Take a Look at These Unusual Strategies for Fighting Dementia

Dementia units and long-term care homes for the elderly are often desolate and lonely places, with harried workers attempting to meet the needs of their patients while also meeting government-set metrics of success. For families and individuals, it can be difficult to imagine a better way. However, a pilot program in Canada called the Butterfly room is showing that dedicated efforts to making long-term care homes a vibrant and loving place for someone's last days has positive impacts for everyone - and is worth a government investment do right across the country.

University-based retirement communities help to foster intergenerational connections between younger and older generations. Some of these facilities are simply developments near colleges, while others are physically on-campus. Along with building connections, these programs help fight feelings of loneliness among the older population and break down stigmas young people may hold about the elderly.

The Partners in Caring Respite program pairs volunteers with people in the early stages of cognitive neurological disorders — like dementia — to offer care and companion programs, allowing them to build relationships and provide respite for family caregivers. Partners in Caring has expended to four counties across the state, serving over 400 families with its 70 on-call volunteers.

Well Spouse Association helps spouses manage the mental and physical challenges of caregiving. The nonprofit offers support groups, respite weekends that give caregivers time to take care of themselves and other responsibilities, and other resources. The relationships members build with each other help combat feelings of loneliness and isolation. With just 20 chapters nationwide, many members travel long distances to access the support and services, though moving meetings online due to the coronavirus pandemic had the effect of expanding membership and several members have also started local chapters.

Nursing homes adapted to COVID-19 so that they could protect residents’ physical well-being while also preserving their social and emotional health. Staff at Belknap County Nursing Home modified popular activities to make them safe, like hallway bingo, where numbers were called from hallways so that residents could stay in or near their rooms. Participation jumped 30% from pre-pandemic levels. An adaptation to another popular game, “Price is Right,” had staff bringing items, like snacks and toiletries, room-to-room so that residents could guess the price, with the person coming closest winning the item.

To better serve patients struggling with dementia, a hospital in Berlin established a department of geriatrics and began screening "patients for cognitive impairments upon admission, providing them with trained volunteers for personal support and non-pharmacological interventions to prevent delirium." This course of action has helped the hospital to diagnose cases earlier and offer dementia-specific care for patients, which consequently has reduced the prescribing of drugs for these patients.

To combat loneliness, a flat in Helsingborg rents only to retirees and people under 25, and their contract requires that they spend at least 2 hours a week socializing together. The building, a former retirement home run by a housing company and funded by the city council, has many common areas to socialize including spaces to cook, workout, do arts and crafts, and play games. Most of the over 70 residents are happy to socialize and some have formed strong bonds, although there have been a few small conflicts. The managers hope to open more housing using this model in Sweden and internationally.

Arrangements like home-sharing, co-housing, and the village movement are often associate with younger crowds, but older Americans are exploring alternative housing arrangements as well as they aim to decrease the isolation that can come with aging, as well as high costs and limited options. However, it can be difficult to scale solutions that have worked and, even when expanded, these programs are still too small to solve the broader affordable housing crisis for seniors and the rest of the American population.

Vermont is home to many senior patients with serious medical needs, but doesn't have enough nursing homes to accommodate. Now, some people are opening their homes to the elderly and providing necessary services - while the programs vary, residents often pay for room and board and the host family is paid by the state through Medicaid dollars. So far, the program has proven popular.

In Los Angeles, seniors finding themselves unable to pay rising rents on fixed incomes and those attempting to age in place in need of some extra help are being paired together in a new home share program. Organizations that help develop pairing are growing in the area as needs increase, but it isn't always the best solution for everyone.