The You and Me as Life Goes On program was designed to provide tools to caregivers who are looking after a senior living with Alzheimer's disease or another neurocognitive disorder and living in a long term care facility. It helps caregivers adjust to the changes brought about by this new living environment.
You and Me as Life Goes On is followed on a secure web platform over a period of 8 consecutive weeks. The weekly sessions last 60 to 90 minutes, but they can be broken down into shorter periods by the participant, depending on his or her availability. Each caregiver receives support from a caregiver counsellor at L’Appui pour les proches aidants who has professional experience in supporting the caregivers of seniors living with Alzheimer's disease or another neurocognitive disorder. The counsellor helps the participant understand and apply the program’s tools, offers support, and answers questions about situations related to the weekly themes.
In brief, the content of the program You and Me as Life Goes On covers:
1. The caregiver’s journey to date;
2. Ways to improve communication with the person being cared for;
3. How the caregiver can make his or her point of view known to the staff at the long term care facility;
4. Learning about and trying strategies for reducing the stress experienced as a caregiver; learning to pay attention to signs of fatigue and find better ways to correct the situation;
5. Becoming aware of and improving one’s ability to cope with the losses and grief caused by Alzheimer's disease;
6. How to call on the people in one’s life, or on resources in the public health network and the private network, to better meet the needs of the caregiver;
7. How to better reorganize one's life once the person being cared for has moved into long-term care facility, and how the caregiver can take care of himself or herself;
8. Taking stock of what has been learned, and realizing how it can be useful in the future.
The You and Me as Life Goes On program is a web-based adaptation of the Taking Care of Me program, which was created by a team led by Dr. Véronique Dubé, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Nursing at Université de Montréal, holder of the Marguerite-d'Youville Research Chair on Humanistic Nursing Interventions and researcher at the Centre de recherche du Centre hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal (CRCHUM). The program is currently part of a research project conducted in partnership with l'Appui pour les proches aidants.
The Taking Care of Me program was originally developed for face-to-face meetings in groups by Dr. Francine Ducharme and her team. Dr. Ducharme held the Desjardins Research Chair in Nursing Care for Older People and their Families, in the Faculty of Nursing at Université de Montréal, and was a researcher at the research centre of the Institut universitaire de gériatrie de Montréal.
We would like to extend our warmest thanks to Dr. Ducharme for her permission to adapt and modify the Taking Care of Me program and offer it online under the name You and Me as Life Goes On. It has demonstrated benefits for the caregivers of people newly diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.
For more information, please contact
l’Appui pour les proches aidants
• INFO-AIDANT : 1-855-852-7784.
• Courriel : info-aidant@lappui.org
• Online form