Aging baby boomers, still working and taking care of parents with dementia: It’s not an uncommon situation.
Just ask Eleanor Acosta, a Greenwood nurse whose 91-year-old dad is technically the caregiver for Acosta’s 91-year-old mother, bedridden with dementia.
When Acosta heard about a support group for caregivers at Locus Benedictus, the Catholic retreat center on the western edge of Greenwood, she started going out on Thursday mornings to talk with others in similar situations.
Then she started taking her dad, who had grown depressed, out with her.
“It’s a wonderful and peaceful place,” Acosta said. “My dad loves going to the support group. And sometimes I just go out to have some peaceful time when I feel the need to get away.”
Now, Acosta and two friends who are specialists in health care for the elderly are planning a workshop for caregivers whose loved ones have dementia.
Acosta previously worked for Life Help as a psychiatric nurse. She said she has been blessed by the expertise of Charlene Gressett, coordinator of elderly and psychosocial rehabilitation services at Life Help, and Catherine Kidd, who works in elder care in the community, in learning how to better care for her mother and offer support to her dad.
“Catherine is a good friend of mine who came over to train sitters who help out with my mom around the clock,” Acosta said. “She also taught my dad how to feed her, how to help her if she chokes, how to deal with aggression, all kinds of things that come up.”
Together, these three and Magdalene Abraham, the director of Locus Benedictus, are putting together the workshop, which is free and open to the public and will be held July 29, starting at 2 p.m.
“The things these ladies have to offer, their experience and expertise, are just invaluable,” Acosta said. “There’s just a whole world of information out there that most people don’t have.”
Gressett said her work has taught her that there is a wide spectrum of dementia, caused by a variety of disease factors, and that no two dementia patients are alike.
“We can teach caregivers and loved ones things like how to make the house safe for someone with dementia and how to communicate better with someone whose communications skills are challenged.”
Some techniques are simple: Don’t argue. Don’t contradict.
Others are not so simple.
“I have a client who, most of the time, talks all over the world. But inside that sentence that goes all over the world, there’s one grain of what she’s trying to tell me,” Gressett said.
“I can teach family members how to listen to hear what their loved one wants to communicate.”
Kidd said she hopes the workshop will encourage friends to visit families dealing with dementia — both for the person suffering the disease and for their caregivers.
“It’s hard. This person you used to have conversations with, you can’t have them any more. We’re trying to teach people how to relate to their friends with dementia, to not be afraid about what they say or do. And we want them to realize the importance of them coming and not just dropping out of their lives.
“That’s what these caregivers are seeing — that people just don’t come by any more.”
Gressett said she likes to help people understand that their loved ones with dementia are adults and shouldn’t be treated like children and that they still need interaction with other people, even if they can’t respond as they used to.
“They haven’t stopped living,” she said.
With Abraham’s encouragement, these women hope to get the word out to the Greenwood community that there is a support group on Thursday mornings for caregivers at Locus Benedictus, and all are welcome.
And they want people who need help caring for or relating to people with dementia to come out for the July workshop.
“It will be a time for caregivers to hear from others and to have a break, Gressett said.
Acosta said she realizes that, despite her mother’s condition, she is blessed with the support she has.
“Some people have no respite care, no way to get any rest away from that person,” she said. “But this group will teach you how to do
that.”
•Contact Kathryn Eastburn at 581-7235 or keastburn@gwcommonwealth.com.
