You’re Not Alone in Your Dementia Journey: Stories of Coping with Alicia Jones

Lisa Skinner: 00:00:00

Hello everybody. Welcome back to another new

Lisa Skinner: 00:00:03

episode of The Truth live and Alzheimer's show. I'm Lisa

Lisa Skinner: 00:00:07

Skinner, your host, and I'm really excited to have a very

Lisa Skinner: 00:00:13

special guest here with me today. Please. Let me introduce

Lisa Skinner: 00:00:17

her. Her name is Alicia Jones, and since 2006 she has helped

Lisa Skinner: 00:00:25

transform the health and the lives of women over 50 through

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her fitness and weight loss strategies. Now, Alicia happens

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to be an expert who has been featured in major outlets,

Lisa Skinner: 00:00:41

including Shape magazine. Now that's impressive, very well fit

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and adaptive. She holds a bachelor's degree in kinesiology

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and adds many certifications to her list of qualifications,

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including national coach of Canada or NCCP, advanced sports

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nutrition certified group fitness instructor, Personal

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Training Specialist and many others. If you want to learn

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more about her unique food and fitness formula, join her free

Lisa Skinner: 00:01:21

masterclass link that will be in the chat. I am just so thrilled

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to have you here today, Alicia, and for those of you who might

Lisa Skinner: 00:01:33

kind

Alicia Jones: 00:01:33

of be wondering why we

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have invited a fitness expert onto the

Lisa Skinner: 00:01:42

Alzheimer's show. There's a very good reason. Alicia and I were

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introduced by a mutual colleague, and we got to

Lisa Skinner: 00:01:53

talking, and when we were just kind of finding if we had a

Lisa Skinner: 00:01:58

common ground with one another. She mentioned to me that so many

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of her clients have shared with her their personal stories

Lisa Skinner: 00:02:12

relating to going through an Alzheimer's journey with a loved

Lisa Skinner: 00:02:17

one, or they're maybe even actually caregiving for somebody

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with Alzheimer's, and she was sharing some of these stories

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that her clients have shared with her, and then the light

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bulb went off in my head, saying, I know my audience would

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not only benefit but would love to hear what some other people

Lisa Skinner: 00:02:41

are going through with this really tragic disease. So I

Lisa Skinner: 00:02:46

invited her on because, you know, it's something when we

Lisa Skinner: 00:02:50

hear what other people are dealing with, it not only will

Lisa Skinner: 00:02:53

prepare us to maybe be aware of that situation and maybe how we

Lisa Skinner: 00:02:59

can handle it, or how you can handle it, but also that none of

Lisa Skinner: 00:03:04

us are alone in this, and I know it feels that way to a lot of

Lisa Skinner: 00:03:08

people. So anyway, Alicia's here really to discuss a lot of the

Lisa Skinner: 00:03:13

personal stories that has been shared with her about and it,

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and I'm not talking just about a couple of clients, she has

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shared with me that the majority of her clients are dealing with

Lisa Skinner: 00:03:29

Alzheimer's disease, or one of the other brain diseases that

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causes dementia. So with that said, let's give a very warm

Lisa Skinner: 00:03:38

welcome to Alicia Jones, hi, Alicia, thanks so much for being

Lisa Skinner: 00:03:42

here. I just

Alicia Jones: 00:03:44

thanks for having me on the show. And exactly what

Alicia Jones: 00:03:47

you said, I have bit I because I work with women over 50. I, as

Alicia Jones: 00:03:53

you can imagine, as many of the people listening to this program

Alicia Jones: 00:03:56

right now, you are probably within that range. You're either

Alicia Jones: 00:04:00

a caregiver, you know, the sandwich generation for kids,

Alicia Jones: 00:04:03

and you've got parents that you might be taking care of that

Alicia Jones: 00:04:06

have dementia, whether or not they're living with you at the

Alicia Jones: 00:04:10

time or or they have to have been placed in a home, depending

Alicia Jones: 00:04:14

on where they are in their journey and where you are with

Alicia Jones: 00:04:18

them. And also many of the the women that come to me, the

Alicia Jones: 00:04:23

reason they come to me, while weight loss is a part of what I

Alicia Jones: 00:04:26

do, absolutely it's that they are in this next generation

Alicia Jones: 00:04:31

where health is become so vital, so important, and They have

Alicia Jones: 00:04:35

witnessed their parents have dementia, Alzheimer's, cognitive

Alicia Jones: 00:04:43

issues, and they do not want, or they want to try their best not

Alicia Jones: 00:04:48

to go down that same road. And they as you know, exercise is so

Alicia Jones: 00:04:52

vital for staving off dementia Alzheimer's disease to help

Alicia Jones: 00:04:58

improve cognition and so. So is healthy nutrition, and so that's

Alicia Jones: 00:05:01

a big reason why these women come to me. But one of the big

Alicia Jones: 00:05:06

reasons that they come to me as well is because inside of my

Alicia Jones: 00:05:09

program, we have a huge support system, and what we find is a

Alicia Jones: 00:05:15

lot of these women become caregivers to individuals that

Alicia Jones: 00:05:20

are going through their you know, their parents, their aging

Alicia Jones: 00:05:22

parents, that are going through Alzheimer's or dementia, whether

Alicia Jones: 00:05:25

that's early stages, and they're still living in the house. And

Alicia Jones: 00:05:28

so they're caregiving pretty much 24/7 and as you probably

Alicia Jones: 00:05:33

know, you don't have a second for yourself when you're

Alicia Jones: 00:05:36

caregiving to this level. And so they feel that they're not able

Alicia Jones: 00:05:41

to sleep, that they are gaining weight, that they have brain fog

Alicia Jones: 00:05:44

themselves, that they're achy and sore, and they're trying to

Alicia Jones: 00:05:48

figure out, how do I take care of me so that I am better able

Alicia Jones: 00:05:52

to take care of my loved ones?

Lisa Skinner: 00:05:54

Oh, that's a major challenge for adult children,

Lisa Skinner: 00:05:58

for caregivers, and just to kind of piggyback on two of the

Lisa Skinner: 00:06:02

things that you said, we are have actually seen a shift in

Lisa Skinner: 00:06:08

the caregiving model post covid, more and more families, and it's

Lisa Skinner: 00:06:14

all has to do with the fact that these assisted living and memory

Lisa Skinner: 00:06:17

care neighborhoods were completely shut down during

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covid. They weren't allowed the family members care outside.

Lisa Skinner: 00:06:27

Caregivers were not allowed in the buildings to visit, and we

Lisa Skinner: 00:06:30

saw a huge increase in problems with isolation for these folks

Lisa Skinner: 00:06:39

living in these environments with depression isolation, and

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it actually increased the decline and they passed away.

Lisa Skinner: 00:06:51

And as a result of that, we're seeing a shift in more and more

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family members taking on the role of being a caregiver and

Lisa Skinner: 00:07:01

bringing their loved one into their home. And then to your

Lisa Skinner: 00:07:05

point of the exercise, I am reading more and more and more

Lisa Skinner: 00:07:12

and more studies that have actually substantiated the

Lisa Skinner: 00:07:18

correlation between getting regular exercise and brain

Lisa Skinner: 00:07:23

health, either delaying cognitive decline, because you

Lisa Skinner: 00:07:30

know you're you're exercising your brain, you're keeping the

Lisa Skinner: 00:07:35

neurons fired up. So these are all becoming known facts that

Lisa Skinner: 00:07:42

definitely carry a huge weight on the future of all of our

Lisa Skinner: 00:07:48

health.

Alicia Jones: 00:07:49

Yes, the movement, in and of itself, is a great

Alicia Jones: 00:07:54

predictor of cognitive health. So for example, if you see

Alicia Jones: 00:07:59

somebody who is at the very early stages of cognitive

Alicia Jones: 00:08:04

decline, let's say dementia, for example, you'll notice they

Alicia Jones: 00:08:07

start to shuffle. Yes, they will not use their arms as much. So

Alicia Jones: 00:08:12

instead of, for the most part, we tend to walk where our right

Alicia Jones: 00:08:15

leg comes forward and our left arm, and then our left leg and

Alicia Jones: 00:08:18

right arm. So we almost do this swinging, almost like a soldier

Alicia Jones: 00:08:21

March, but in a very small way of doing that motion, we don't

Alicia Jones: 00:08:25

swing our arms very, very grandiosely, you know, if that's

Alicia Jones: 00:08:30

even a word, but we don't swing our arms with huge movement, but

Alicia Jones: 00:08:34

we do tend to have a cross crawl pattern that is right arm, left

Alicia Jones: 00:08:38

leg, left arm, right leg. And one of the first ways that you

Alicia Jones: 00:08:41

know that cognition is declining is there's more of a shuffle and

Alicia Jones: 00:08:44

there's less movement in the arms.

Lisa Skinner: 00:08:47

So that was one of the things that was so

Lisa Skinner: 00:08:49

noticeable in Joe Biden that every all the reporters were

Lisa Skinner: 00:08:53

pointing out. And you could see it like when he was on TV. I

Lisa Skinner: 00:08:58

noticed it. And it's true, what you're saying is absolutely

Lisa Skinner: 00:09:02

true. Yeah. Oh, the other thing that a lot of people, and this

Lisa Skinner: 00:09:06

is being released, fact, you know, factually in studies that

Lisa Skinner: 00:09:13

have been concluded, is a lot of people, one of the earlier signs

Lisa Skinner: 00:09:19

of people, besides the one you're saying, the shuffling and

Lisa Skinner: 00:09:23

lack of moving the arms is, a lot of people who have been

Lisa Skinner: 00:09:28

interviewed have said that one of the first signs, and they

Lisa Skinner: 00:09:32

didn't think of it as being anything back then, but now that

Lisa Skinner: 00:09:38

They're reflecting back, a lot of people have now reported that

Lisa Skinner: 00:09:43

they've lost their sense of smell. That was one of the

Lisa Skinner: 00:09:47

earliest signs or symptoms that they recall, and it's becoming

Lisa Skinner: 00:09:54

well known that a lot of people who are developing a dementia.

Lisa Skinner: 00:10:00

That do lose their sense of smell, and I've even heard sense

Lisa Skinner: 00:10:04

of taste too, but I've heard more that it's sense of smell,

Lisa Skinner: 00:10:07

so that's something that I've actually incorporated into my

Lisa Skinner: 00:10:12

risk factor and presentation to let people know that this is

Lisa Skinner: 00:10:17

becoming more and more and more evitable to people that they're

Lisa Skinner: 00:10:22

reporting. They they noticed that, yes, doesn't sound like

Lisa Skinner: 00:10:26

you had heard that one before.

Alicia Jones: 00:10:28

No, I hadn't heard the smell. No, not that much.

Alicia Jones: 00:10:31

But I'm more like my my area of expertise is movement. So, yeah,

Alicia Jones: 00:10:36

okay, nutrition and so, and even, like, brain games and that

Alicia Jones: 00:10:40

sort of way of doing exercise for the brain. So that's really

Alicia Jones: 00:10:44

interesting. Though. I had never heard that. No, oh yeah, sounds

Alicia Jones: 00:10:47

like covid to me.

Lisa Skinner: 00:10:49

Well, I thought of that too. It's like, oh my gosh.

Lisa Skinner: 00:10:51

That happens to a lot of people when they have covid. But

Lisa Skinner: 00:10:55

evidently, there's a correlation now between losing sense of

Lisa Skinner: 00:10:59

smell and be as being one of the first indicators of possible

Lisa Skinner: 00:11:03

dementia. Very interesting. Wow. Well, share some of these

Lisa Skinner: 00:11:08

personal stories with us. I'm just can't wait to and I know

Lisa Skinner: 00:11:14

that my listeners are going to be very intrigued by them, for

Lisa Skinner: 00:11:19

the reasons I already said, which so they feel that okay,

Lisa Skinner: 00:11:24

they're not alone. This, this has happened to them, and it's

Lisa Skinner: 00:11:29

reassuring to know that they're not the only ones who have

Lisa Skinner: 00:11:33

experienced a particular situation. And the other benefit

Lisa Skinner: 00:11:38

is hearing of other experience, real life experiences, if it had

Lisa Skinner: 00:11:44

hasn't happened to them, they know it could, and would be more

Lisa Skinner: 00:11:49

aware of it. So I think this is going to be really powerful to

Lisa Skinner: 00:11:55

that we're sharing these personal stories that have been

Lisa Skinner: 00:11:59

shared with you, with my

Alicia Jones: 00:12:00

eyes, and they aren't my story. They are my, my

Alicia Jones: 00:12:04

client's story. So I'm going to, you know they've given me

Alicia Jones: 00:12:06

permission to talk about it, but I think one of the the big

Alicia Jones: 00:12:11

things we were talking about, even before we came on this

Alicia Jones: 00:12:15

podcast today, was I was sharing that, you know, I think we all

Alicia Jones: 00:12:20

know somebody that has been affected with dementia or with

Alicia Jones: 00:12:25

some cognitive cognitive decline, Alzheimer's, it's we

Alicia Jones: 00:12:29

are all. We have all been touched by it, much like cancer.

Alicia Jones: 00:12:34

I think we all in some way. We know somebody, or you know we

Alicia Jones: 00:12:39

have a relative or a friend that has been touched by cancer. It

Alicia Jones: 00:12:43

is the same thing I find with dementia, especially as the

Alicia Jones: 00:12:46

generations we're getting older and older, and so one of the

Alicia Jones: 00:12:49

things that isn't really following with us is our brain

Alicia Jones: 00:12:52

and our cognition. And so it's true, we are starting to see

Alicia Jones: 00:12:55

more and more of this issue here, and what I find most is

Alicia Jones: 00:12:59

that when we are speaking inside of my groups, there tends to be

Alicia Jones: 00:13:04

two, two groups of people, those that decided to join my program

Alicia Jones: 00:13:09

after the their their their loved one has gone into a

Alicia Jones: 00:13:15

facility or passed away, because it's finally time to take care

Alicia Jones: 00:13:18

of themselves, and they're really feeling that need to do

Alicia Jones: 00:13:21

so, or they're going through the journey at the same time. And

Alicia Jones: 00:13:25

for those that are going through the journey of just discovering

Alicia Jones: 00:13:30

that somebody has had dementia or the early signs of

Alicia Jones: 00:13:33

Alzheimer's, for for us in the groups, we're watching from the

Alicia Jones: 00:13:38

beginning of that journey all the way through until the

Alicia Jones: 00:13:41

individual is placed in a home or passes away, and to watch the

Alicia Jones: 00:13:46

various stages that somebody goes through of that grief

Alicia Jones: 00:13:51

process. Because you really do grief twice, don't you? Yes, you

Alicia Jones: 00:13:55

know, you have that first where the person that you knew is no

Alicia Jones: 00:13:58

longer the same. And when we're talking about the people in my

Alicia Jones: 00:14:01

group, that tends to be their mother, their father, you know,

Alicia Jones: 00:14:05

it tends to be somebody who, even though they're in their

Alicia Jones: 00:14:08

50s, this was somebody who was a major, important, wise

Alicia Jones: 00:14:13

individual in their upbringing. And so to watch this shift and

Alicia Jones: 00:14:20

decline of this individual to somebody that's no longer

Alicia Jones: 00:14:23

recognizable to them as somebody that was once in this position

Alicia Jones: 00:14:29

of parent and and wisdom, there's this huge grieving

Alicia Jones: 00:14:33

process that takes place, and it I mean, when you're trying to

Alicia Jones: 00:14:38

take care of your health and your well being, and you're

Alicia Jones: 00:14:41

grieving to this degree, you really need to give yourself

Alicia Jones: 00:14:44

grace and give yourself time. Because, you know, it's not just

Alicia Jones: 00:14:49

oh, I should be taking care of myself and oh, you know, I know

Alicia Jones: 00:14:52

she's not the same person, or he's not the same person as he

Alicia Jones: 00:14:55

once was. There's that logical understanding, but you literally

Alicia Jones: 00:14:59

are. Grieving that individual, and then that happens once

Alicia Jones: 00:15:03

again, once the person passes very,

Lisa Skinner: 00:15:06

very true. And I don't think, I don't know based

Lisa Skinner: 00:15:10

on what you've seen with your clients, but first of all, I

Lisa Skinner: 00:15:15

don't think that people are prepared to go through that

Lisa Skinner: 00:15:17

grieving process twice. I don't think they realize that they

Lisa Skinner: 00:15:21

they need to go through that grieving process while their

Lisa Skinner: 00:15:25

loved one is progressing through the stages of the decline and

Lisa Skinner: 00:15:31

then again, when they're physically gone. I don't think

Lisa Skinner: 00:15:35

people even stop to think that this is what's going to happen,

Lisa Skinner: 00:15:40

but it's very true. And I say that all the time, it's like,

Lisa Skinner: 00:15:44

you lose your person twice,

Alicia Jones: 00:15:46

yeah. And I think that some level, there's an

Alicia Jones: 00:15:49

acceptance in between. And so I've I again, I've seen I had a

Alicia Jones: 00:15:55

client who's very close with her mother. You know, she's in my

Alicia Jones: 00:15:58

program, and she shared with us when her mother got diagnosed,

Alicia Jones: 00:16:02

and her mother lived with her inside of the house, and she

Alicia Jones: 00:16:07

slowly watched her mother slip away, but with these moments of

Alicia Jones: 00:16:10

clarity, or these moments that once again, it was her mother

Alicia Jones: 00:16:14

again. And so it went from grieving and being, being in

Alicia Jones: 00:16:21

this place of just deep despair for the mother that she lost,

Alicia Jones: 00:16:26

but then there became this acceptance and almost this

Alicia Jones: 00:16:30

gratitude for the moment she got the clarity with her mother

Alicia Jones: 00:16:34

again.

Lisa Skinner: 00:16:34

Oh, that's very endearing. Yeah. What? Okay, so

Lisa Skinner: 00:16:40

this particular client, I mean, nobody signs up for this, right?

Lisa Skinner: 00:16:44

We can all agree to that nobody signs up for this. But I agree

Lisa Skinner: 00:16:49

with what you're saying that, and I've made the same

Lisa Skinner: 00:16:52

observation myself. And as you know, I've been helping families

Lisa Skinner: 00:16:56

for 30 years, everybody seems to have an Alzheimer's story. Once

Lisa Skinner: 00:17:01

you bring the subject up, they don't necessarily volunteer the

Lisa Skinner: 00:17:04

information. Sounds like they they confide in you. But if the

Lisa Skinner: 00:17:10

topic comes up, it does seem like everybody does truly know

Lisa Skinner: 00:17:14

somebody, or has it you know going on within their personal

Lisa Skinner: 00:17:18

lives. So this particular client, did she share with you

Lisa Skinner: 00:17:23

how she felt when her mom was first diagnosed and what she did

Lisa Skinner: 00:17:28

to prepare herself for you know, these years and years of the

Lisa Skinner: 00:17:35

disease progressing? Did she share any of that with you?

Lisa Skinner: 00:17:39

Because I think we'd all be interested to know how she

Lisa Skinner: 00:17:43

personally dealt with it.

Alicia Jones: 00:17:45

Yeah, you know, I think the big thing with this

Alicia Jones: 00:17:50

client, at least, is she's always trying to better herself,

Alicia Jones: 00:17:54

always, always trying to better herself. The reason she came

Alicia Jones: 00:17:57

into the program was to better herself. The reason she stuck

Alicia Jones: 00:18:01

around even when you know the diagnosis came in was to better

Alicia Jones: 00:18:05

herself. And so for her, I always find that she's like,

Alicia Jones: 00:18:09

What do I need to do now to be able to cope and take care of

Alicia Jones: 00:18:12

this, this moment, or what is going on with me? So completely

Alicia Jones: 00:18:17

unrelated to my group, she ended up joining some support help

Alicia Jones: 00:18:21

groups, which was really important. She has a great

Alicia Jones: 00:18:25

family that is also very supportive. I think a lot of

Alicia Jones: 00:18:28

times, what I've seen in the past, not with this particular

Alicia Jones: 00:18:32

participant, but with others, is that they take it on all

Alicia Jones: 00:18:35

themselves. Yes, they feel that they need to be taking it on all

Alicia Jones: 00:18:40

by themselves. And I think one of the most important things to

Alicia Jones: 00:18:43

do is ask for help and to find moments where you can take care

Alicia Jones: 00:18:48

of yourself, even for five minutes, even for 10 minutes,

Alicia Jones: 00:18:52

something where it is just a moment to be with you, or, you

Alicia Jones: 00:18:57

know, to take care of your health or well being in some

Alicia Jones: 00:18:59

way, because if you do not, you will not have the energy to take

Alicia Jones: 00:19:03

care of this individual, either, and that's easier said than

Alicia Jones: 00:19:07

done, but at the same time, there are little things that you

Alicia Jones: 00:19:11

can do along the way to make it a little bit easier. Do you

Lisa Skinner: 00:19:15

have any suggestions? Because this is one

Lisa Skinner: 00:19:18

of the biggest challenges that family members and caregivers

Lisa Skinner: 00:19:23

face, and I don't think it can be overstated, how we really

Lisa Skinner: 00:19:28

need to pay attention to what we're talking about and find

Lisa Skinner: 00:19:34

even a couple minutes to pause. Do you have any suggestions of

Lisa Skinner: 00:19:40

things that people can do that could seriously make a

Lisa Skinner: 00:19:44

difference to their day, to their overwhelm.

Alicia Jones: 00:19:49

Yes, and you know, I think when we're talking about

Alicia Jones: 00:19:51

in the caregiving with the person that you are taking care

Alicia Jones: 00:19:56

of within your own home, one of the best moments. Or best things

Alicia Jones: 00:20:00

that you can do for yourself is just before you're going to bed,

Alicia Jones: 00:20:04

you're about to go into bed anyways, you're you're there.

Alicia Jones: 00:20:07

That's a moment for you to do some meditation, or some deep

Alicia Jones: 00:20:11

belly breaths, something to bring your cortisol down.

Alicia Jones: 00:20:15

Because when you're in a constant state of care, you are

Alicia Jones: 00:20:19

in a high cortisol moment you are in this so what we need to

Alicia Jones: 00:20:25

do is start to bring that cortisol down a little bit so

Alicia Jones: 00:20:28

that you can sleep better. The melatonin rises up. Sleep is

Alicia Jones: 00:20:31

going to help repair not only your brain and your cognition,

Alicia Jones: 00:20:34

but it's also going to help you rest, become stronger and

Alicia Jones: 00:20:37

recover for the next day that you will be taking care of

Alicia Jones: 00:20:41

somebody again.

Lisa Skinner: 00:20:43

Oh, that's a great suggestion. I mean, I don't

Lisa Skinner: 00:20:46

think a lot of people were aware of the cortisol piece of it, and

Lisa Skinner: 00:20:50

bringing the melatonin up and the cortisol down. I wasn't, but

Lisa Skinner: 00:20:56

that's a great suggestion. I mean, you can find a couple

Lisa Skinner: 00:20:58

minutes to do that, right?

Alicia Jones: 00:21:00

Yes, absolutely. And the best time is before

Alicia Jones: 00:21:03

you're going to go to bed, because we all know things pop

Alicia Jones: 00:21:05

up all the time, and just when you have that moment, that's a

Alicia Jones: 00:21:09

big that's a big thing that I see with my participants that

Alicia Jones: 00:21:12

are caregivers, with somebody in the home, you sit down for the

Alicia Jones: 00:21:15

meeting, for example, that we have, and then you're, you're

Alicia Jones: 00:21:18

muting the meeting, and you're going, you're, putting your

Alicia Jones: 00:21:21

picture up on the zoom so that we can't see you because you're

Alicia Jones: 00:21:25

getting called away for a moment. Or, you know, the the

Alicia Jones: 00:21:28

lawyer called to deal with the trust, for example, and figuring

Alicia Jones: 00:21:32

out the paperwork for the loved one, or, or, or, there is always

Alicia Jones: 00:21:36

something that happens, but that moment that you go to bed and

Alicia Jones: 00:21:39

the door shuts and you are you're, for the most part, when

Alicia Jones: 00:21:43

you go into bed and you're going to lie down and go to sleep,

Alicia Jones: 00:21:45

that's a moment for you right there that you can do something

Alicia Jones: 00:21:49

to lower that cortisol level.

Lisa Skinner: 00:21:52

Perfect, perfect. So what are some of the other

Lisa Skinner: 00:21:55

things that people have shared with you about, you know, having

Lisa Skinner: 00:22:00

a loved one or being a caregiver for somebody, I mean, because

Lisa Skinner: 00:22:03

this is so different, caring for somebody that is going through

Lisa Skinner: 00:22:08

cognitive loss, cognitive decline, it's much different.

Lisa Skinner: 00:22:14

And I'm not, you know, just I'm not trying to dismiss the

Lisa Skinner: 00:22:19

difficulty of other caregiving situations, but when somebody

Lisa Skinner: 00:22:24

loses their core self and their cognitive functions decline to

Lisa Skinner: 00:22:33

the point where by the end of the disease stage, they pretty

Lisa Skinner: 00:22:41

much all their cognitive functions are completely gone

Lisa Skinner: 00:22:48

from what I've seen in personal experience. It's probably, I

Lisa Skinner: 00:22:53

think, personally and professionally, that it's

Lisa Skinner: 00:22:56

probably one of the most difficult undertakings any buddy

Lisa Skinner: 00:23:00

will ever have just because you can't communicate like you could

Lisa Skinner: 00:23:05

when their brains were healthy. And you know, they lose their

Lisa Skinner: 00:23:09

ability to reason and to use judgment, and they're really

Lisa Skinner: 00:23:14

falling back on raw emotion for responding to everything that

Lisa Skinner: 00:23:20

happens in their environment, and it's very challenging for

Lisa Skinner: 00:23:24

loved ones and caregivers to know how to really respond and

Lisa Skinner: 00:23:29

react to those sorts of situations. So what have you

Lisa Skinner: 00:23:34

been hearing in terms of what your clients have experienced,

Lisa Skinner: 00:23:41

like some of the harder challenges that maybe they've

Lisa Skinner: 00:23:44

shared with you, or the things that they just don't know how to

Lisa Skinner: 00:23:48

deal with.

Alicia Jones: 00:23:49

Well, I think the biggest is the fact that they've

Alicia Jones: 00:23:52

lost that person, that it isn't reasoning with them anymore, and

Alicia Jones: 00:23:56

so it's learning how to have a conversation with this new

Alicia Jones: 00:23:59

person and how to no longer try and reason. So, you know, for

Alicia Jones: 00:24:05

example, I have another participant in my program whose

Alicia Jones: 00:24:09

father ended up, he's in his 90s, but he got dementia and

Alicia Jones: 00:24:15

paranoid dementia, so he's like, people are in my house. People

Alicia Jones: 00:24:18

are, you know, coming after me. And you can't say to this

Alicia Jones: 00:24:23

person, no, they're not. Nobody's here. You know, you

Alicia Jones: 00:24:28

have to find a way to reason and not reason even just to say,

Alicia Jones: 00:24:33

Okay, well, why don't we change rooms? Or, Oh, now they're not,

Alicia Jones: 00:24:36

because I've done XYZ, almost like it's what you and I would

Alicia Jones: 00:24:40

consider full out lying. You're not being truthful on this

Alicia Jones: 00:24:44

event, but this is something that this is the only way for

Alicia Jones: 00:24:48

you to get out of the situation, is to just go with it at that

Alicia Jones: 00:24:52

moment, to basically like, say, Sure, yeah, you know somebody

Alicia Jones: 00:24:56

might be following you. So let's change rooms, or, Oh, look, I

Alicia Jones: 00:24:59

took care of that. And. And you know, you go along with it

Alicia Jones: 00:25:01

because it's it isn't rational at that point. And so I think

Alicia Jones: 00:25:07

many still try and have these rational conversations, because

Alicia Jones: 00:25:11

they haven't taken a moment or understood how it needs to be a

Alicia Jones: 00:25:15

shift in the way that you discuss things with

Lisa Skinner: 00:25:18

there's a term for what you just described, we

Lisa Skinner: 00:25:20

actually call it. It's a methodology. We call it joining

Lisa Skinner: 00:25:24

their reality, because what you said is we've already found out

Lisa Skinner: 00:25:30

through the school of hard knocks and trial and error that

Lisa Skinner: 00:25:34

trying to steer them back into our reality or convincing them

Lisa Skinner: 00:25:40

that what they believe is not real doesn't work. It just

Lisa Skinner: 00:25:46

exacerbates the situation, so going along with it is the,

Lisa Skinner: 00:25:52

really the most effective way to handle that particular type of

Lisa Skinner: 00:25:55

situation. One thing I

Alicia Jones: 00:25:58

will say on the movement behalf that I've also

Alicia Jones: 00:26:00

found really interesting. I had studied this in university, but

Alicia Jones: 00:26:03

to actually hear this from many of the participants in my

Alicia Jones: 00:26:07

program that have a loved one, is how music impacts them, and

Alicia Jones: 00:26:12

almost at certain points, can bring them back for that moment

Alicia Jones: 00:26:16

that that snap moment of clarity. Yeah, you know, they're

Alicia Jones: 00:26:21

able to dance. So for for my clients and participants that

Alicia Jones: 00:26:26

are, that, are that have somebody that used to dance,

Alicia Jones: 00:26:30

even they can do full choreographies, and they're

Alicia Jones: 00:26:33

dancing with their, you know, their loved ones, and they're,

Alicia Jones: 00:26:37

they seem back for a moment, and this, is really powerful to show

Alicia Jones: 00:26:41

what movement and what choreography, what dance, what

Alicia Jones: 00:26:45

music can do in order to help somebody's brain.

Lisa Skinner: 00:26:48

Yeah, this has actually been proven. I can tell

Lisa Skinner: 00:26:51

you a million stories of what I've personally witnessed along

Lisa Skinner: 00:26:55

those lines. And you're right, it is powerful. So that's

Lisa Skinner: 00:27:00

another good tip and suggestion. And what we've discovered is

Lisa Skinner: 00:27:06

because people's short term memories are basically short

Lisa Skinner: 00:27:11

circuiting throughout the progress of the or the process

Lisa Skinner: 00:27:15

of the disease, and they go back into a different timeframe of

Lisa Skinner: 00:27:19

their life, so another period of their life, playing music for

Lisa Skinner: 00:27:24

them from the like, the prime of their life, is more recognizable

Lisa Skinner: 00:27:31

and more powerful than if you were playing something that is

Lisa Skinner: 00:27:34

contemporary from today that they might not recognize. So,

Lisa Skinner: 00:27:39

you know, like if, like, my parents were from the Depression

Lisa Skinner: 00:27:43

era, so, you know, some of their favorite music might have been,

Lisa Skinner: 00:27:48

you know, from that period of time that would be more

Lisa Skinner: 00:27:51

recognizable and have more of an impact on them than if I was

Lisa Skinner: 00:27:56

trying to play Beatles music or something like that for that

Lisa Skinner: 00:28:00

generation.

Alicia Jones: 00:28:01

Yeah, wow, interesting, for sure, but

Alicia Jones: 00:28:04

that's an activity that you can also do with your loved one. You

Alicia Jones: 00:28:07

know, dance with them, and then you become physically active,

Alicia Jones: 00:28:11

and they're physically active, plus you get this moment that's

Alicia Jones: 00:28:14

really wonderful with them, where they're dancing. And, you

Alicia Jones: 00:28:17

know,

Lisa Skinner: 00:28:18

a total win, win. Yeah, it's a winter. We've

Lisa Skinner: 00:28:24

probably got a few minutes left. But is there any this has really

Lisa Skinner: 00:28:28

been fascinating, and I've enjoyed every second of our

Lisa Skinner: 00:28:32

conversation. Is there anything else that, before we get into

Lisa Skinner: 00:28:38

how people can actually find you? Is there anything else that

Lisa Skinner: 00:28:43

comes to mind that you think we might not have addressed yet,

Lisa Skinner: 00:28:48

that you think my audience would, you know, really benefit

Lisa Skinner: 00:28:53

from or get great value out of, based on some of the stories

Lisa Skinner: 00:28:57

that have been shared with you, of real people going through

Lisa Skinner: 00:29:01

this in their real lives and how you know, they've tried to

Lisa Skinner: 00:29:07

manage the situation.

Alicia Jones: 00:29:09

Yeah, I say definitely get support system

Alicia Jones: 00:29:13

absolutely yes and and accept support as it comes to you.

Alicia Jones: 00:29:19

Definitely, and even accept that support to give yourself that

Alicia Jones: 00:29:23

moment of you time where you can take care of your health and

Alicia Jones: 00:29:26

well being, even if for 10 minutes. And you know, when

Alicia Jones: 00:29:28

we're talking about improving cognition, when we're talking

Alicia Jones: 00:29:31

about potentially staving off dementia or Alzheimer's, and

Alicia Jones: 00:29:36

when we're talking about exercising to do that, it can

Alicia Jones: 00:29:40

take as little as 10 minutes. You don't need to be doing it

Alicia Jones: 00:29:44

for hours and hours in your day. You can do something for 10

Alicia Jones: 00:29:47

minutes, something that's easy and that goes with your energy

Alicia Jones: 00:29:51

levels. And then, you know, work on that meditation piece that we

Alicia Jones: 00:29:54

talked about, and that sleep and breath in as well.

Lisa Skinner: 00:29:58

Well. It certainly sounds like a. Lot, because a

Lisa Skinner: 00:30:00

lot of people who listen to my show all over the world are also

Lisa Skinner: 00:30:04

in this situation and trying to learn as much as they can about

Lisa Skinner: 00:30:09

the day to day challenges that we all face when we are either

Lisa Skinner: 00:30:13

caring for somebody or have a loved one living with dementia.

Lisa Skinner: 00:30:17

But it certainly sounds like a lot of my audience would, or

Lisa Skinner: 00:30:22

could definitely benefit from your program. So can you share

Lisa Skinner: 00:30:27

with us how we can find you?

Alicia Jones: 00:30:30

Yeah, so I think you mentioned it briefly, but I

Alicia Jones: 00:30:33

have a free masterclass called the three phase food and fitness

Alicia Jones: 00:30:36

formula. Every woman over 50 needs to know, so I will give

Alicia Jones: 00:30:39

you the link for that, and that's the free masterclass. You

Alicia Jones: 00:30:42

can also see my videos on YouTube or at Alicia Jones

Alicia Jones: 00:30:45

healthy living.com

Lisa Skinner: 00:30:47

this has been absolutely invaluable and

Lisa Skinner: 00:30:50

incredible, and I've just hung on to everything that you've

Lisa Skinner: 00:30:53

said. And again, I just cannot tell you how much I appreciate

Lisa Skinner: 00:30:58

you coming on the show today and sharing all your expertise and

Lisa Skinner: 00:31:02

wonderful suggestions and tips with my audience. I think that

Lisa Skinner: 00:31:07

there's a lot of things that they would benefit from that we

Lisa Skinner: 00:31:11

talked about today. So thanks again. Alicia, thanks for having

Lisa Skinner: 00:31:16

me. Anytime we'd love to have you come back. So this will

Lisa Skinner: 00:31:21

conclude today's episode of the truth, lies and Alzheimer's

Lisa Skinner: 00:31:25

show. I'm Lisa Skinner, your host, and we will be back next

Lisa Skinner: 00:31:30

week with another new episode. And in the meantime, stay happy,

Lisa Skinner: 00:31:35

stay healthy, and have a great rest of your week. Bye for now.