Sapna Dhawan

A textbook for caregivers Sapna Dhawan

Alzheimer's disease is not a disease of the individual that has the pathology in the brain but it also is the disease of the family. It affects everyone in the family. The disease takes toll on every one including the individual. Svayus is a holistic program. It addresses the need of the elderly with the Alzheimer's disease in a holistic manner. Environment tremendously impacts our overall well-being. Svayus is sensitive to the individual's environment. Creating an environment that has a positive influence enables the individual to live peacefully and free of elements that could potentially cause anxiety, confusion, combativeness and agitation. Minimizing or removing potential unpleasant triggers from the environment could elicit and align memories. The Svayus environment in conjunction with Aroma therapy is soothing and healing. Personality centric rehabilitative care is one of the primary drivers of the Svayus program. It takes into consideration the individual's personality as a whole. The rehabilitative care is designed based on the individual's personality. This enables better cooperation and participation. Better cooperation and participation minimizes caregiver burnout and enhances individual's higher level of independence. Coupling care with rehabilitation and education through purposeful and meaningful activities throughout the day and night will facilitate rehabilitation of cognitive skills, activities of daily living skills and functional mobility skills. No more can care be delivered in a traditional manner. Simply caring for elderly alone is not enough, more needs to be done. In a good child day care center, caring and education go hand in hand. Not only children are cared for, they are also educated on basic alphabets, counting numbers and certain basic activities of daily living skills. Why can't the same be done in long term care facilities? Svayus is the only personality centric rehabilitative care program that facilitates, basic cognitive skills, independence in activities of daily living and mobility skills. Alzheimer is clinically diagnosed based on one's ability to care for self safely. Thou the disease is progressive, if the individual is enabled to care for self or function at their highest level of independence, Alzheimer's disease is no longer a debilitating disease.