📰 This Week in Dementia News 📰

• You've been egged!: 9-year-old boy seeks cure for Alzheimer's (WMAR): a feel-good story for your holiday weekend.

• Navigating Through the Symptoms of Alzheimer’s Disease: A Caregiver’s Journey (Alzheimer’s Caregiving): a pragmatic overview of Alzheimer’s disease with practical suggestions. If you are putting your game plan together, this is a great place to start.

• Behavioral and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia: Could Environmental Modifications Help? (Med Page Today): is your loved one experiencing increased agitation? This article shows you how to alter the home environment to change the outcomes.

• Tech Use Isn’t Driving Dementia in Older Adults (Scientific American): research is now showing that smartphone and computer use hasn’t put today’s older adults at increased risk of cognitive decline.

• Seth Rogen And Lauren Miller Rogen Discuss A More ‘Hopeful’ World Around Alzheimer’s (Forbes): You likely know them for their memorable comedy projects over the years, but since 2012, husband and wife team, Seth Rogen and Lauren Miller Rogen, have been striving to provide relief for individuals with Alzheimer’s, as well as for their loved ones, through their Hilarity for Charity nonprofit organization.

🌟 Featured: Free Resources for You 🌟 

Caregiver’s Corner: Have You Taken Your Poison Today

For support in my own caregiving, I often participate in Facebook dementia support groups.

I mentioned that to a colleague the other day, and she said that she found it difficult to hear so much negativity in those groups from so many angry people. I get that. It’s difficult to be in that environment.

But when I look deeper into these places, I see a kind of magic happening, a beautiful alchemy of sorts.

There’s a saying in the East: hen doku i yaku — change poison to medicine. This is the idea that we all experience “poison” in our lives. It can fester in us, or it can actually be a source of growth, healing, and strength.

If you love someone with dementia, their illness is probably a great poison to you. You might feel pieces of you being poisoned to death! Your joy? Your sense of humor? Compassion? Patience?

How do we, then, perform this alchemy? How do we change “poison” to “medicine”? Personally, I start with gratitude. Sometimes, it’s hard to find something to be grateful for, so I start small: maybe I’m just grateful for the ground beneath my feet, or the simple meal I’m eating, or my computer keyboard that lets me write to you.

The scientists say we need 5 positive thoughts to counter 1 negative thought. This is called the 5:1 ratio. I choose to create 5 positive gratitude thoughts, but you might choose a different kind of thought.

I’m not saying this fixes things — unfortunately it’s not that easy — but I do think we are more likely to feel better when we focus on the medicine rather than the poison. In those same “negative” Facebook groups, I see just as much medicine because that’s what I’m looking for.

I see people in those groups reach out to others who are suffering, angry, and struggling. They extend the light of understanding to the people who feel completely alone. They turn the poison they endured into the medicine that can cure another. They listen and validate, helping bring people home to themselves. It’s really beautiful.

If you feel like you’ve gotten a hefty dose of poison from life lately, would you try to change yours into medicine with me? Or we could turn 🍋 lemons 🍋 into lemonade, which would probably taste better than either poison or medicine! 🤣 

And maybe, in time, we can all heal a little. I’d like that for us.

~Ben

Other ways I can help you:

Through elumenEd, the parent company of The Dementia Newsletter, I offer the following additional resources:

• Cutting-edge training programs, free guides, and more at www.elumened.com

• If you want to chat, I’d love to get to know you. Book a free 20-minute slot on my calendar. We’ll talk about what’s going on for you and brainstorm, or I’m happy to just provide a listening ear. If you think you might like to develop a more targeted plan specific to your needs, we can talk about what’s a good fit. Don’t be shy! Grab a slot.