What You'll Learn:
- How to care for clients living with dementia
- How to engage clients living with dementia in age-appropriate activities
- What to say when your client doesn't want to shower, isn't eating, or is struggling with other ADLs
- How to talk with families who are struggling with changes involving their loved one
Just two weeks after completing the training, my own mother was diagnosed with dementia. Suddenly, the information I had learned wasn't simply something I could use professionally—it was something I needed as a daughter. The training has helped me better understand what my mother is experiencing, communicate with her differently, and make more informed decisions about both her current needs and what her care may look like in the future.
Professionally, Dementia By Day has also changed the way I support the families we serve at Amada Senior Care. When a family is trying to understand a dementia diagnosis or determine what comes next, I now bring not only professional knowledge to those conversations, but personal understanding. I know what it feels like to love someone with dementia, to worry about what the future holds, and to want to make the best decisions possible while navigating something you never expected.
- Kathy King, Amada Senior Care
Curriculum
- VIDEO: Why is Embracing Their Reality® so Important? (1:50)
- What it Means to Embrace Their Reality® (8:20)
- Introducing: Timeline Confusion® (4:52)
- Timeline Confusion: The Web Comic
- More on Timeline Confusion®
- The Traditional Way
- What's The Deal With Lying + Fiblets?
- The 3 Questions (9:27)
- Watch Embracing Their Reality: The Short Film (5:17)
- Embracing Their Reality: The Web Comic
- QUIZ
About Your Instructor
Rachael Wonderlin started Dementia By Day as a blog in 2014 while she was working as a Dementia Care Director at a Brookdale building in North Carolina. That blog eventually turned into her first book with Johns Hopkins University Press, and came out in 2016, the same year that Dementia By Day became a full-time consulting business.
She has a Master’s in Gerontology from UNC Greensboro, a Bachelor’s in Psychology from University of Mary Washington, and three books about dementia published with Hopkins Press. Rachael was a Dementia Care Director at three buildings before moving into her role as a full-time consultant.