Windsor at Harlingen offering Alzheimer, dementia training

HARLINGEN — The keys are in the refrigerator.

She wanders through the street lost in the memory of something long ago.

He asks to dance a sweet dance with his wife who died some years ago.

Both of these individuals learned some time back that they had Alzheimer’s, although by that time they probably suspected something was amiss.

And then slowly as their current memory faded they felt helpless and nervous, stressed out and even in moments the terror of it all.

This is why Jeff Tait, executive director at Windsor Nursing and Rehabilitation Center of Harlingen, wants to train his new staff members — his new certified nursing assistants, RNs, and LVNs — how to work more successfully with patients suffering from dementia and Alzheimer’s.

Windsor was previously known as Retama Manor.

“We’re waiting for our equipment which is animatronic pets,” Tait said. “They are pets that mimic a cat or a dog. It’s a comfort device for patients that have dementia. What happens is, it’s almost like a comfort animal, like a live one when someone has anxiety.”

Dementia patients often become lost in their own minds, believing they are in a much earlier period of their lives. This is because Alzheimer’s erodes their awareness of their current lives, thus the keys in the refrigerator, the wandering aimlessly, and the dance with a young wife who has died.

“A lot of times, people with dementia, they connect to something that’s familiar,” Tait said. “We have people who will say, ‘I am a home provider, I have a baby, I need to take care of the baby.’ They have a lot of anxiety.”

Animatronic pets, which resemble real cats and dogs, provide a sense of place.

These devices can attach themselves to a memory still alive in the patient’s mind.

“There are two parts of the brain that are the last affected by Alzheimer’s, and that’s the sense of smell and the sense of sound,” Tait said. “Music is actually stored in your brain, and so what happens is, when you hear a song during a time period that you are living in, it activates other parts of your brain to attach a memory of the sound. It brings people back to a quality of life they haven’t had in years.”

It is the same with smell, and Tait wants to encourage the local healthcare community to learn more.

That’s why Windsor will offer a web-based session later this month to teach people more about Alzheimer’s. It’s a one-day, eight-hour session which he’s offering to all of his certified nursing assistants, registered nurses, and licensed vocational nurses.

However, it is also open to all local healthcare professionals plus police officers, firefighters, ambulance drivers and other first responders.

For more information, call Windsor at Harlingen at 956-423-2663.

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