Specializing in dementia: A good idea
I thought this was a pretty good story about a church that is serving their community in a way that unique, but so obvious you wonder why it isn’t more widespread
Riverside Park Church of God is reaching out to seniors who need a little extra TLC.
At the same time, it’s assisting families who need respite from caring for an elderly loved one.
“We specialize in dementia,” said Justin Zarb, director of the Livonia church's adult day care ministry. “Taking care of someone in advanced stages of Alzheimer’s gets to be challenging. Caregivers need a break.”
via Local church embraces elderly with special needs | hometownlife.com | the Observer & Eccentric Newspapers and Hometown Weeklies. ht Monday Morning Insight
I hope you all are having a great new year. I’ll post a personal update soon. In the meantime, what other cool and unusual church or community based service have you heard about in the past year?
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1
Richard,
Thank you very much for posting this. I was a full-time caregiver for my father in his last few years of life, and the Mount Olivet Senior Day center (run by Mount Olivet Lutheran Church) was a lifesaver for me, and allowed me to have Thursdays (relatively) free. I have a special appreciation for those who work to make life easier for those in the confusion of Alzheimer’s. Thanks again for shedding light on this situation.
Harvey
2
Thank you for sharing Harvey. It seems to me that the reality of being a caregiver for an elderly parent with Alzheimer’s is not well understood by people who are not going through it first hand. I’m just barely getting on the edge of awareness, and I wouldn’t count myself anywhere near understanding yet.
But I do think what they are doing is pretty amazing, and I also think what you did for your father is pretty amazing too.
3
Seriously, this is a really great service. My grandma was starting to suffer from dementia (or a bladder infection, which apparently can cause dementia-like symptoms or bring out symptoms of already-existing dementia). Anyway, she was fairly mild but would go in and out of “moods” with her bladder infections.
I can imagine it was extremely stressful being the sole caretaker, but at this time my grandma was in assisted living. While it was horrible to watch her fall apart mentally, at least the family could deal with our emotions; we got a break. But so make caretakers don’t. Families have to deal with craziness all day and also Sundowner Syndrome (sun goes down and dementia patients get ever wackier).
Thanks for sharing this, Richard!