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What is AgingME?
AgingME is Maine’s Geriatrics Workforce Enhancement Program. It is one of 48 federally funded GWEP programs nationwide. AgingME aims to create a more age-friendly health system by better preparing an age-capable workforce, transforming primary care practices and engaging and empowering older adults.
“See Me” Video
“What do you see, nurse? What do you see? What do you see when you look at me?“
CNAs are the backbone of longterm care sites and they are vital to the operation of nursing homes. Sometimes, their jobs are extremely demanding and can lead to feelings of burnout. When we are feeling this way, it is difficult to give patients the empathy and compassion we would when we are “at our best.”
This video aims to reignite feelings of compassion in CNAs working with the older population who may be experiencing burnout. Who we are as individuals is not limited to who we are in the present moment, and we encourage you to also see others for their life experiences that have shaped who they are.
“Speak, Memory” – Lynn Casteel Harper On New Ways Of Understanding Dementia
Nearly 7 million Americans have Alzheimer’s disease, most of them elderly, with 10 percent of people over the age of sixty-five affected. But as prevalent as it is, the condition is still widely misunderstood and stigmatized.
You may know someone with dementia: a parent, a grandparent, a spouse, a colleague. For me it was my gran, my beloved maternal grandmother, who lived next door when I was growing up. She had Alzheimer’s, the brain disease that accounts for the majority of dementia cases. She died in 2012, her symptoms having steadily intensified in her final years, a progression familiar to many: first she forgot words, then names, then how to drive her car. I remember visiting her on sunny afternoons after I had moved away from home, when she was no longer able to converse. We sat in her living room in companionable silence, the wall clock ticking louder than I remembered it ever having done before. I’d think of sentiments I wanted to express but couldn’t. Somehow it seemed enough for her that I was there.
Free Access: AgingME + Dementia Action Alliance Cookbook
We partnered with the Dementia Action Alliance to create a cookbook by and for people living with dementia. The cookbook includes recipes directly from individuals living with dementia, information about organizing your kitchen to make it dementia-friendly, nutritional and healthy diet information, protective kitchen aides, and much more. The cookbook is available for free here:
https://daanow.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/CookingOurWay_062623-1.pdf
Resources
AgingME curates resources from our local partners and from the Geriatrics Workforce Enhancement Program network at-large. Click the links below for relevant information.