It's estimated more than 60,000 Arkansans 65 and older are living with Alzheimer's, and that number is expected to grow. This week, the Alzheimer's Association Arkansas chapter and the UAMS Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging unveiled a new collaborative effort to bring more support and awareness regarding dementia and Alzheimer's to Arkansas.
Monday afternoon, guests were filing in to the UAMS Schmieding Center for Senior Health and Education to help open the Alzheimer's and Dementia Resource Center in Springdale. Brandi Schneider, director of aging services at the center, says this new resource center is a one-stop for people needing resources to help guide them through the various aspects of living with or caring for somebody living with Alzheimer's.
"This is where different providers come. They bring their resources. So when we have family members who are needing things like assisted living or home care or other types of resources, they're all housed here in this space. So we can come in and grab those. We also have a resource guide that we have all of these resources in as well, but that way they have access to all of the different resources in Northwest Arkansas."
David Cook, director of public policy and government affairs for the Alzheimer's Association Arkansas chapter, says the new resource center is supplementing already existing work at the center. He says the new center, located in a room at the community center, can be a model ready for duplication across the state.
"So here in Northwest Arkansas, you'll be able to come to a one-stop shop to find out what are the available resources in your area. If you have memory concerns, you can learn more about the dementia process, the dementia disease, how it progresses, what are the warning signs. And also if you need referrals to diagnostic, they can give that to you as well. And so the goal of this collaboration between the Alzheimer's Association and the UAMS centers on aging is again to create a model that we've seen in other states be very successful, to increase access to dementia education and resources for those families who are sometimes disconnected and just trying to figure this out on their own. This is such a difficult disease process. Nobody should have to go through it by themselves. And so we're trying to just enhance the availability of resources and build a model here that, again, we can duplicate across the state."
Cook says the center includes resources to help somebody whose memory loss problems might be beginning.
"This is a good place to come to see if it's normal aging, or it may be indicative of something more serious going on."
The resource center will also work with UAMS to expand community education.
"Also, when someone receives a diagnosis, the initial front line of defense or the typical caregiver is the family and friends. And so this is also a good resource center for family caregivers to get support services, but also to receive some caregiver education. Some tips — if they're having some difficult behaviors to deal with, you can come here and learn more about some other techniques you can use. The support groups are phenomenal. The center here operates one virtual statewide support group, and then they have an early-stage support group that actually gets nationwide attention."
As David mentioned, the new resource center builds upon services and training already taking place at the Schmieding Center. Monday's open house was also a chance for community members to tour those existing features. Brandi Schneider offered those tours.
"So this is our skills lab. We train in-home caregivers — caregivers who are going to come and take care of older adults in their home. We offer a 56-hour caregiver training program: 40 hours of physical skills and then an additional 16 hours of Alzheimer's dementia training. So all of our students have to come through and actually do hands-on skills and do a skills check-off with one of our nurses so that we know that they're prepared to go out and take care of older adults living in their home.”
“And this is a replica sort of room?”
“We have the mannequins set up and other types of assistive devices, things that people may actually use in someone's home. And we'll walk further down and we actually have an apartment that we can also do some of that training in. So it looks just like someone's home walking into their home. So this is our care house. We use this also to do in-home caregiver training — it replicates what an actual apartment looks like. So when people are taking care of someone in the home, we want them to actually know what that feels like. We also use this space for something we call Alzheimer's Experience: Take a Walk in Their Shoes. Community members, CNAs, nursing students, PT students, OT students come in and actually use this space to learn what it feels like to be someone living with dementia. So we impair their ability to do certain tasks and then bring them into this apartment and ask them to do those tasks. So it really is an empathy-building, but also a skill-building, exercise as well."
She says the courses at the center are generally pretty small — four or five people maximum — and offered about every other month or so. That composition makes for focused, hands-on training to develop skills, allowing for one-on-one interaction with nurse educators.
"So this is our classroom space. We do use it for educational programming, but probably our most impactful program happens in this room. Every Friday, we do a social engagement program for people living with dementia. It's a social engagement and respite program. Caregivers come, they bring their loved ones here every Friday. They leave them here with us, and then we do arts and crafts and games and exercise classes and just really spend that four hours socially engaging them with each other, connecting them with each other. But then it also gives their caregivers an opportunity to take a break. Lunch is provided. We do have a registration process for that because we are often at capacity. But there are also three other programs throughout Northwest Arkansas that do Wednesdays and Thursdays, so that way we have at least Wednesday-Thursday respite programs throughout Northwest Arkansas."
David Cook, with the Arkansas chapter of the Alzheimer's Association, says while the new resource center may be anchored in Northwest Arkansas, the work conducted here is intended to have influence in all 75 counties of the state.
"Other states have tried this approach, and it's been very successful in just increasing awareness. But another thing that it's doing is — the more that we talk about Alzheimer's and dementia, the more we can normalize the conversation and start reducing some of the stigma associated with the disease."
Additional support will be welcome throughout the state. The Alzheimer's Association estimates there are more than 173,000 family caregivers in Arkansas, providing millions of hours annually of unpaid care. The new resource center is at the UAMS Schmieding Center for Senior Health and Education on North Thompson in Springdale.
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline and edited for length and clarity. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
