in support of National Caregiver Month (November) I want to share a couple info graphics that really summarize current understanding of caregiving. National caregiving month started in 1997 by the National Family Caregivers Association and began as a week of acknowledgement during Thanksgiving. Now, it has evolved into a month-long celebration of family caregivers!
Take the time to read these infographics and appreciate the contribution made by family caregivers! much love.
To keep all your info in one place. Log essential personal information, like insurance; set up a calendar for caregiving events; manage medications, create a contact list, and keep a medical history log… also you can share information with family members under tight security features.
For the Alzheimer’s caregiver. It offers reference and information, caregiving advice, medication management features, and up-to-date news on Alzheimer’s disease. There is also a “doctor diary” for logging symptoms and taking notes that may be relevant to the next visit.
To share. Invite family and friends to join you as “helpers” and create a shareable task list, journal, pictures and recorded voice message.
To keep track of meds and symptoms Keep a profile of the person you’re caring for and basic symptom tracking system. You can also track medications.
To manage medications. Track doses, dosage, refills, and missed dose instructions. Includes a guide to over 15,000 drugs and sends FDA alerts for recalled medications.
To maintain productivity in multitasking. Features include to-do lists, journals, excellent tracking methods, and easy ways to share information with family members and friends.
To get expert advice. Advice categorized into 10 eldercare topics. You can add your own notes to any of the tips. This app serves as a great resource of information and advice for caregivers.
For day-to-day and emergency needs. All content from the American Heart Association. A great resource for immediate first aid and CPR needs.
I prefer to call this relationship a “care partnership” because I believe it is one that is truly reciprocal. As a person with PD adjusts to physical changes and, at times, to changes in personal independence, the care partner must learn to adapt to a different relationship dynamic and perhaps to greater “ownership” of duties that their partner had previously handled.
For more details on these items, check out: www.pdf.org/pdf/fs_pd_partnership_08.pdf
much love.
Last week I mentioned some specific exercises targeted to PD symptoms (see HERE and HERE)… today I want to share WHY exercise is so important for brain health.
New Research out of the Dana-Faber Cancer institute and Harvard Medical School (Spiegelman & Greenberg, Cell Metabolism 2013) shows that endurance exercise, such as distance running or cycling, releases a protein (FNDC5) that improves brain health while promoting the growth of nerves associated with cognition.
In laboratory rats, PGC-1α (which is also found in humans) led to improvements in protein FNDC5 and Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factors (BDNF). PGC-1α is thought to coordinate the gene response to exercise, blood pressure and development of obesity.
Exercise stimulates BDNF expression in the hippocampus, the part of the human brain associated with memory and learning. In this study, specific improvements in awareness and memory recall was demonstrated. BDNFs are also responsible for creating new brain connections (neurons, synapses)
So, keep moving! much love.
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Other reference:
images from bodbot.com
Living on the West Coast we are involved in surf culture… we spend a lot of weekends among the waves and even gear our yoga practice towards surfing.
We especially support the Surfrider Foundation, Darc is the treasurer for the local chapter and you can often find us on weekends out cleaning up the beaches.
This year the local brewery Phillips will create a special beer for a charity, name the beer after the cause and donate the proceeds to the charity… and Surfrider Vancouver Island has been nominated!
much love.
1986
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… and I just wanted to say that I’m so very grateful for everyone and everything that has come into my life.
sending out 30 wishes to all of you! much love.
… To follow up from Tuesday’s post, here are a few things to incorporate and/or consider when you are exercising…
Attentional training provides a non-automatic drive for movement scale and timing; what this means is, attentional training and cues MAY compensate for faulty brain circuitry and improve performance.
The ability to move in PD is not lost; rather mechanisms that initiate movement are defective (i.e. corticol control). This can be applied to yoga, where physical performance in persons with PD may benefit from specific external cues emphasized in yoga because they utilize intact premotor cortex, rather than basal ganglia circuitry (Morris, 2000).
Yoga also breaks up complex sequences and/or postures into component parts. Focused attention on individual aspects of postures may improve performance by providing a non-automatic drive for movement scaling, and serves to bypassing basal ganglia circuitry.
… What can you do?
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Otherwise known as that “cogwheel stiffness”… the inability to get out of a chair
… What can you do?
Stooped posture in PD is attributed to shortened contractile elements of spinal flexors and lengthening/weakening of extensors… the we shift our head forward and tilt our chin up to compensate, creating pressure in the neck too!
… What can you do?
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… So, how do those resonate with you and your exercise experiences?
I’m happy to be home, for now… no more travel… until next week when I head to Kelowna for some yoga and Time Out for Caregiver workshops… see you there! Much love
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p.s. I saw this ad in the Chicago airport on my way to Kripalu… seemed appropriate 😉
Earlier this week, I talked about my trip to Halifax, the Canadian Gerontology conference and some family visits (recap HERE). Following this, Monday morning, I got up at the crack of dawn (actually, 3:45am), drove to Halifax airport, and took a couple planes to Hartford Conneticut.
I then got in another rental car, and pulled into Kripalu. Ahhhhh om.
I spent the week as part of “A Wellness Retreat for People Living with Parkinson’s disease and their Care Partners”, sponsored by the National Parkinson Foundation (their app here!). This is my THIRD time attending this retreat (see previous HERE and HERE) and I felt really honored to be able to deliver a session on how to be an informed exercise participant.
The session talked about how we move and where this goes wrong in Parkinson’s.
When the higher brain (decision making and planning) decides to move, it sends a signal to motor cortices which send a signal to the basal ganglia. The basal ganglia determines which muscles will participate and the amplitude of their activity… like creating a “recipe” for movement.
This “recipe” gets sent to the premotor (spatial planning, trunk muscles) and supplementary motor areas (coordination of body sides, postural stabilization) and onto the spinal neurons.
Spinal neurons then activate the muscles (bundles of fibres that contract by sliding over each other and create force) … as the “recipe” dicates
So the basal ganglia plays a significant role in “modulating” movement… and this is affected in PD… showing up as weakness, rigidity, fatigue, coordination etc.
AND, the ability to express an idea is limited with Parkinson’s, since it affects the muscles of your larynx, mouth and tongue (spoken words); fingers (written words or “talking with your hands”); or skeletal muscles (body language, dancing, running, building or fighting).
So, how does exercise benefit persons with PD? Well,
(a) intensive activity maximizes synaptic plasticity;
(b) complex activities promote greater structural adaptation;
(c) activities that are rewarding increase dopamine levels and therefore promote learning/relearning;
(d) dopaminergic neurones are highly responsive to exercise and inactivity (“use it or lose it”);
(e) where exercise is introduced at an early stage of the disease, progression can be slowed.
It was a wonderfully full week, with a great group of 71 participants!
We “Let Your Yoga Danced” with Megha, discussed relationship and communication strategies with Kara Barton, resilience with Maria, PD 101 with Dr. David Houghton, the wisdom of yoga with Aruni and “got our yoga on” all week!
Check back next week, where I’ll discuss some specific exercise strategies I discussed in relation to PD pathology and symptoms. Much love.
Kaitlyn Roland 