SW MN Dementia Awareness Network

06/04/2026

06/02/2026

June is Alzheimer’s awareness month! Stats for MN:
-168,000 caregivers
-those caregivers provide 231 MILLION HRS of care
- this is equivalent to $6.3 BILLION in unpaid care!

06/01/2026

Caregivers are multi taskers at best

05/30/2026

🤝 WHY HAND-OVER-HAND WORKS

Have you ever noticed that your loved one struggles to begin a task, but when you gently place your hand over theirs, something changes?

They start brushing.
They start eating.
They start folding the towel.

✨ That isn’t magic.

It’s neuroscience.

Dementia can damage the brain’s ability to plan, sequence, and initiate movement. The person may still know what they want to do, but their brain struggles to find the pathway to begin.

A gentle hand-over-hand cue provides touch, movement, and sensory feedback that helps activate the brain’s motor networks.

In simple terms:

🧠 Touch wakes up the pathway.
🤝 Movement becomes the cue.
❤️ Success builds confidence.

Research shows that movement, touch, and repetition stimulate neuronal activity and support neuroplasticity—the brain’s ability to strengthen and create connections.

That’s why hand-over-hand assistance often works better than repeating instructions over and over.

Instead of taking over the task, you are helping the brain reconnect with it.

❤️ You are not doing it for them.
❤️ You are helping their brain remember how.

Touch becomes a cue.
Movement becomes a message.
Connection becomes therapy.

Sometimes the most powerful intervention in dementia care is not another word.

It is a gentle hand saying,

“Let’s do this together.”

caregiversuppo

05/29/2026

Please remember how vitally important your role as caregiver truly is. Your knowledge of your loved one, along with your compassion and patience, always as best you can in each moment, makes such a difference. It also helps to safeguard your loved one's dignity.

05/28/2026

🌿🧠 Herbs, Taste, and the Dementia Brain

One of the hidden changes in dementia is the gradual loss of taste and smell. Families often notice their loved one craving more sugar, losing interest in meals, or saying food tastes bland. This is not stubbornness. It is neurological.

The brain helps us interpret flavor, smell, texture, temperature, and pleasure. And interestingly, smell contributes to nearly 70–80% of what we experience as flavor. In many forms of dementia, especially Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease dementia, the smell centers of the brain are affected early.

But here is the beautiful part:
Even when memory changes, the emotional brain still responds to sensory experiences.

🌿 Fresh herbs can awaken appetite, comfort, memory, and connection.

Basil, mint, rosemary, oregano, thyme, dill, and parsley do more than flavor food. Their aroma stimulates the senses before the first bite even happens. For many people living with dementia, herbs can help meals feel more enjoyable, comforting, and familiar again.

Herbs may help:
✨ Stimulate appetite
✨ Increase flavor naturally
✨ Support hydration in teas or infused water
✨ Reduce the need for excess salt
✨ Trigger positive emotional memories
✨ Encourage gardening and sensory engagement

And gardening itself can be therapeutic.

Touching mint leaves.
Smelling rosemary in the sun.
Picking thyme from a garden pot.

These are not small moments.
They are sensory anchors for the brain.

Sometimes a person who cannot remember breakfast can still recognize the smell of herbs from childhood cooking.

In dementia care, we are not only feeding the body.
We are feeding memory, emotion, comfort, dignity, and connection. ❤️

caregiversupport