Dementia Resilience with Jill Lorentz

My guest this week, November 12, was David Geras of GoldLeaf Homecare and proponent of Denver University’s Research programs. Most notably, DU has invented an artificial Intelligence Robot named RYAN, designed to relate and encourage people with memory loss to communicate and engage. This is a fascinating conversation, sure to blow your mind!

This week on my radio show Dementia Resilience with Jill Lorentz, my guest was Jill Lindgren from eLivelihood. She has co-founded an extraordinary mobile and personal computer application that can help friends and families communicate with each other about everything from a person's care to doctor appointments, time spent traveling to appointments and back, general care, paying caregivers, and much more! I asked her to explain her product, which has just launched on the market and these are some of the things we talked about!

How do you know this is what people want or need? She received feedback from interviewing over 250 caregivers and families. I asked, "What where their pain points, common complaints from primary caregivers, seniors and extended family?" So what was the #1 issue? Jill Lindgren answered, "Empathy. We solve that by having a non-confrontational way to share contributions, share information and the workload. We take the Senior out of the family politics."

So I asked Ms. Lindgren to tell me about the system; and how her service helps families get everything together - what's that look like? Below are the highlights we covered. Listen to the show and learn more!

Here's a sneak peak into what we discussed:

Create a team (Admin, Recip, Contributors)

Private team calendar

Safekeeper Storage

Email notifications for the team

Picture/Video sharing

Senior Tablet App & Mobile Apps

The calendar isn’t just your average calendar, how is it different?

Time tracking for family and 3rd party caregivers

Assignable tasks and appointments

Notes to keep everyone updated on the event

What can you put in Safekeeper?

Notes (text – medication lists, Dr info, passwords)

Documents .pdf, .xls, .doc, pictures (will, advance directive, pics of medications)

Accessible from mobile apps.

Is it easy to use the Senior tablet app and how do they get it?

Download directly from the App store or Google Play

Designed for seniors

Great for memory care patients

Direct messaging to team members

Calendar Access

How does the Senior tablet app combat Senior isolation?

Involves extended family

Keeps them connected with their “community”

They know what to expect with the calendar, they can make notes to communicate with the family.

How do you handle security?

Private team solution

Permission settings for each user

So what does this cost? Listen to the podcast to find out!

What’s coming next?

Financial solutions

Passive home monitoring

How do customers find you?

www.elivelihood.com

email – [email protected]

instructional videos available online

30 day free trial

Promo Code EZ1430

This week I had a lovely conversation with a family truly living with resilience! The point of the show was to display that there is quality of life and moments of joy still to be found after the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s. My guests were Cari McDonald and her mom Chloe', who is nearing late stage Alzheimer's. This was a live show and a bit dicey if something went wrong, but I want to show how love and support can really help a person live well with memory loss and even their caregiver. I love my caregivernation and want this for all of you! God Bless!

 

 

 

 

This week Oct, 21, 2018 my guest was Dr.Jonathon Woodcock from the Rocky Mountain Alzheimer’s Disease Center. We had a great chat about listener’s questions such as when is it time to see a physician about memory loss? What is normal aging, and how can we keep from overreacting when memory loss runs in our families and we are hypersensitive to symptoms? How does Dr. Woodcock break the news when the diagnosis isn’t what we want to hear? He also works in the clinic with Dr.Huntington Potter on his Leukine Study, and shares with us what his role is in this epic study.

My guest this week was Dr. Huntington Potter, Director of the Alzheimer's Research and Memory Disorder Clinic at the University of Colorado Hospital at Anschutz. We talked about brain donation; what type of brains they need to study and how to do it properly. We also talked about how to get into his current studies at UCH. Dr. Potter is looking for folks in the Mild Cognitive impairment stage for his clinical trial.

This show on October 15th, was all about the launch of my new Bundles. Written bits of information for families and professionals that is free of charge. 25 Bundles in all answering most if not all of your questions. I also talked about what I do with my company, classes, in-home assessments and so forth.

What are the Bundles? They are pages of information, written by the entities who provide the services which will help caregivers assisting those with memory loss or cognitive impairment. Examples:

How do I bathe my loved one without a battle?

How do we discuss the end of driving privileges when it's no longer safe?

How do I choose memory care?

Averting scams - mail fraud, credit card theft, crimes against humanity, telephone scams

Talking to a family member with dementia about helping with finances

Wandering issues

What is Medicare and what does it cover?

How do I apply and qualify if I need Medicaid?

A form to fill out that is up to date for the times - What you need to know about me!

Working with law enforcement.

Much More! Visit https://summitresiliencetraining.com/bundles/

From my heart to yours, trying to save time and brain energy with a one shop stop for answers to your burning questions about caring for the people you love.

Hugs,

Jill

This Week October 8th, My guest was Dr. Christina Vaughn from UC Denver Neurology and Movement Disorders Clinic. We had a light hearted discussion of what Hospice is and how it works! Hospice helps the entire family and the parameters around care seem to change every year. Learn the truth and see if it works for you when a loved one is very ill or chronically ill.

Dr. Timothy Boyd, PHD, who works at the Rocky Mountain Alzheimer's Disease Center in Colorado, shared astonishing and hopeful findings of an exciting research trial, designed to end Alzheimer's, this week on my show. Explaining their Leukine Trial, Boyd told my listeners that preliminary results on the first human trials of the drug "Leukine" as a treatment for Alzheimer's have met with unexpected success.

Dr. Boyd, who works with the team headed by renowned researcher Dr. Huntington Potter, shared the news with a detailing of their initial results. Essentially, the first safety trials for Leukine involved 32 people with the disease. 13 were injected with the drug itself. 19 others received a placebo, or, just plain salt water. The results were surprisingly positive. Compared to their starting place, the people who received Leukine actually improved in their cognition, as measured by the MMSE, which is the Mini Mental State Exam. And the people who received the salt water placebo stayed the same. So that means that at the end of treatment there was a big difference between the people who received Leukine and the people who received placebo. Further, the patients who did improve did so quickly. They were showing results in just a matter of three weeks, after only some 15 injections.

"Alzheimer's disease takes probably decades before it even starts to present the first signs of having any cognitive impairment," said researcher Dr. Timothy Boyd. "So to improve cognition within only 15 days of an injection of a treatment--that is very astonishing."

And even more remarkable is that within that same period of time, the Leukine patients actually began to show some improvement in day to day activity, able to once again do things that the disease had taken from them.

Listen to my interview to learn more!

My guest this week, Dr. Benzi Kluger MD is the Chief and founder of the Palliative Care Center and Associate Professor of Neurology at the University of Colorado Hospital. Dr. Kluger directs the University of Colorado’s Neurology Supportive and Palliative care clinics. These team-based clinics are open to any patient or family affected by a neurologic or neurosurgical condition. The goals of this clinic are to improve the quality of life and reduce suffering for patients and families by helping them with difficult medical symptoms (e.g. pain, fatigue), psychiatric symptoms (e.g. depression), psychological issues (e.g. guilt, grief), caregiver support, spiritual wellbeing and planning for the future. His specific clinical interests include movement disorders (e.g. Parkinson’s disease, tremor, dystonia, chorea) and disorders of thinking and memory. Regarding his care philosophy, Dr. Kluger says “I treat people not diseases.” He goes on to share that he believes everyone has unique perspectives, priorities, strengths and weaknesses that are important to understand in working towards their health goals. Good communication is critical to this relationship, especially his ability to really hear patients and to communicate his thoughts in a way that is understandable. He is open to admitting when he doesn’t have the answers and he enjoys working with a team of other clinicians.

The week of August 27th I hosted part two of my show with my sisters Sandy Born, Sue Fleming and Judy Fleming on my show as guests. We continued the discussion about what we experienced through the journey with our mom’s dementia. We were able to change state laws in Illinois based on the abuse our mom endured at the 1st nursing home we chose. We still feel angst and regret that we didn’t make a better choice. We also had a few laughs over the antics of the residents and mom at her second care community. This was a heavy, then light hearted and laughter, tear filled 1/2 hour.