A healing touch

Activities directors, caregivers, and healthcare professionals,here is some great information

Here is a great dementia resource for caregivers and healthcare professionals,

Your residents will love the Amazon Kindle Fire

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


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The Dementia Caregiver's Little Book of Hope [Kindle Edition]

By Neil Munshi Boston Globe

Auburndale man uses hugs, kisses to cope, help bring his wife back from the grip of Alzheimer's

Sol Rogers cuddled up with his wife, Rita, during a recent afternoon at Briarwood Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center in Needham. (Pat Greenhouse/Globe Staff)

Every day, Sol Rogers asks the aides to make room for him on his wife's bed. He removes his glasses and puts them on the table next to the door. Slowly, he takes off his shoes and swings his 89-year-old frame onto the tiny twin hospital bed.

He cuddles up to Rita -- his wife of 61 years -- wraps his thin leg over hers, and squeezes her shoulder. He presses his face into hers and kisses her.

"I love you, Rita, I love you," he says. "Do you love me?"

"Yes."

"I love you more."

"No...," says Rita, 85, her voice slurred by advanced Alzheimer's disease.

He laughs.

Sol, of Auburndale, spends about three hours a day at the Briarwood Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center in Needham, singing Rita old songs, taking her out to the garden, or simply lying in bed with her, telling her how much he cares.

There is not much scientific evidence to support touch therapy for Alzheimer's patients, but it has clearly improved Rita's behavior - she's calmer now, communicates better, and has regained some mobility. And it's boosted Sol's ability to cope with her decline.

"We all need touch; we all deserve some kind of intimacy. And there is all kinds of research out there that the body and mind respond to touch in very positive ways," said Dr. Robert Stern, co-director of Boston University's Alzheimer's Disease Clinical and Research Program. "Whether it will actually have an impact on the progression of this degenerative disease is very unlikely, but providing someone with a connection . . . can only be positive for both."....

Do you allow this at your nursing home?