04 Sep DEMENTIA-FRIENDLY LEADERS Making a Difference: HomeWell Care Services
We are an “in the meantime” organization. We help people discover that “in the meantime,” until cures for the various causes of dementia are found, we can make life changing differences NOW for people striving to live well with dementia.” Our purpose is to leverage all the great work being done in Northern Colorado and provide life enrichment opportunities and education where gaps previously existed. Today, this blog and the next few are about leveraging some of that great work done by organizations so committed to extensive staff education and dementia care excellence that they each have achieved annual designation as a Dementia-Friendly Leader®. The Dementia-Friendly Leader® home care agencies are working to impact lives of their clients and families and demonstrate that people living with dementia CAN live well at home with the right resources in place. Highlighting their work is inspired by this story shared with me from the daughter of one of our memory café friends.
“We have been with HomeWell for 4 years now. The aides that we have had have been fabulous. They treat my mom as their friend. When they come over to help they often say “I was just in the neighborhood so I wanted to stop by and say hello” and this usually starts the day off right. They seem to have a true interest in my mom as a person. I believe they have been trained to get to know her. Our aide right now knows all of our family by looking at so many picture books with my mom. This allows my mom to talk about what’s most important to her. It seems to also help when my mom gets upset that her “aide” is there, the aide can then quickly turn the situation around by talking about one of her kids or grand kids. I think it helps to reassure my mom that the aide must be okay to be in her home because she knows the name of her family members. We love that HomeWell works with us to provide us with the same aide daily. This helps us all to feel more comfortable in this situation…We love when the aide suggests that they do girly things. They will go get their nails done or go to lunch. This really helps my mom to feel like the aide is a friend. My mom used to cook and bake a lot but doesn’t anymore. Her aide is very good about helping her to make some of her old recipes. This not only makes my mom happy but also make her feel like she is contributing to their house. With increasing care hours, we have two aides now. Both have been very good at making suggestions to shower or get dressed or make the bed but neither have told my mom that she has to do this. Their training from HomeWell must be superb.
We recently had a 2 hour meeting/training session with HomeWell. They shared real stories about how hard Alzheimer’s Disease is but how we can all work together to make it the best it can be for my mom and our family. We are very happy with HomeWell and truly feel fortunate to have them in our lives.”
Thank you, John Kemp (owner–970.461.4799) and HomeWell Care Services of Northern Colorado for making our communities more dementia-friendly and for living out your mission: Trusted care. True compassion.
Cyndy Luzinski
