Teepa Snow
The College of Health and Behavioral Sciences and the Alzheimer’s Association are pleased to bring national speaker Teepa Snow to FHSU for three educational training opportunities on Thursday, March 29 2018 in the Memorial Union Ballroom.
Snow, a leading advocate and educator for those living with dementia, has over 35 years of experience in the clinical field of geriatrics and dementia care and has personal experience providing care to family members with dementing illnesses.
Teepa's personal mission is to help others better understand how it feels to be living with dementia. She utilizes her gifts of role play to demonstrate behavioral states and stages of dementia. This results in greater understanding for her audiences.
Session 1: Dementia 360: Seeing It from All Directions
8:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m.
This session will provide learners with a wide variety of perspectives on DEMENTIA. It will help develop programming and services that meet the needs of all those affected by the disease. It will address dementia-related issues from the point of view of the individuals with dementia, individuals without dementia, family members, caregiving staff, food service and housekeeping staff, maintenance and reception staff, as well as friends and visitors, regulators, and marketing. By the end of this session, learners will be able to discuss the impact of dementia on each of these 'players', describe some of the key strategies to meet the needs each has, and begin to develop programming and services that have a high probability of making a positive difference in the lives of all concerned.
Session 2: Learning the Difference between Confrontational & Supportive Communication; What is Reality Orientation, Lying, Go with the Flow, Redirection, Distraction, Validation, and Empathy?
10:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.
This session will help learners develop better interaction skills when working with people with dementia. It will emphasize the value of empathetic communication in combination with redirection and distraction. This approach is used to cope with distress and promote the use of “go with the flow” and improved non-verbal strategies to enhance client understanding and responses. The goal of the session is to reduce or minimize unproductive conversations and resistive behaviors by using effective verbal and non-verbal skills.
Session 3: Navigating the Journey
1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
This program is designed to help those caring for someone who is experiencing problems with thinking, memory, language, or behavior issues related to dementia. It will address a wide variety of common concerns and issues from the earliest stages of cognitive changes until the end of the journey resulting in death due to complications of brain failure. This session will help learners see the difference between normal aging changes that happen to everyone and the changes they may be noticing in the person they are trying to help. Added emphasis will be placed on discrimination among the various dementias so that care can be matched to the type(s) that the person has. The session will also address getting the right supports and help determining the resources and environment where care can best be delivered for the individual. The session will highlight indicators that the condition has progressed and new or different supports and care strategies and programs are needed—from the beginning to the end of the disease process. Common problems will be addressed that happen when someone has dementia including hospitalizations, medication complications, and ER visits. Strategies to minimize or reduce the risk of negative outcomes will be provided and discussed.
The cost is $10 each for sessions 1 and 2 and $20 for session 3*. Certificate of Completion will be given.
*Registration fees for FHSU students, faculty and staff will be funded by the College of Health and Behavioral Sciences. To gain access to the coupon code for the free registration, contact a College of Health and Behavioral Sciences department chair, or email Tawnya Rohr, at trohr@fhsu.edu.
For more information about Teepa Snow, please visit her website www.teepasnow.com
For registration assistance, please call the Alzheimer’s Association at 1-800-272-3900.
