Workshop: Strategies for Communicating with Loved Ones Living with Dementia

May 16, 2013
12:00 PM – 1:30 PM
N.H. Woodruff School of Nursing – Room 101

Facilitator: Dr. Kenneth Hepburn Ph.D.
Associated Dean for Research – Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing
Educational Core Director – Emory Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center

This brief workshop will pursue three major aims. First, it will provide participants with an understanding of the ways in which Alzheimer's disease – and similar dementias – progressively affects person's abilities to use cognitive powers, control emotions and behaviors, and carry out everyday tasks and activities. Second, it will propose that there is a reasonable goal for (and way of judging) caregiving, one that is aimed at the person's comfort and that doesn't cause caregivers to beat themselves up. And third, the workshop will offer practical suggestions about how family members might communicate and develop care strategies that acknowledge and take into account the losses that are produced by the disease. The workshop is an abbreviated version of the Savvy Caregiver Program, an educational program that has been shown, in a randomized trial, to reduce dementia family caregiver distressed. The program is currently in use in a number of states.

Register now!  Seating is limited.  Workshop is open to all Emory employees and their guests.

Contact Audrey Adelson at (404) 727-1261 if you have questions about this workshop or other resources to support caregivers.