Hello everyone!

The holidays are coming!  The holidays are coming!  Does anyone else feel like the town crier is heralding a warning? Time to prepare! Stock up on supplies and gather your loved ones near! Yes, the holidays certainly can evoke stress and anxiety. Memory Partners Social Worker Sheila Wheelock has put together some helpful hints to make things a bit easier – see below for her suggestions.

In other news, the Alzheimer’s Walk was a great success! The weather was perfect and plenty of people showed up to show support for the fight against Alzheimer’s Disease. Many thanks to those of you who joined the Memory Partners team.

We hosted the first ever Savvy Caregiver reunion in November. Because we started teaching Savvy Caregiver classes in the thick of the pandemic, many of you only met on Zoom. It was so nice to finally be able to gather in person and share some fellowship. We look forward to doing it again next year!

We’re getting closer to launching our new Memory Partners Members’ website. Look for more news and how to access the site as we get closer to the first of the new year. We are excited to offer you this tool to help you find and reserve a seat in educational workshops and support groups. It will also host resources and regular updates, which will replace the newsletter.

We hope you all have a wonderful holiday season, however that looks for you. Small, quiet and intimate, or big, busy and boisterous. May you find joy and connection, and something for which you can be thankful.

Happy Holidays!

Reflections

Happier Holidays

Holidays bring caroling, twinkling lights, festive smells, décor, and gatherings. For some, holidays also bring mixed feelings and challenges while caring for someone who has dementia. With some modification tips, holiday traditions can be meaningful.

Holiday Tips:

• Create a calm environment. Avoid blinking lights, large décor, clutter and rearranging furniture. Keep familiarity and avoid confusion by keeping routine as close to normal as possible.
• Host small gatherings. Schedule gatherings during the ‘best time of day’ for the person living with dementia. Provide photo albums with familiar old photos, watch home movies, and provide a quiet space for retreat.
• Connect through technology using Zoom, Skype, Face Time, or Google Home. Virtually share songs, trivia games, pictures, and instrument playing.
• Be a Savvy Caregiver with family traditions by adapting and shaping holiday activities with the level of structure and support needed. Make cookies, decorate tree, open Christmas cards, make simple decorations, watch holiday classics and listen to holiday music.
• Generate a safe environment. Avoid burning candles, fragile décor or décor that can be mistaken as edible. Secure trees and menorahs so they don’t fall.
• Prepare guests and visitors in advance. Provide an update on behaviors, (wandering, hallucinations, etc.), memory, and provide a photo to warn of any appearance changes. Offer guests communication tips such as to listen and not interrupt, correct or criticize. .
• Caregiver Self-Care. Trust your instincts. Simplify celebrations, plan ahead, and set boundaries. Pick and choose by focusing on holiday traditions that are important, realizing you can’t possibly do it all. Set realistic goals of what you can contribute. Delegate things such as cleaning, wrapping, addressing cards, and shopping. Make time for you.

Dementia News Spotlight

X marks the spot – a possible explanation for why women are more likely to develop Alzheimer’s Disease than men.

We’ve long known that women are nearly twice as likely than men to develop Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). Researchers at Case Western Reserve University recently tested a new theory as to why that might be, and they found a possible link to – you guessed it – the X chromosome.

While males have both a X chromosome and a Y chromosome, females have two X chromosomes and no Y, which inspired lead researchers David Kang, PhD, and JungA “Alexa” Woo, PhD to take a closer look at what that means to our genetic coding and how that might relate to Alzheimer’s Disease.

What they found is that there is a gene called USP11 found on the X chromosome, which means that females have two copies of the gene whereas males have one copy. To explain how this gene is related to AD, let’s first discuss Tau protein.

Tau proteins are present in the brain, and are necessary for good brain health. However, too much Tau is bad for the brain, and higher levels of Tau are associated with Alzheimer’s Disease. The body’s “trash collector system” tags Tau proteins for removal. USP11’s job is to regulate how much Tau is removed by un-tagging some of them so that a healthy amount remains. Females, having two copies of USP11 have higher levels, which may mean that this un-tagging process is responsible for higher accumulation of Tau. The same is true for both mice and humans.

To test the theory, these scientists actually removed that gene from mice, and the mice appeared to be fine. While it would be unethical to manipulate genes in humans in the same way, this does spark an area of interest for future gene therapy treatments.

To read the full article, click here.

Safety Tips

SCAM ALERT

Holiday season is also shopping season. While you’re being busy elves and stocking up on gifts, it’s a good time to remember to be mindful of not falling prey to scams that target aging adults.

It’s a well known fact that elder adults are at increased risk for telephone and other scams. The reason for this is that aging adults tend to be more trusting and polite than younger people, and often own their own homes, have savings and good credit, making them prime targets. Adults with brain changes are especially susceptible, and less likely to talk about it, due to difficulty with processing information, short-term memory loss, and embarrassment.

SeniorAdvisor.com reports that the top telephone scams include:

• using fake timelines to tell a story (insisting that the person they called asked them to call back on this day/time to talk about buying something specific),
• IRS scams in which seniors are told they owe back taxes, with a threat of fines and even imprisonment
• calling after a loved one has passed and insisting that the deceased owed them money
• Faked relatives calling to say they are in financial trouble and need money.
• Medicare scams, in which the caller asks for insurance information and then fraudulently bills Medicare for services they never received.

What can you do to protect your loved ones from falling into these pitfalls? Talk to them, and encourage them to resist giving any information over the telephone until they have verified the phone number and story.  For example, if someone calls claiming to be a grandchild in need of money, offer to call back. When you hang up, look up the number on Google.com to verify who owns it. Often scammer phone numbers will be discovered this way.

Ask for protections to be put on a credit card. One Memory Partners caregiver set a limit on his relative’s credit card to limit transactions to those made in person. This way the card can be used in a store, but not online or over the telephone. Another caregiver mentioned that his phone company offers a filter for phone calls to cut down on the number of calls that get through.

How to Report 
If you believe you or someone you know may have been a victim of elder fraud, contact your local FBI field office or submit a tip online. You can also file a complaint with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center.
When reporting a scam—regardless of dollar amount—include as many of the following details as possible:

• Names of the scammer and/or company
• Dates of contact
• Methods of communication
• Phone numbers, email addresses, mailing addresses, and websites used by the perpetrator
  Methods of payment
• Where you sent funds, including wire transfers and prepaid cards (provide financial institution names, account names, and account numbers)
• Descriptions of your interactions with the scammer and the instructions you were given

You are also encouraged to keep original documentation, emails, faxes, and logs of all communications.