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Let There Be Light /
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Erika Hoffman, Staff Writer
Veronica has worked with caregivers who
suffer stress from managing their elderly
parents with “heavy duty” dementia. If the
caregiver gets therapy, it can help her cope
with the senior afflicted with dementia and
depression. By helping the caregiver control her
stress levels, the elder is also helped. Even an
aged person with deep confusion and rampant
memory loss can pick up on the caregiver’s
stress. In a situation Veronica relates, she
asserts that when the caregiver became calmer
due to therapy, so did her mother. Veronica
emphasizes that caregivers must take care of
themselves if they look after someone else. That
70-year-old didn’t understand all the ways
dementia impacted her 91-year-old mother until
Veronica gave her a book to read on the subject.
Later she remarked to Veronica, “I felt very
frustrated. Now, I understand how changeable her
abilities can be.”Some family members can think
the older person is just trying to seek
attention when she repeats the same thing over
and over or when she forgets something she
seemed to know ten minutes earlier. Therapy for
the caregiver can reduce the anxiety and worry
that accompanies looking after the elderly.
The focus of Project Light is two pronged: Get
Doctors inclined to screen for depression in their
elderly clientele and then get identified people
into treatment. Physicians have told Veronica that
because of Project LIGHT, people have gotten into
treatment that doctors could not persuade into
treatment for years, especially men.
All the physicians involved in LIGHT say they
screen more now, even if they use their own set of
questions rather than the Geriatric Depression Scale
supplied by LIGHT, which is used in the study so
there is a standard approach to track data.
“Depression is something that, unfortunately, we
don’t pick up on early,” states Steven Miller, MD at
Woodholme Clinic.“In elderly patients, there are
other health issues that come to the surface, like
diabetes or heart disease,” says Dr. Miller.“While
depression can be impairing, it tends to be more
hidden. Having the mental health clinician in the
office to screen patients has been a very positive
experience.”
Studying the results of the screening of 2,563
seniors living in the Levindale service area, one
finds 251 screened positive for depression. Of the
251, 119 agreed to a treatment program. One hundred
and seven of the depressed were treated by LIGHT’s
clinical nurse specialist, and 12 were treated
elsewhere after being identified by Project LIGHT.
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