ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - The simplest of tasks quickly become challenges in the Virtual Dementia Tour, a program meant to bring caretakers into the minds of those with dementia or Alzheimer’s.
“Compassion requires us to really experience what the other person is going through,” said Jacquie Hurt with Park Springs.
The challenges in the tour are simple: find 17 cents and put it in a bag, change the time on a clock, zip up a jacket.
The Virtual Dementia Tour has been offered to staff members at Park Springs and family members of adults who go there Apr. 6 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
The tour will be open to any caregiver of someone with Dementia or Alzheimer’s in the community.
”Having an understanding of what that person is going through helps people identify why they are experiencing the behaviors they might be having,” said Tim Knight with Isakson Living.
The experience translates into real-time when caregivers are speaking to someone with dementia and Alzheimer’s; when they are trying to remind them, who they were; when they are grieving the ways they can’t recognize themselves; all while accepting them where they are at.
“It is a hard place to be, to be an adult child of a parent who is living with dementia. You are losing your loved one piece by piece,” said Hurt, “Our training program is really about how to keep up with those losses, become empathetic and compassionate to your loved one and to yourself.”
Copyright 2023 WANF. All rights reserved.
:quality(70)/s3.amazonaws.com/arc-authors/gray/f896a3ff-50ff-4d56-ac5d-2f42fad89741.jpg)