All Home Care Matters is honored to welcome award winning author, Tracy Cram Perkins as guest to the show.

 

An award winning author, Tracy Cram Perkins is a four-time dementia caregiving survivor with sixteen-years of experience caring for four family members with dementia. She is the author of Dementia Home Care, How to Prepare Before, During and After. It is her mission to supply caregivers with proven shortcuts to reduce the stresses of dementia care. 

 

Tracy teaches hands-on solutions for reducing repetitive questions, melt downs, and wandering. She includes tips using simple, inexpensive fixes found at hardware and office supply stores. 

 

Summary of "Dementia Home Care: How to Prepare Before, During, and After": 

 

Dementia Home Care meets an unmet emotional need that bridges the isolation and the not knowing what to do that comes with dementia care. Written with the caregiver in mind, the book is large print and easy to read. It is designed for the stressed-out caregiver, supplying them multiple options to try or mix and match to meet their loved one’s ever-changing needs.

 

It teaches how to use the hardware and office supply stores to make a home more dementia friendly on a budget, how to prepare for emergencies and how to distract and redirect a loved one. It gives caregivers a tool to identify why their loved one is melting down and steps to prevent the meltdown that can be shared with respite caregivers, family members, and friends. 

 

It reduces the stresses of dementia care--giving and receiving. It contains 130+ resources and services from adaptive clothing to wandering prevention. It includes resources for those in underserved communities, including financial and legal resources. It addresses care for those with English as a second language, and the Deaf and LGBTQIA+ communities, and includes resources for people of color and Spanish speaking communities. 

 

For those in rural communities with access to the internet, it supplies links for global resource directories for services they could not find locally. It is a dementia map, how-to manual, and toolbox for readers to flip to the page that meets the challenges of the day from diagnosis to beyond death.