In 2023, an estimated 6.7 million people in the U.S. were living with Alzheimer’s disease. That number is projected to increase to 14 million by 2060, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
“Very few people don’t know someone who has been affected by this,” AlzBetter CEO Gary Skole told Home Health Care News. “People are living longer. If you’re over 85 years old, there’s a nearly 50% chance you’re going to have some form of dementia. There are many people over 85 right now; it’s the fastest growing part of our population.”
Since 1989, AlzBetter, based in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, has provided senior care support to families and health care organizations and recently launched the Dementia 360 program, a model for comprehensive dementia support in health care. The 360 model simplifies the complexities of training in a dementia program so professionals at all levels can deliver care to those living with dementia.
Skole said that although witnessing a patient endure the disease is terrible, its impact extends beyond that.
“How many people can afford to pay for [a family member] to live in a community with around-the-clock care for ten years? We find that people are completely unprepared for this. Even as caregivers, we are unprepared,” Skole said.
Skole said that after 20 years in the home care business, he had a challenging experience with a dementia patient. As a result, his company went through almost a dozen caregivers in two weeks. Finally, the patient’s daughter complained to the referral source about Skole’s agency.
“She complained to the source that we didn’t know what we were doing,” Skole said. “And the reality is, we didn’t, although I didn’t know that at the time. It got me on a path of trying to educate our staff better, and it opened my eyes to how complex dementia is.”
Skole created AlzBetter after facing difficulties in finding suitable training for his caregivers.
“Everything was meant for training nursing home staff because that’s where people ended up,” he said. “I ended up creating material for my company and realized I wasn’t alone. No one else really knows what they’re doing, either. In the private duty world, there are probably 30,000 home care agencies. If you go to 29,900 of these websites, they will all list dementia care as one of their expertise. The reality is that maybe they have a one-hour video that the staff watches, and now they say they’re dementia experts. What I’ve learned is that caring for people living with dementia requires a truly dedicated effort and training.”
Even with dedicated training, Skole discovered gaps when a caregiver was in the moment of caring for a patient.
“We help health care organizations implement a full-blown dementia program,” Skole said. “Our learning management system has a curriculum approved by the Alzheimer’s Association. We’ve developed tools for targeted assessments to identify areas in which people are struggling and teach home health aides how to alleviate that struggle in the moment.”
He provided an example of a caregiver struggling to get a patient to bathe.
“We want the home health aide to have a basic foundational understanding of dementia, but when it comes to [a situation like this], we just need to teach how to get the patient to bathe,” Skole said. “So, we have a five-minute lesson on getting a patient to bathe, and we send the aide a text message or email. There’s nothing they need to download. Now they have the solution at hand.”
Another aspect of the program involves a lifestyle assessment, which allows caregivers to gain insight into the patient’s life prior to the onset of the disease. This helps customize care and restore the patient’s dignity and respect.
“Patients go through retrogenesis; they go back in time,” Skole said. “We had a patient who owned a hardware store. Knowing that, we could give him hardware-related activities to do that made him feel important and occupied his time, but it was something that he knew.”
Skole explained that the program aims to provide home-based care agencies with a unique method for training and implementing an effective dementia program.
“A while back, it was understood that a patient with dementia would end up in a nursing home or a facility of some sort,” Skole said. “With technology and better training, we can keep these people safely at home.”
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