anymore. So if you were to play music from that time period it would speak to her current reality."

In addition to finding the right music to soothe a loved one with Alzheimer's, a caregiver needs to also be aware of minimizing other sensory stimulation. "A radio can be too distracting with ads," Ms. Tierney said. "And headphones may work for some, but not others. There should not be a TV on in the same room, or other distracting noise."

That said, many people have found that live music can be particularly welcome for many Alzheimer's patients. This can be in the form of someone singing old camp songs, Christmas carols, church hymns, small symphonies and more.

Find out more about how therapeutic music can be for loved ones with Alzheimer's and other illnesses at the American Music Therapy Association's website, www.musictherapy.org.
"A person with Alzheimer's feels like everything is unfamiliar all of the time," Ms. Tierney said. "Allowing them to spend time with music that they recognize and retain memories of gives them the sense of familiarity in a world that is otherwise extremely confusing."

To learn more about treatment options visit Homewatch CareGivers'
Pathways to Memory page. Pathways to Memory is a program offered exclusively by Homewatch CareGivers and is comprised of two distinct service options: Specialized Dementia Care and Focused Memory Training.