Dementia is something many people know of, but don’t know much about. It’s not a disease, but an overall term to describe a group of symptoms.
A conference designed to educate and build awareness around dementia was held in Edmonton this weekend, taking place from Thursday to Saturday at Doubletree by Hilton hotel.
It was the fifth annual Building Dementia Awareness Conference, put on each year by the Early Onset Dementia Alberta Foundation (EODAF).
The EODAF was founded by Bernie Travis, who is also the director. On top of that, she is her husband’s caregiver, who was diagnosed with dementia in 2011.
She told the Ryan Jesperson Show ahead of the conference that her husband is her hero, and the reason why.
“We walk together so closely, my husband and myself, that it was very hard to see the fine line of his change without me compensating for him. So my children says, ‘Mom, you’re compensating for dad.’ And I did that really well. So my husband is the hero of dementia for me. He is my ‘why’ for doing this.”
The conference featured keynote speakers, workshops, and dinner receptions.
According to opinion polls, between 300,000 and 500,000 people in Canada live with dementia, and only 30,000 of those people are under the age of 65.
There are 75,000 people living with dementia in Alberta, and that number is expected to rise to 200,000 by 2040, an increase attributed to an aging population and longer lifespans.
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Butterfly Care Homes are emerging as a way to help people who have been diagnosed with dementia, and they align their practices with the effects of dementia symptoms.
The model of care was founded by Dr. David Sheard in 1995, and piloted over a five-year period at a U.K. care home. They’ve now made their way to Ireland, Australia, the U.S., and Canada.
“It’s a model of care that believes that people with dementia are more feeling beings than thinking beings,” Sheard said. “It gets rid of the whole clinical, sterile, task-orientated model of care that predominates most care homes in Canada.”
LISTEN: Dr. David Sheard joins Calgary Today to discuss Butterfly Care Homes and how they help dementia patients
There are six Butterfly Care Homes in Alberta, and eight across Canada.
Renate Sainsbury, general manager of Lifestyle Options Retirement Communities in Edmonton, is known for implementing the Butterfly Care Home practice in her living facilities.
“We have reduced anti-psychotics by over 90 per cent in a Butterfly Care Home.”
“People with dementia see colour. They want life,” she added. “They use the strengths that they have and they live a beautiful life.”
WATCH: Ask the Doctor: What is dementia?
Dr. David Sheard, who was a keynote speaker at the Awareness Conference, said people who have dementia communicate differently those who don’t.
“The language of dementia is not literal, it’s a language about metaphor and about the feelings behind the words,” said Sheard.
“People with dementia are not speaking literally. What they’re wanting you to do is reach them on the feeling. The experience of living with dementia is like crossing a bridge, on a journey. On this side, or in our reality, our world is about facts and memory, but as you experience dementia, and it progresses, you start crossing the bridge into another reality.”
“Butterfly Care Homes believe people need to be reached and connected with because as they begin to have less reliance on facts, logic, reason, and memory, they become more heightened in their emotions,” Sheard added.
“Its not about behaviours. Its about seeing people as feeling beings.”
Sheard is heading to Toronto next for the Disrupting Dementia Care Conference in Toronto on October 17th to give a keynote speech there, as well.
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