Page 4 - Florida Sentinel 10-4-19

Feature
Caregivers Of Persons With Dementia Invited To Participate In Project
BY GWEN HAYES Sentinel Editor
Share your experiences of caregiving and preparing for emergencies
A doctoral student at the University of South Florida is reaching out to the commu- nity for persons who would like to participate in research on dementia caregiving.
Nicole O. Crawford,
MSW, MPH, CPH, LCSW, the researcher, says, “I want to know about your caregiv- ing experience and what you do to prepare for emergen-
cies... My passion is to see caregivers take care of them- selves,” she stated.
She is currently in the Doctor of Public Health (DrPH) program, in the Ap- plied Practice Experience tract, at the USF College of Public Health.
Ms. Crawford is inter- viewing caregivers (must be older than 18) of people with dementia. The interview will be one-on-one, and the names and information will be confidential. The inter- view will take no longer than 1 to 1-1/2 hours.
One question posed to Ms. Crawford was the dif-
This past August, Ms. Crawford was awarded a $1,000 scholarship from Bet- ter Living for Seniors Hillsbor- ough.
ference between dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. “Al- though the two terms are used together or inter- changeably, they are not the same,” she said.
“Dementia is a term to describe the loss of a person’s ability to think, remember, or reason, so much that it in- terferes with a person’s daily life and activities,” she shared from the National In- stitute on Aging, 2017.
According to information from the Alzheimer’s Associ- ation, 2019, “Alzheimer’s disease is one type of demen- tia with a disease process that slowly robs a person of their ability to function. It is the 6th leading cause of death in the U. S. and Florida, and is the type of dementia most commonly discussed and re- searched.”
However, because it’s not a conversation people want to have or a diagnosis people want to face, many people wait until things are severe before they seek help, she said.
Ms. Crawford’s passion
for caregivers comes close to home. She was a caregiver for her now deceased grand- parents. “I am familiar with their struggles,” she said.
The awareness of the enormous amount of time in- vested, issues encountered and selflessness ignited a passion in her for research- ing caregivers.
“As a former Clinic Coor- dinator and Social Worker for the USF Memory Disor- der Clinic, my role included working with a multi-disci- plinary team to diagnose memory disorders. I inter- acted with caregivers, pro- viding counseling, training and outreach.
“After engaging with many caregivers, I realized sometimes they don’t know where to start, what ques- tions to ask, or what re- sources were available to them,” she explained.
Persons who would like to participate can contact Ms. Crawford at ncrawfo1@ health.usf.edu, or call (813) 922-5289, for more informa- tion.
PAGE 4-A FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY FRIDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2019