ISHAN WILLIAMS: I didn't actually
know a lot about Alzheimer's disease or dementia
until I got into graduate school.
And I started to see how many people it took to actually care
for someone who had Alzheimer's disease and the impact
of that caregiving on the individual who
was providing that care.
Dementia caregiving in particular
is even more challenging than other conditions.
Often in African-American families,
they're under-diagnosed.
The disease progresses quickly.
It takes training for caregivers to really understand
how to shift the way that they interact with the person
that they're caring for.
And I think those challenges really can be just hard.
A lot of the caregiving interventions
that we try to develop and implement
in the community is more around awareness,
like what do you expect when someone's
in the early stages of dementia?
Then how does that change over time?
Do I need to set up a home care nurse?
Do I need to think about long-term care?
What changes in their behavior might be
expected so that I'm prepared?
So we train caregivers on nutrition, sleep patterns,
how to take care of yourself as a caregiver.
I think we should talk more about it
and figure out what we can do to help relieve some of the stress
and burden that caregivers often felt in the midst of also
very positive affirmations of why they were
doing what they were doing.