caregiving support

All Home Care Matters is honored to welcome award winning author, Tracy Cram Perkins as guest to the show.

An award winning author, Tracy Cram Perkins is a four-time dementia caregiving survivor with sixteen-years of experience caring for four family members with dementia. She is the author of Dementia Home Care, How to Prepare Before, During and After. It is her mission to supply caregivers with proven shortcuts to reduce the stresses of dementia care. 

Tracy teaches hands-on solutions for reducing repetitive questions, melt downs, and wandering. She includes tips using simple, inexpensive fixes found at hardware and office supply stores. 

Summary of "Dementia Home Care: How to Prepare Before, During, and After": 

Dementia Home Care meets an unmet emotional need that bridges the isolation and the not knowing what to do that comes with dementia care. Written with the caregiver in mind, the book is large print and easy to read. It is designed for the stressed-out caregiver, supplying them multiple options to try or mix and match to meet their loved one’s ever-changing needs.

It teaches how to use the hardware and office supply stores to make a home more dementia friendly on a budget, how to prepare for emergencies and how to distract and redirect a loved one. It gives caregivers a tool to identify why their loved one is melting down and steps to prevent the meltdown that can be shared with respite caregivers, family members, and friends. 

It reduces the stresses of dementia care--giving and receiving. It contains 130+ resources and services from adaptive clothing to wandering prevention. It includes resources for those in underserved communities, including financial and legal resources. It addresses care for those with English as a second language, and the Deaf and LGBTQIA+ communities, and includes resources for people of color and Spanish speaking communities. 

For those in rural communities with access to the internet, it supplies links for global resource directories for services they could not find locally. It is a dementia map, how-to manual, and toolbox for readers to flip to the page that meets the challenges of the day from diagnosis to beyond death.

Mary Lou Falcone became a caregiver when her father had a massive stroke. She was 10 years old. The experience prepared her for the day, many years later, when her husband, illustrator and 1950s rocker Nicky Zann, was diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia (LBD). 

In her memoir, I Didn't See It Coming: Scenes of Love, Loss, and Lewy Body Dementia, Falcone talks about what it was like to have an international career, to be thought of in their social circles as "the golden couple," and then to face the cruel reality that the love of her life had an incurable, fatal disease.  

Falcone talks candidly about three of the most challenging aspects of caring for a spouse with dementia, especially LBD: incontinence, violence, and hyper-sexuality. 

She also shaes the challenges she faced in writing the memoir, particularly when her second editor guided her to reveal the deeply buried emotions that resulted in this personal and poignant story, a winner of the 2023 NYC Big Book Award "Distinguished Favorite" in the category of Caregiving. 

Falcone also shares an overview of the differences between LBD and Alzheimer's Disease, why it can be difficult to get a diagnosis, and her ongoing work as an advocate for LBD awareness. 

The interview portion of thie episode was originally recorded for a show on YouTube called "Page 1." Here's the link to see the video version of this podcast episode. 

The video version on YouTube includes a PSA created to honor my husband's memory. In the PSA is a photo of me and my husband at a wedding reception in 2017. Several hours after that photo was taken, he was rushed by ambulance to the ER. He had choked on a piece of meat. 

The PSA also includes a brief video I took one morning while my husband and I were hiking around a local reservoir. 

For more info in Mary Lou Falcone and her book, see her website: MaryLouFalcone.com  

It’s our mission to make dementia caregiving easier for families caring for a loved one with Alzheimer's disease, frontotemporal dementia, lewy body dementia, vascular dementia, or any other type of dementia. We believe that in order to create a more dementia-friendly world, we must first create a caregiver-friendly world. That's why we create free educational training videos like this one so that anyone with an internet connection can get access to dementia care information.

Are you a caregiver struggling with resentment? In this podcast, we'll dive deep into effective techniques for alleviating caregiver resentment. Discover practical tips, personal stories, and expert advice to transform your caregiving experience. Don't miss out - listen now!

If you'd like to see this episode on video, you can hop on over to my YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/dementiacareblazers

You can also sign up for a free training class and learn more about the Care Course at https://www.dementiacareclass.com/website

**This channel and any information by Dementia Careblazers is not a substitute for healthcare. This is not healthcare advice. Please talk to your healthcare providers for specific feedback on your situation.