Rachael Wonderlin tackles common challenges in dementia caregiving and seeks to make everyone a better care partner and professional by promoting education and empathy. Rachael has a Master's in Gerontology and owns Dementia By Day, a dementia care consulting firm. She is the author of 3 books with Johns Hopkins University Press. You can find her on Instagram @dementiabyday and download her "16 Things I'd Want If I Got Dementia" list from rachaelwonderlin.com
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Let us help you this holiday season! You may have family members in town interacting with your loved one for the first time in a while. Maybe Mom has declined, or Dad is more forgetful, or your spouse may not be as verbal as they used to be. You've learned a lot about dementia recently, and educating your entire family on best practices in dementia care is a lot to put on yourself. Let us help!…
This time of year, we get lots of questions from family caregivers about how to approach the holidays with a loved one living with dementia. There are a few things you can do to minimize stress: plan ahead, talk to your family members, and make sure you have a clear understanding of your loved one's abilities at the current stage of their disease process. You can definitely still enjoy this…
Embracing Their Reality™️ is hardest to grasp for those folks who are uncomfortable in the grayer areas of life. This dementia communication framework teaches us that it's best to let go of black and white binaries when it comes to communicating with the cognitively impaired. Let's talk about it.
It's actually been a full year of Freebies of the Month now, but they're still going strong! Topics have ranged from "How Do Doctors Test for Dementia?" to Sundowning, and have covered so much in between. At the time of this recording, our Freebies of the Month were just getting started. We decided to release this episode to ensure all segments of our audience know about this awesome free resource…
Let's continue the conversation around accusations. These can feel like a trap to those of us who work so hard to Embrace The Reality of the people in our lives living with dementia. Don't fall into the trap! Instead, focus on solving the person's emotional problem by trying to figure out what is at the root of it. Rather than arguing, ask questions and try to guide them to calm. Rachael gives a…
When it comes to Embracing Their Reality™️ in dementia care, some of the most challenging and uncomfortable situations come from accusations. You might be thinking: "How can I Embrace Their Reality when they're accusing me of stealing money or cheating on them?" These two awful accusations are unfortunately two of the most common lobbed at caregivers by people living with dementia. Despite this,…
The Dementia By Day Team interviewed Dawna Duke about the keychains she's creating, which are programmed to share emergency contact information with the tap of your phone. As easily as you set up and use the "tap to pay" function on your smart phone, you can program Near-Field Communication (NFC) chips with important information like an emergency contact phone number. Dawna has taken this…
Rachael and Natalie of the Dementia By Day Team had a really interesting conversation with Sori Han, the inventor of and mastermind behind Shopazon! Shopazon is a unique website for people living with dementia in which they can experience "shopping" without spending any money. In this episode, Sori shares other dementia-friendly websites and apps he is ideating and working on, and the team…
We are exactly one month away from the one-year anniversary of our short film's release! In this mini podcast episode, Rachael Wonderlin talks about the inspiration behind Dementia By Day's short film, "Embracing Their Reality." She talks about why the Dementia By Day team decided to make this as narrative as possible, instead of a straightforward how-to guide. The film walks the line of…
When you come across an article about a so-called study that claims X thing "cures" or "causes" dementia, ask yourself one critical question before researching any further: Is this claim measurable? In order to be scientifically valid, studies need to consistently prove that they have measured the same results over and over. A small sample set of case studies and anecdotal evidence does not add up…
