Creating Moments of Joy for the Person with Alzheimer's or Dementia (4th ed.)
A Journal for Caregivers
edited by Jolene Brackey

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Jolene Brackey has a vision. A vision that will soon look beyond the challenges of Alzheimer's disease and focus more of our energy on creating moments of joy. When a person has short-term memory loss, his life is made up of moments. But if you think about it, our memory is made up of moments, too. We are not able to create a perfectly wonderful day with someone who has dementia, but it is absolutely attainable to create a perfectly wonderful moment; a moment that puts a smile on her face, a twinkle in his eye, or triggers a memory. Five minutes later, she won't remember what you did or said, but the feeling you left him will linger.

Brackey has broken down the learning process into the five sections of the expanded fourth edition of Creating Moments of Joy for the Person with Alzheimer's or Dementia. Within those sections are smaller steps. At the end of each step is a place where you can journal your thoughts, solutions, and treasures to help you achieve the overall goal of creating many moments of joy for the person with dementia, and for you!

The five sections of Creating Moments of Joy are:

Understand the person with Alzheimer's - This is your foundation. You need to understand where the person believes they are living in their mind before you can respond with acceptance and words.

Use powerful tools that create positive outcomes - Here's where you begin to understand what people with dementia are communicating through their daily pattern of actions and words.

Communicate - Learn more about your loved one by changing the way you communicate. Once you find the treasures they hold, you will enhance their life by reminding them who they are.

Find memory enhanced environments - In this section you will discover "what" triggers a sense of comfort in their surroundings. When they are comfortable, they will find peace in their environment.

Discover enhanced moments - Discover what will bring back joy to the person and to you!

Creating Moments of Joy allows you to gain the courage to try everything once while keeping in mind that it is fine to make mistakes. Mistakes are treasures too because they teach you what not to do. As long as you keep trying there is still hope to create moments of joy!