Promote Healthy Cognitive Aging Across the Lifespan!
Every 67 seconds, someone develops Alzheimer's disease. Five million Americans live with Alzheimer's disease—and this number increases when other types of dementia are included. The number of individuals with Alzheimer's disease and other types of dementia will increase dramatically in the coming decades as the baby boomers get older and live longer. During the course of their illness, many individuals with dementia experience significant affective and behavioral difficulties that create stress for families and caregivers who provide over 17 billion hours of care to individuals with dementia each year. Many of these individuals come to the attention of mental health clinicians as patients and families seeking assistance, intervention, and guidance in coping with the illness.

Dr. James Beauregard provides clinicians with evidence-based knowledge and tools for addressing the numerous problems that arise for individuals and their families dealing with dementia. Participants will discover cutting-edge research in Alzheimer's disease and other dementias, including current research on early detection, biomarkers, and neuroimaging technologies, as well as assessment tools and techniques for early identification of dementia. Attendees will walk away with strategies to address problematic behaviors in dementia, support individuals contending with a new dementia diagnosis, coordinate care with other professionals, and work with families as they struggle with the many challenges that emerge in dementing illness.

Course Content

Dementia: What We Are Dealing With Today

• Aging across the lifespan

• Case study: Mrs. D goes to the doctor
• The facts
• Dementia in the DSM-5^®: Not just cognitive
• Dementia and the brain
• Neuropsychology of dementia
  • Cognitive
  • Affective
  • Psychosocial
• Major dementia types
  • Alzheimer's Disease
  • Vascular Dementia
  • Frontotemporal Lobar Degeneration/FTD
  • Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy: A New Frontier

Dementia Assessment: Catching It Early, Getting It Right

• Why dementia is often underdiagnosed and untreated
  • Early detection is critical

• Medical, neurological, and psychiatric assessment
  • Rule out medical conditions that mimic dementia
  • Brain imaging: CT, MRI, functional neuroimaging
• Neuropsychological assessment of dementia
  • Detailed clinical history
  • Estimates of premorbid functioning
  • Major domains psychological functioning
  • Neuropsychological tests
  • Diagnostic impression
  • Treatment recommendations
• Psychosocial assessment of dementia
  • Home safety
  • Driving
  • Psychosocial support
  • Social activity/interaction
  • Exercise
• Apraxia: So important, so often missed
  • What is apraxia?
  • Assessment of apraxia
• Brief screening instruments you can start doing tomorrow

Ethics & Dementia Care

• Board complaints vs. lawsuits
• Steps to reduce risk
  • Consult, consult, consult!
  • Document, document, document!
  • Ethical, legal, and clinical always go together
  • Risk never goes away completely
  • Identify high risk cases
  • Ethical decision making steps
  • Peer consultation groups
  • Record keeping
  • Release of records
  • Responding to subpoenas
  • Guardianship process and the clinician
• Safety vs. Freedom: What to do?
  • IL/AL/LTC
  • Driving
  • Guns
  • Elder Abuse
  • Capacity/Competency
• My elder client committed suicide: What should I do?
  • Suicide and elderly
  • Clinicians and suicide
  • Is dementia a terminal illness?

Pharmacological & Nonpharmacological interventions for Dementia

• Behavioral and psychiatric symptoms in dementia (BPSD): What clinicians can do
  • Aggression
  • Agitation
  • Apathy
  • Depression
  • Psychosis
• Additional problematic behaviors as intervention targets
• Sexualized inappropriate behaviors and dementia (SIBD)
• Primary prevention: preventing symptom emergence
• Pharmacological interventions
  • Acetylcholinesterase inhibitors
  • Memantine (Namenda)
  • Antidepressants
  • Anti-anxiety agents – don't
  • Mood stabilizers
  • Antipsychotics
  • Future directions for medications
• Nonpharmacological interventions
  • DICE: Describe, investigate, create, evaluate
  • Why are nonpharmacologic interventions underutilized?
  • Behavioral, environmental, and caregiver interventions
  • Distraction and redirection
  • Activity and exercise
• Treating pain to reduce BPSDs
• What about all that other stuff?
  • Homeopathic remedies
  • Additional therapies
  • Current evidence and what’s on the horizon?