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Home Care Marketing & Sales Mastery by Approved Senior Network®
Dawn Fiala, Lisa Marsolais, Annette Ziegler, and Valerie VanBooven RN BSN provide insight into home care marketing strategies. They cover in-person, in-field sales and online marketing every other week. These podcast episodes are part of the Home Care Marketing Mastermind, sponsored by Approved Senior Network®. Find more information at https://ASNHomeCareMarketing.com
Home Care Marketing & Sales Mastery by Approved Senior Network®
Your Home Care Agency Can Become the Go-To Resource for Families Facing Dementia
Dementia care represents one of the most significant opportunities for home care agencies looking to differentiate themselves in today's competitive marketplace. While most providers claim to offer memory care services, few deliver the comprehensive, specialized support that families desperately need.
Creating a structured, branded dementia program transforms how your agency serves clients and positions itself in your community. This isn't about simply adding "Alzheimer's care" to your service list – it's about developing a formal, named program that communicates expertise and inspires trust. Whether you call it "Memory Care Program," "Moments of Joy," or another distinctive name, what matters is backing that program with specialized training, tools, and approaches that deliver measurably better outcomes.
The foundation of exceptional dementia care starts with caregiver training and retention. Partnering with organizations like the Alzheimer's Association for complimentary education or investing in programs like Teepa Snow's methodology equips your team with essential skills in redirection, communication, and behavior management. Supporting these caregivers through differential pay, recognition programs, and ongoing mentorship creates a specialized workforce capable of transforming clients' lives. The personal stories shared throughout this discussion – from the engineer who found purpose in mechanical tasks to the homemaker who regained joy through sorting socks – illustrate how understanding individual histories creates powerful connections.
What truly distinguishes leading memory care programs is their investment in specialized tools and approaches. From fidget blankets and memory books to adaptive dining equipment and personalized activity kits, these resources enable caregivers to engage clients meaningfully throughout their journey. Many successful agencies maintain lending libraries of these items, allowing caregivers to "check out" tools suited to specific clients' needs and interests. Combine these practical resources with strategic marketing across all platforms – website, social media, community presentations – and your agency becomes the obvious choice for families searching for memory care expertise.
Ready to establish your agency as the dementia care leader in your community? Start by giving your program a name, systematically training your caregivers, and sharing compelling client success stories that demonstrate your difference. The growing need for specialized memory care at home creates an unprecedented opportunity for agencies willing to move beyond basics and become true partners for families facing cognitive decline.
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My name is Annette Ziegler. I think I know most of you here. I've been with ASN over a year 20 plus years home care and home care marketing experience. I teach the sales training classes here at ASN our 12-week proven sales training class and I see, like I said, I see some of my class members here. Welcome, we're excited to have you here today. We're going to be talking about dementia and how your agency can stand out and help your dementia clients. Lisa.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm Lisa Marseillais. I've been here for two years and was in home care forever and a day, and I'm just happy to be here, I'm happy to be on this side Also just helping you guys with your growth. And I just want to dig into this dementia care.
Speaker 3:Hi I'm.
Speaker 3:Dahlia. Welcome everybody. It's good to see we've got quite a. I see some familiar faces and a couple of new faces too. Welcome. I've also been in home care for a long time. You can lean in on our experience. I love home care, I love your mission and all the things that you do to help the seniors stay at home and stay independent, so thank you for doing that. It's important work and Valerie is going to be a little bit late today. If she makes it, she has something come up. Danette, you're going to be running the show.
Speaker 1:Yes, I am Myself and Lisa, so here we go.
Speaker 2:All right.
Speaker 1:Okay, housekeeping Lines muted and less speaking.
Speaker 1:Share stories, experience tips, ask questions, make recommendations and tell us what you want to know. Our agenda, why specialized dementia care matters. Dementia-focused home care sets your agency apart Branding and marketing dementia care, training and staff empowerment, retaining great dementia caregivers and some really cool recommended tools and products that we found for you August, september and October leave-behinds, and we will announce this again at the end of the class. But we always pick a winner. We put everybody that's attending the mastery today, we put your name in a hat and we pick a winner. Then you, everybody that's attending the mastery today, we put your name in a hat and we pick a winner. Then you will receive some customized leave-behinds, for I think we're probably giving September I would think by now, right, because we're going into August. So if you are interested in receiving the leave-behinds, say yes in the chat box. You have to one. You have to use the leave-behinds. We want to see you out there marketing with them. Send us pictures. So please put your name in the chat box and Lisa will start writing everybody's name down.
Speaker 1:Okay, we were talking about we take care of being in home care. We help a lot of clients with dementia. So it's important Families are looking for agencies that specialize in dementia care. Most agencies offer general services, assistance with transportation, companionships, but sometimes they lack the structure of training and the tools to properly support individuals with dementia. There could be lack of dementia-specific training. Many caregivers aren't trained to recognize stages, to manage behaviors, to redirect, to communicate effectively with clients experiencing cognitive decline, and we know that. I know when I worked in home care and we had a client that had dementia, it was really important for us to pair that client with a caregiver that had experience and knew how to handle somebody with dementia. So it's very important.
Speaker 1:Inadequate planning care plans are often too generic, ignoring the unique needs of memory impaired clients. As we know, some of these memory care clients have specific needs. They can have agitation, they may not trust somebody. There's so many things and you really have to make sure that your care plans have everything in them so your caregiver is prepared to help this patient. Poor consistency high turnover rate. High caregiver turnover rate they get burned out. Lack of ongoing education that leads to fragmented care and confusion. For clients Like you have to have consistency, especially with somebody with dementia. You want to make sure you have that same caregiver or caregivers. Without proper safeguards, dementia clients are at higher risk for wandering medication errors, agitation and falls Okay, agitation and falls Okay. So we want you to set your home care agency apart In today's market.
Speaker 1:Simply offering Alzheimer's support or memory care on your website isn't enough. True differentiation means delivering a level of dementia-informed care that is measurably better, emotionally deeper and clearly communicated to families, referral sources in your community. You build a recognized dementia care program. Give it a name. Examples memory care program, stay at home with Alzheimer's, moments of joy, dementia engagement service whatever you want to name it, but let them know that you are ready to help their family members or their loved ones with dementia. You want to have a differentiator. A formal named program gives your agency identity, credibility and brand value, offer specialized caregiving. Families are looking for expertise in agencies that are visibly investing in dementia. Training will trust faster Families. They're looking for somebody. They're tired, they're burnt out. They're looking for an agency that has caregivers that can help them, that understand dementia and that understand how to work with these clients.
Speaker 2:I was just going to say. Storytelling comes into play here, really based on your, what you've had happen in the past, like what your experiences are, and then, like we talked about while we were putting this together, sorting socks was one that we came up with and I've used that too, where the person is just so fidgety, but they want to be helpful as well. They still have that piece of them. Maybe it was mom to seven or something and she was used to doing all these different things and she wants to be helping. So I think, finding out a lot about that person and then using storytelling, oh yeah, in my experience I had someone just like her and this is what we did to put something together for her to make her feel good, comfortable, useful, in her home. I think that helps a lot useful in her home.
Speaker 1:I think that helps a lot. Yeah, and also somebody that understands how to redirect. If somebody not telling them no and going along with the story, we always said it was okay, it's called a therapeutic lie. It's okay to just go along with them. If they're telling you something silly, just go along with them. Okay, that's great. Tell me about that time, because many times they're thinking they don't remember what they just ate for breakfast or lunch, but they do remember way, way back when. So if that makes them happy and they're talking about something, you have to have a caregiver that understands. No, the redirecting is really big. They may be saying I want to go home or I want to go here, okay, we'll go home, but you know what? We're going to go make some lunch right now. Just change the subject.
Speaker 3:Valerie and I were just at the Home Care Association in Florida, the big conference that they have once a year. We presented for two different breakout sessions and one was on branding your agency and the differentiator. If you do decide that Alzheimer's training, alzheimer's services are going to be your differentiator, if you do decide that Alzheimer's training, alzheimer's services are going to be your differentiator and Annette mentioned this name it something. Once it has a name, people take it seriously and make sure it's everywhere. Make sure that your marketer that's going out has that in the paper, the lead behinds that they're giving out. Make sure it's on your Facebook, your LinkedIn, your website.
Speaker 3:So make sure that everybody in the paper, the leave behinds that they're giving out, make sure it's on your Facebook, your LinkedIn, your website. So make sure that everybody in the company understands that this is our differentiator, this is our mission, whatever it is. Make sure that it's through all channels, all people and that's the tone from the receptionist. Even they should know that's your specialty, because an adult child might call and say, hey, my mom has Alzheimer's. You guys specialize in that right. The receptionist should know that. Everybody on the team. So I just can't stress that enough.
Speaker 1:Anyway, sorry to interrupt. No, and I agree. And actually, as a home care agency you take all types of clients but, as we know, clients with dementia tend to lead to 24-7s some really good hours. So you want to specialize in dementia. Many of these people, they want to stay home but they're unsafe. Staying home, it could be some really good hours. I remember we had clients that we had for years that were 24-7. They were physically totally fine but they were unsafe to be left alone. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, branding and marketing your agency for dementia care, just like Dawn said, instead of listening, to dementia care.
Speaker 1:I give it a brand power by naming it. Create a program, an identity. Build a dementia-centered website. We offer Alzheimer's care. We have trained dementia caregivers. We offer Alzheimer's care. We have trained dementia caregivers. Use emotionally driven content marketing.
Speaker 1:Leverage with your referral partnerships, agencies that specialize in dementia care. You can create preferred relationship with memory clinics, neurology offices, geriatricians, elder law attorneys, alzheimer's support groups, hospitals, snf, rehab discharges. I'm going to add in geriatric care managers, but there's so many people that you could connect with. All of these people are working with dementia patients so you could target with them, partner with them. Website updates your leave-behinds dementia-specific leave-behinds for your referral partners, letting them know that you specialize in dementia Education, having lunch and learns in services, talking about how your caregivers are trained and how it can help people with dementia and storytelling, telling them about a specific client and what you do and just bringing.
Speaker 1:I know, lisa, you were just talking about the sorting socks. We've had a client. You're going to get dementia care clients that have behaviors. It happens and we had a gentleman. He really he just had really bad behaviors. He loved to put together clocks and take apart radios and he just wanted to work with his fingers. So our client care coordinator she was so great with working with dementia clients. She brought over. She went to Goodwill and brought over all these old clocks and radios and put them on a table in his home and, boom, he was like a new person. He had something to do with, something he related with, so trying to figure out how you could connect with these people and he, in his behaviors he just he felt like he was back in the day when he was fixing his clocks.
Speaker 2:That's what he had done for a living. Okay, that's so cool. Yeah, it's just like there was a man, too, who had worked in an office. I think it was like mortgage or something, and so setting up a little desk with a phone and his paperwork was the complete game changer for him. It gave him purpose again. That's what he remembered, so he was like wondering where's all these things that I used to do? I remember this one thing and I'm fixated on it, and so creating that environment for him just was a complete game changer and made him so happy.
Speaker 3:And don't forget too. I know Annette said you can go to memory care units and that kind of thing. I know we think they're in memory care and they're getting lots of attention, but there are some that might have sundowners and they're up all night. We took a terrible woman who had sundowners and she would get up in the middle of the night, not up. She was up and just start playing the piano and wake up the whole building and so we would come there overnight and just we'd do overnight awakes just to keep her busy.
Speaker 3:We had another gentleman that was 55, the engineer, and he had early onset dementia. They thought so bad they had to put him in memory care and he would sit in there in the rooms with all of the other residents and noticed one time that the another resident's wheelchair, the wheel there was something when he's an engineer, right, he could see from across the room something was wrong with it. He went and just picked up the wheelchair and turned it upside down. She was sitting in it because he just wanted to fix that wheel. He meant no harm but he was engineering his mind and so when he did that they told his wife he can't stay here unless he's a caregiver 24-7. So we were in the building 24-7 with this man and we did that for probably a year, I think, before. I'm not even sure. I think they moved to where their kids are, but you just never know what could happen. I think it's a really important area to focus on, for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, lots of opportunities in memory care to get clients. Lots of opportunities Because, like you said, even though there's staff there, there's times where they need a one-on-one, they're just not thinking directly, all right, so next I'm going to have Lisa take over now for the kind of talk, a little bit about how to brand and market your agency for dementia.
Speaker 2:I did want to just touch on something that Tess said here and Tess said here and Tess will answer the other question later but she said they had a client who was a builder by trade and so they got him Lego building sets. I think that's just a great idea making little models. I love it. Yeah, you definitely have to move with whatever their need is.
Speaker 3:You've got to figure it out, my little the engineering guy. He figured out how to get in the code and he could get through the door. Some marty pants watch, I don't know, but he got through. The caregiver was there stopping, but yeah, he, that was enough. He came in was because he was cracking the code and getting past the door. So anyway, that's.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay. So branding and marketing your agency with Dementia Care. Talk about Dementia Care everywhere. If it's not on your website, it didn't happen. That's my new saying. If you didn't write about it, if it's not written online, it doesn't exist for you, and so you have to talk about it everywhere. Couple of screenshots of some different places that we help people mention these things and differentiate themselves across online platforms. So here here's her website and Dementia Home Care. That is one of the pages and that's an entire page dedicated to this service, as you can see the other services too, but it's dedicated there. So there's a ton of content on this page and it talks all about Dementia Home Care, and so that's one there. So there's a ton of content on this page and it talks all about dementia home care, and so that's one way. And then, here again, this is on the website. This is I think this is a it's like a location page that talks all about dementia care. So it's talking about the location you want to show up for in an online search, and in addition to dementia care. So these are the types of things you want to see on your website and across platforms.
Speaker 2:Next slide Blog content to social media. So blogging on your website and then making sure that it's pushed everywhere, right? So all those other channels that you have your brand on or you have a page for you want to make sure that's seen there too, and the idea is that once someone sees it on that platform, they click on the link and it will go back to your website. So again in a search you will show up any of these. See all the words here. You know that how Alzheimer's care can help your senior parent live at home. Imagine someone searching that. That's going to help you show up for that search. So you want to mention it everywhere you possibly can Next slide.
Speaker 2:Okay, this is something that I think he's here today Actually, I saw him here, but he sent us this, so he's in one of our programs so I can grab this stuff and I know the stories behind them but sends us his company news, which was their walk to end Alzheimer's and they had their own team yeah, their own team and what we do is we post it on their blog and then we push it to their social for them. So you could have a company do this for you as well. So to make sure that this is seen across platform, but this shows everyone that, yes, they specialize and they care about Alzheimer's dementia, and so another way to make sure it's across platform, everywhere that people can find you, and it links back to your website where they can have your contact information. Read more about you. Fill out a form, whatever the case may be.
Speaker 1:Yeah Post it on your Facebook, your Instagram, your LinkedIn, everywhere.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, all the socials, all of them, everywhere. Another way is to share third-party articles, post real-time community engagement, what you saw on the other slide, and then oops, I guess I might have chopped that one off a little bit that last photo or image but post and brand so branding yourself with that, whatever it is, dementia care or memory care moments or something like that, some sort of title with your company name obviously. Like that, some sort of title with your company name obviously Third-party articles. This is just informative. It does lead to another person's website or another website, but it does have some good information. You don't want to lead away from your website too much, but you can share articles like this as well and then post real-time community engagement. You see, this is awesome. They went to this particular group, went to Silverado Memory Care and they had I can't read it, sorry, guys, but I don't have my glasses on- they had lunch at a memory care.
Speaker 2:It was like a lunch and learn or something like that. So that's awesome, and people that are following you on your socials really want to see your smiling faces and what you're doing out in the community. They love it and they're going to comment, share, reply or just like it, which really helps with engagement and push your brand and your company further online. Okay, and the next slide, and here we have Trey.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I saw him show up. I stole this from Trey because I just love what he's doing. I think he took the he can correct me if I'm wrong, but he took the Dementia Live training from Educate. They do a couple of different trainings, but I think he just really embraced it once he went through the training and just really wants to connect and differentiate himself with dementia care. He's done such an amazing job with his videos and he's actually doing a series of videos and I wanted to share kind of what he's doing and what you guys could do too across your platforms. This is LinkedIn and Facebook, I believe, again, making yourself the expert. You're the expert, you specialize in this and you need to tell the world. So I really loved that he just took this by the horns and made it his own, so I really loved that.
Speaker 1:he just took this by the horns and made it his own. He's doing a great job on the videos. It's Trey Jacobs from. He's the owner of Comfort Care, so follow him on LinkedIn. Every time I'm on LinkedIn, he's out there with those videos and he is really getting his name out there for his agency. Yeah, you know that he is helping clients with dementia. He's doing a fantastic job.
Speaker 2:Yes, and that's one thing you said there is. He's very consistent. He's being very consistent with it. That's why I knew, oh gosh, I have to use him as an example. He's there all the time. Every time I go into LinkedIn, he's right there with a new video. It pops up Yep, okay, all right. And then don't stop there. You can remarket folks with email remarketing.
Speaker 2:I should have put in a newsletter, for example. These two are talking about your caregiver training and how they're experienced in dementia care, continued training. And it highlights gosh, my eyes are so bad it highlights dementia care and how you specialize in it, because I can't read it, but you get the idea, and I did put it in pink thinking I'd be able to see that, but I just can't see it. And then in the newsletter side I actually meant to screenshot it at where it says 24-hour home care. I meant to screenshot it at dementia care. I guess I missed it. But look at what's within this newsletter. It would lead back to all of those different service lines on the website Plus. If you look a little lower, you see there's an Alzheimer's and brain awareness month article. So you're really sharing this across everywhere. You're letting people know that you know about this, you care about this. This is what you specialize in. You can offer this for them and their family members.
Speaker 1:Okay, great, all right, oops, sorry, all right. Now we're on to staff education and training. So why it matters? Without formal training your caregivers are left figured out, often leading to frustration, burnout, client disfuntation. Your caregiver should leave orientation with the ability to understand what dementia is. You're going to get some caregivers that maybe took care of a family member or they worked in the field and they have experience, but there's many that really don't understand dementia.
Speaker 1:In your onboarding it's really important to have a specific section of your onboarding with dementia training. I know we with the home care agency that I worked in, we had about a half hour of it, half hour or so of it Our client care coordinator. She was a nurse and she spoke on dementia and really helped them to understand how you help somebody with dementia and if somebody never has before, they don't understand the process and how you have to redirect. It's setting your agency apart communication techniques, patience, understanding, redirecting there's just so important. If you don't understand how to deal with a client with dementia and you send that caregiver to that client, it could just backfire on you. We would have caregivers that had a lot of dementia experience and then we had some that didn't have any have caregivers that had a lot of dementia experience and then we had some that didn't have any. So if we did get a client that had dementia, we made sure that we sent one of our clients that knew how to handle them, because it could cause a lot of problems if you send somebody that does not understand it, especially if it has somebody with behaviors, somebody wandering, somebody not wanting to take their medicine, take a bath, take a shower. They need to know how to address those situations with that and also using tools and aids.
Speaker 1:Memory books looking at family I always loved. We would always tell our clients family members, have your photo albums, they're available for our caregivers. They love to look at family pictures way back when their family. They love to reminisce. It just makes them so happy because that's what they remember way, way back. They don't remember the last five minutes but they do remember their upbringing and their family and their mothers, their brothers, their sisters. Cue cards, sensory objects Lisa's going to talk about them a little bit.
Speaker 1:Music Many dementia care clients love music, turning on the music. Some have music therapy, music therapists that come to their home, but music is always good, turning on those tunes from way back or whatever they enjoy can calm them. Okay, yeah, so one important thing that I learned this back when I worked in my home care agency that the your local Alzheimer's association. They provide complimentary educational presentations on dementia. So you can have an in-service with your caregivers and you can call the your local Alzheimer's association and say say you'd like to have somebody come and do some dementia training. They will send a trained representative to visit your agency or wherever you have the in-service for your staff and they'll do a presentation on dementia. So we put the link here for to find your local office If you don't know about it, contact them and connect with them, because it's wonderful.
Speaker 1:They have lots of information and they don't charge anything. You definitely have to do it a little bit in advance, give them the date, but please look them up. They and it doesn't necessarily they do dementia training. They do all different, different situations. They give you a lot of different topics, okay, and then also the TIPA snow. Many of you may have known, know about that, but the Teepa Snow training. Some agencies will have their caregivers go through that. And then, lisa, you found this Dementia Live Educate. Tell us about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, it's just. It's exactly what I think that Trey and maybe his franchise uses it, but it's basically a it's like a virtual reality. It's really sensory, specific, I feel like it looks like they wear. I don't know a lot about it, but you can look it up. I know that they actually have gloves, they have glasses on and I don't know if they have their earmuffs or something like that, but it just changes your senses and how you engage in your space, and so I'm not 100% sure all that's involved, but you can look it up more. There's a video on the website that you can look at, and then there's some different packages that you can look at. It's not free like alls, but you can also look up some other resources, google some things. I did find some others, but I didn't have time to really research them for you guys, but there's others, and if you guys have others, you can put them in the chat too, that'd be helpful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we're going to send you the PDFs with all the links. I went through the Teepa Snow training. That's awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have someone else here who just put in the chat the Teepa Snow training. Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:Oh, yes, lauren. Yes, they train their caregivers. She's great. So you want to attract the right people. Using words like compassionate, patient memory care experience, mission-driven work, make a difference every day for somebody living with memory loss. Screen for dementia passion. During the interview process, asking them questions like how do you handle confusion, repetition from a client, what do you find most rewarding about dementia care? So when you're interviewing these caregivers, asking them those questions, retention strategies for dementia caregivers, emotional support, acknowledging the toll of dementia.
Speaker 1:Checking in with your caregivers, seeing how things are going Sometimes these clients can be a handful. They could be a lot of work, they can get burnt out. Checking in, seeing how things are going, how you can help. Offer specialized training, offer ongoing dementia training, like I said, having somebody come to speak from the Alzheimer's Association. There's so many different things you can do to keep your caregivers engaged in learning learning how to handle clients with dementia. Appreciation and recognitions, shout outs, rewards, regular praise for the work they do. Send them every week. Look at your caregivers and say, hey, who are you sending out a little card to? This week with a $5 Dunkin' Donut card. Thank you for all you do, but letting them know that you appreciate all they do because, like I said, not every client's really easy. Some of them are hard to handle and sometimes the dementia clients could be a little difficult to let them know you appreciate what they do.
Speaker 2:Okay, I think a good reward might be like a respite day. Yeah, I don't know, I'm just throwing it out there like a respite day. Yeah, like a respite day, I don't know, I'm just throwing it out there because some folks can be really difficult.
Speaker 1:And that's why they have to know how to handle them. Yeah, so highlight a dementia care career track. Create a clear, compelling pathway with your agency. Maybe call them the dementia care specialist title. After completing a set of training, include a step-by-step program in your onboarding. Basic training, mentorship Maybe you have a really good care, a few good caregivers that are really experienced with dementia. Sending some of your newer caregivers out with those caregivers and have them mentor them, have them show them, have them go for a four-hour shift with that caregiver so she can show them how she handles, how she redirects. On-the-job training I think works the best. Pay while you learn. Model Offer paid training. Model Pay caregivers while maybe they complete a dementia-specific certification. Say you have the Alzheimer's Association, come in and do a speaking engagement and they're there for a couple hours. Pay your caregivers Of course you don't want them to come in for free, but letting them know that you're going to be paying them. Partner with the organizations like Alzheimer's Association, the Teepa Snow National Council of Certified Dementia Practitioners. Also Partner with all these agencies. And if anybody has any questions, feel free to put them in the chat. And if anybody has any questions, feel free to put them in the chat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, partner with cna schools, community college senior centers. You're going to recruit caregivers interested in special training. There may be caregivers that are going for their cna community colleges, maybe nursing degrees. Sponsor their certification in exchange for maybe six to 12 months employment commitment.
Speaker 1:Market your company's focus on compassionate dementia care and your job ads. Include client stories, testimonials a day in the life, social posts showing how your caregiver makes a difference. And social media recruiting works too. Running targeted ad campaigns, ads that say want to be a hero for somebody living with memory loss, we'll train you. Apply today Using reels of showing your caregiver joy. Team support, dementia-related training. So again, putting that all in your socials. Advertising how you help clients with dementia and offer a tiered wage scale, for if you're, maybe you will pay a caregiver one or three dollars more an hour if they're certified in dementia care, if they're more experienced, provide bonus incentives for completing refreshers or continuing education. Create a monthly spotlight for your dementia champions. Offer team badges, pins, shirt recognition, advancing their roles and again, allowing your top caregivers to mentor and co-lead community trainings.
Speaker 3:I think that works great, Offering the $1 to $3 more an hour. I think charging a little bit more for the dementia, Alzheimer's patient client is also doable, Because you are putting more into the caregivers and paying them more. You certainly can charge a little bit more for a client with dementia or Alzheimer's as well. So that's something to keep in mind so that your margins stay. You're not taking away your margins.
Speaker 1:paying the caregivers a little bit more, you can also charge a little bit more for these clients for sure, yeah, maybe you're charging like $5 more an hour and then you can give your caregiver $2 or $3, but definitely because some of them are hard to handle.
Speaker 3:They are and those caregivers get tired. I also, when we would have somebody with Alzheimer's, we would have more caregivers. I know that we need consistency and that's really important. But if it was a 12 hour, instead of doing two or three, we might have an extra one that we would put in there as well, just because it's hard for them. If it's a really difficult client that if they get they're not combative, but they could they push right up to being combative. You say the wrong thing and they just lose it. Having a couple of more caregivers in in the rotation but they're with you a while the patient, the client, they start to recognize them. You want consistency, but sometimes just one more caregiver in the mix helps a little bit with burnout too. That's something to think of.
Speaker 3:Give someone a little bit of a break.
Speaker 1:Okay. And then again, ongoing support and supervision weekly check-ins. I think it's really important to making sure you check in with these clients, especially your dementia clients. A lot of them are their 24-7 clients, popping in, checking in to see how things are going, asking the caregivers is there anything we can do to help you? What support do you need? Let them know that you're supporting them. I think that's really important. If they don't have somebody that they don't know, that you know what they're working hard. But I think by sending somebody to one of your team members over to check in and see how things are going, and offering if you can support them in any way, block shifts, flexible scheduling, just like John said, to reduce burnout, maybe adding another caregiver in the mix. Say, you have the 12-hour shifts, it's a long time. Maybe you do three eight-hour shifts just to give them a little bit of a break. Again, creating a team leader, team dementia leader, and these are some again external partnerships to explore. Okay, all right. So now this is the fun part. Lisa and I had fun doing this. So, instead of offering companionship, you want to show your families how you're behind their care.
Speaker 1:We found some cool items available for your caregivers to use while caring for your dementia clients. Now, I know when I worked in home care, in our office we had this really big like toy box and shelves of all these different items that our caregivers could stop in the office and come and pick up puzzles or coloring books or fidget tools. But we had supplies for them and we also had our client care coordinator who do visits to our caregivers. Would bring a little bag of fun with her to the client. Having some of these things available to help your caregivers with the clients it really does help.
Speaker 1:There's photo cue cards, memory boxes, music, photo cue cards, memory boxes, music puzzles, fidget tools, coloring books, whiteboards. I know we had a lot of clients they had that whiteboard and they had that calendar and they knew that Susie and Johnny and Sally what day they were coming. That's important to them. Having a visual large piece puzzles, coloring books, music therapy again, playlists using a Spotify or YouTube playlist to help them calm down, and I'm going to have Lisa go over all of these fun things. We're going to send you these links, but we found some really cool things on Amazon, and also the Alzheimer's store has some really fun things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so if you dive in and start looking, you'll find a whole bunch of things and there's so much. And you mentioned earlier going to the Goodwill. I think that's such a great alternative too, because a lot of this stuff can get really expensive. But we did find some less expensive options. But, like the fidget stuff is really cool. There's like fidget boxes and you name it. So just looking at the different categories here dining, right, so having these little placemats and I have a couple of visuals for you guys on a couple of slides over, but I'm giving you like the category helpful products and where to buy them. These aren't the only places, obviously, just to give you like a one-stop shop so you can look for these things. But dining making a meal look appetizing by just making sure that the plating looks nice, it's as simple as that a bright red plate versus a white plate and a white egg and white rice, or it makes it look very appealing to them. And so, looking at different things like that, for sundowning, there's this cool thing. I would not have even known it existed. It's a light therapy box. It's a little I don't remember if it was that expensive, but it's really just like a light that looks like it's morning time, that you can sit and sit at your table and you don't feel so disoriented towards the evening. And lots of other things too here as you can see memory games, there's the mind care store, senior style always home connected plus sensory direct sun box, alzheimer's store, so all of these different places Keeping busy. There's fidget blankets, which I thought were really cool, sensory puzzles, weighted snakes I thought I said something else. I thought I said weighted blankets, but I don't know. Weighted snakes, routines. So clocks there's like these cool clocks that they cannot change the time or anything like that, and there's not much to it. It's like just this box and it looks really cool. I really liked it a lot. There's a clock and a radio that they just look so cool. They're very simple but it helps with. You can play music. It helps with their routine, all of those different things. Music therapy which you mentioned earlier. Youtube just play it. You go find a channel and play YouTube. You can also get an MP3 player. Or check out this Mind Care store.
Speaker 2:Doll therapy I've seen this a lot. There's some real looking, realistic baby dolls. There's a sale on some. I think it's at Paradise Galleries here that I listed. These are so great People use them for, even for PTSD. They cuddle them, they you know they're remembering a different time and so I think that those are.
Speaker 2:It's just the sweetest Stuffed animal therapy robotic cats and dogs that can. They can move their arms, things like that. Or there's look at Tessa showing hers and you just pet them and love them and they really love this it's. It really just helps keep them calm and it just brings them into that other, another place that they're, they were used to. So all of these little where to buys you can look this up and see where those things are. So I would really suggest that you keep this list for families too, especially so that they put your logo on it. Print it out. I probably should have made it prettier, but I think this works for what it is and just give that to families and say this might be something that would work really well.
Speaker 2:Okay, tess said from their local office of aging, the aging agency, we can get the animatronic dog or cat for our clients at no cost. That's really cool. Look that up too. What is it the independent agency on aging in your local area? Look for those, because you might have the same sort of program. Okay, this is page two. Yeah, okay, so same kind of setup here the category helpful products and where to buy them. So they have reminiscence kits. That's so cool.
Speaker 2:You can come up with a whole bunch of stuff there role play tools like aprons and a phone, and maybe give a typewriter or something like that getting dressed, so that can be sometimes a challenge, a typewriter, something like that getting dressed, so that can be sometimes a challenge. And so there are so many. I actually was surprised at how many websites there were to find adaptive clothing for folks that struggling with cloutings or zippers or things like that. Toileting, raised toilet seats this is like stuff that we already know about, but folks with dementia need these too. Showering same type of situation. But think about getting out and about like wearable GPS. There's some that you can put in the shoe, there's some that you can just add to an undershirt and there's special undershirts that can just put this little GPS tracker Back in the day we used to just write on the inside of the shirt and different things like that, which still work, but with GPS technology you can really keep track of folks.
Speaker 2:Faucet safety I wouldn't have even thought of that, except for with my grandmother, for example. We have to make it so she couldn't cook. Get rid of the gas line and how they did it and what they did. Get rid of the knobs on the stove Little things like that. And then faucet safety, so someone doesn't burn themselves. They actually have anti-scald devices. I didn't even know, but these are so important to keeping seniors safe at home, especially if they have dementia. No cook solutions, obviously, we know these. There's some frozen meal deliveries. There's some fresh, not frozen, options as well, and then nutrition shakes, anything that doesn't involve cooking.
Speaker 2:And then rummaging kits. I used to call it nesting, but my grandmother used to rummage from one box to the next box and just create these piles of things, and she was so interested in it. She loved to do this all the time and she would sometimes share what she was looking at with us and we would engage in that. But photos, keys, everything imaginable necklaces, beads, you name it were in these boxes. There was really no rhyme or reason. It was just looking at things, touching them, feeling them, putting them back into a new pile, and it was just amazing to watch her do that because, again, we didn't really understand it at the time, but she would. Just, it was something that she loved to do, looking at her things. Maybe she was remembering things, but it was very comforting for her. So all of these things again, you can look at the where to buy those two pages. I would definitely print out and look at them first and make sure you agree with all these links and print them out for your clients and their family members.
Speaker 2:Okay, here's our fun things. Two visuals so I really love the fidget blanket. I would probably play with that all the time actually, because I can't sit still. So that's a really cool thing. It has different buttons and I'm sorry buttons and latches and pens and I don't know a whole bunch of things there. Dementia coloring book I think these are really easy. They're big, there's not a lot of detail, so it's just a big color book. Memory games those are really fun too. And paint with water. I think that's cool. You can use that over and over again. You just use your paintbrush with water. It colors the, for example, the duck, exactly as it looks now, and then I guess when it dries it goes away. So I think that's really cool. You can use that again and again. There's Amazon links there. And then the next page.
Speaker 1:And we had. Just, I want to add, we had a senior community that was an independent living Ladies would collect old anything buttons, zippers, fabric and they would make fidget, little fidget books and they would give them. They'd give me a call and say, hey, we've got some more for you to pick up and we would deliver them to our clients. They, they, they love doing that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, here's the plating Very cool, oh yeah, the plating. This placemat it's a non-slip placemat and it's just a reminder as to especially, I guess, the era that we're dealing with. Right, they did set the table all the time. I don't know if you do it as much now, but they did set the table and so this is a great reminder. Probably will bring them back to a ton of like family meal memories, but so just like help with that. And then these bright colors these really what I was looking for a hundred percent, because I did see some other ones, but these are really cool. They're bright, they make your meal just, I don't know, it helps, it stand out, it looks appealing. So if you're ever having trouble with someone eating, and I feel if you do it in very small portions and don't mix the portions, don't mix the foods like berries great, and then you can go to something else yogurt great, but don't overwhelm the senses, right. I think that's the key takeaway for these. But these are really cool, they're not too expensive and it'll make a difference.
Speaker 3:This is my favorite the kitties and the babies. The babies and the kitties.
Speaker 2:Yes, these are just super cute. Again, it just really helps with comfort and just love and feeling, just needed maybe. So these are really super helpful. I used to see these in homes all the time, especially the cats. I feel like I saw the cats the most, but I would see people petting them and before I really knew what it was, I was like, hmm, but now that I understand, now that I understand that's what's going on, it's a real comfort to them and I get it. And this one, this Perfect Pets, I think it breathes. That's why the little you see, the little detail there, it breathes and I wonder if it purrs, because if it does, I might buy one and there's a lot of different price ranges.
Speaker 1:I think this one was at the all-time restore but you can find them like $100 to $40. And maybe you have a few for your office and just share them. We're not saying you buy them for all your clients, but there were some that we found that were quite reasonable and I think they do love it. It comforts them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you could have a little like checkout system. Thanks for taking what where I don't know how people would feel about that is maybe cleanliness and things like that, but we could maybe like dry clean them, I don't know, and things like that.
Speaker 1:But we could maybe like dry clean them I don't know, we'd have to look at that, see how you keep them clean. Or just have them go and visit, do friendly visits like a real yeah, exactly, all right, so great. We're going to send you all the links, the PDFs, and you're going to have all the links. So we want walk to end Alzheimer's. Many of you may be involved in the walk. I think it's a great way to join as a team. You can get company t-shirts, you can invite family members of your clients. You can have a big team. You can promote it on your socials, your Facebook, your LinkedIn, your company website.
Speaker 1:I added the link here. I think there's different times. I think it's in October here in New York, I don't know, but you're going to have to look to see where your walk is every year. But it's really fun. You invite your caregivers and caregiver families. It's a great way for you to promote that you help people with dementia. So we thought it was important to add this. If you're not doing it, please do. I see Tess shaking her head. I think I've seen you posting that you're doing a test and you've got a big team going ahead and you're raising money for a really good cause.
Speaker 2:Okay, we've got the link here that we'll share Some people do this every year and they really market the heck out of it to get people to join their team and help donate and things like that. I think there's even like a. There's like a donation level that you're striving for. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Very cool. Okay, all right. So thank you everybody. We want to remind you we have our ASN 90 day mastery program. It's a 12 week sales training class. I do the teaching for that. We have August 14th and August 20th. We still have some spots open, so if anybody is interested, please let us know. We would love to have you join us. And before we go into the leave-behinds, as I said, remember in the chat box we are going to pick somebody that is in attendance today to the Mastery Circle to win September. Thanks everybody for joining us today.
Speaker 3:You'll get the replay soon.
Speaker 1:We will announce the winner. Make sure in the chat box if you want to be included in the fun. Leave behind, say yes and we will put your name in the chat One more time. Yep, all right, everybody. Have a great week. Thanks for coming. We'll see you All right, take care, you guys.
Speaker 2:See you next time.
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