New Director Kristen Weber and Brooke Mainville discuss brain health and the services available through the Alzheimer's Association.
New Director Kristen Weber and Brooke Mainville discuss brain health and the services available through the Alzheimer's Association.
Good morning. This is Kitty Glomski along with
Brooke:my cohost Brooke Mainville
Kitty Glomski:from Region 9 Area Agency and Aging and another episode of Let's Talk About Aging.
Brooke:Good morning everyone. Today, I have a special guest Kristen Weber with the Alzheimer's Association. She covers Region 9's service area of northeast Michigan. Welcome Kristen.
Kristin:Brooke, thank you for having me. I'm now happy to be back living in Northern Michigan.
Brooke:Kristen. You work for the Alzheimer's Association and I just wanted to give a little insight into what is that organization and what are some things that you do.
Kristin:I work for the Alzheimer's Association because I support their vision, which is, simply a world without Alzheimer's and all types of dementia. The Alzheimer's Association provides care and support to everyone facing Alzheimer's and other dementias. We're the global leader of Alzheimer's and dementia research. The Alzheimer's Association is the world's largest non profit funder of Alzheimer's and dementia research. We're working toward the day where there is no more Alzheimer's and dementia.
Brooke:Could you imagine that? That is the day. I think that would be a great day. What are some of the services and programs that you offer through the agency?
Kristin:The Alzheimer's Association, we have walks all across Michigan and all across the country. That's our big event to raise funds toward awareness, Alzheimer's care, support, and research. The Longest Day is event we hold that event annually on the day with the most light, which is the summer solstice. The longest day brings together thousands of participants each year to fight the darkness of Alzheimer's through a fundraising activity of their choice. That website is ALZ. org backslash the longest day. every dollar raised during these fundraising events advances the fight against Alzheimer's and all other dementia while moving us closer to that vision.
Brooke:You talked about the walk in the longest day. You have support groups.
Kristin:Yes, we have support groups. Right now I am reaching out to many more rural communities up here because we can offer free educational programs and events. And again, we do offer support groups. We have a 24/7 helpline that anybody can call at any time and somebody will answer and we can provide resources and support when you call. That number is 1 800 272 3900.
Brooke:So for your services, as well as that phone number, the 24/7 line, do you have to be a caregiver? Can you be a person with Alzheimer's or dementia? Who are these services and programs geared towards?
Kristin:They are for everyone who's affected by this disease and that can be family, care partners, caregivers, paid caregivers. It can be someone living with the disease. If someone just received a diagnosis, you can call that line. That line is for everyone that needs some support around this.
Brooke:And I do know you talked about some programming that you can do in the local area as well as you do webinars virtually. The biggest thing for someone, if they're really interested in your services is go to your website, right?
Kristin:Go to our website. A l z dot org.
Brooke:I know the Alzheimer's Association has great resources for family caregivers, people living with Alzheimer's or dementia. We're gonna get into some brain health today for everyone. Kristen, I know this is the beginning of a new year. Are you doing any New Year's resolutions? Are you practicing that? Are you taking on any?
Kristin:I'm just trying to make some small changes the beginning of a new year that will, allow me to live healthy for my brain and body. Some of these things I'm already doing, but I just, taking the new year to kind of check in again around these and make sure that I'm maintaining it and instilling them in my daily life. Some of those things are: getting quality sleep; making sure my mental health is where it needs to be; getting enough physical activity. That can just be small. Some days all I can do is just take a walk even if that just means parking further away from a store than I normally would and taking some extra steps there. Even small movement like that could be helpful. Balanced nutrition, which I know is really hard this time of year.
Brooke:All the holiday parties.
Kristin:I'm not one to just kind of give things up because food is just one of the joys of life, but I just try to make sure that I eat in moderation. When I am having things like sugar so I try to eat a lot of fruits and veggies and lean meats during the holidays as well. Another small change that can support our brain and bodies is cognitive engagement. My son has me playing this game called Wordle with him. It's kind of like a brain teaser game and that kind of gets me thinking every day.
Brooke:It's nice that you have someone to do it with as well.
Kristin:We'll just kind of text each other, Hey, did you do the Wordle today? Or hey, I have only found two of these letters. It's kind of fun. That ties into not only the cognitive engagement, but the social engagement piece. That's really important for brain health too, connecting and communicating with other people, friends, family, and just other people in the world can be really helpful for a healthy brain.
Brooke:Those are great and like you said, they're for your brain and your body. One day you might not master getting quality sleep, but maybe you can then do some physical activity. it's kind of like a balancing act.
Kristin:It is. Celebrate your win, celebrate the positive instead of getting hung up that maybe you didn't make it to the rec center or the Y today, but you did take steps around your house, just celebrate those little wins and the little things that you can do throughout the day.
Brooke:What has an effect on our health?
Kristin:Our genes, our environment and our lifestyle all three of those have an effect on our health. Our genes influence the development and function of our brain. They ultimately control how we move, think, feel and behave. Our environment is the things that we're exposed to. That can be the air we breathe, the food we eat, computer screen time, things like that. And then our lifestyle, which that includes our diet and our physical activity, our stress levels and mental health.
Brooke:I know you did just talk about quality sleep. So how many hours should we be trying to get in a day?
Kristin:Experts say between seven and nine hours a night for adults. Adults who sleep less than seven can have more health issues. The research is showing that. I do like to talk with people about some tips that can help them get better sleep. A big one for me personally is controlling the room temperature and the amount of light. If a room is too hot or too cold, it can be more difficult to sleep. I love my blackout curtains. They just keep it very dark. So bright moonlight doesn't keep me awake. There are lots of ways that we can practice good sleep hygiene. Turning off screens before bedtime really helps me a lot as well. I find if I'm just scrolling on my phone or my computer. I just find it harder to wind down. So I try to stop looking at my computer or phone screens a couple hours before I'm going to go to bed.
Brooke:That's why some people read before they go to bed. They're still not quite tired but they want to end their screen time. So they wi ll pick up a book.
Kristin:That's a good idea.
Brooke:I know sleep is really important and I know you didn't talk about it earlier, but if people are still smoking. What are your tips or suggestions for that?
Kristin:Studies have found that smoking increases the risk of cognitive decline and may increase the risk of dementia. We tell people, by quitting smoking, it can reduce your chance of developing cognitive decline back down to the level of a non smoker.
Brooke:Which I think that's crazy and impressive, right? That your body and your mind can go back to a non smoker. As soon as you stop smoking.
Kristin:I just encourage people to talk to your doctor or your mental health professional when you decide to try to stop. They can connect you to smoking cessation programs. Finding support can be really helpful. Once you make this decision and finding a strategy that works for you, Different strategies for quitting work differently for different people. So just don't give up. Talk to your doctor or your healthcare professional and just find what works best for you.
Brooke:I know there are some online websites, find support, find what works best for you, because everyone is different. Some people use suckers, some need nicotine patches there are some great information and resources online, how to quit smoking, the CDC has a great website. There's QuitAssist. There's a lot of information online now.
Kristin:Yeah, there are. Different things work for different people. If one way isn't working for you, consider trying another way.
Brooke:That's a big one. Like you said, as soon as you stop your body, your lungs and your brain, they start to heal themselves, which is amazing and wonderful. I know on your list that you talked about earlier, it was taking care of your mental health. How can someone do that when they're struggling?
Kristin:Just in little ways making little changes can be really helpful. Ultimately by prioritizing ourselves, paying attention to our stress levels, sometimes, especially in a busy time of the year, we're just going, going, going until we realize, whoa, I am exhausted. We hadn't taken the time to just really stop and check in with ourselves. How am I feeling?
Brooke:Some people don't know the warning signs of their stress, and that's different for everyone, but maybe it's a neck tension or a headache or your jaws clench or whatever it may be. They're not listening to those. Cause like you said, they're going, going, going.
Kristin:Yes. I'm guilty of that myself. There's the metaphor of when you're on a flight and the flight attendant is advising people to put your own oxygen mask on first before helping anybody else, that's what I attribute to prioritizing ourselves. If we are not taking care of ourselves, how can we take care of others? There's a lot we can do for ourselves to provide self care.
Brooke:What are some self care tips, Kristen.
Kristin:Yeah, I love music. Music just for me changes my mood. It can be really uplifting- singing, dancing. Going outside, going for a short walk. Being outside can improve our moods. Watching a funny video. You're laughing and just feeling happy. That can be helpful. Self care is going to look different for each person, but really it just boils down to prioritizing ourselves, checking in with ourselves, asking for help if we need it, saying no to maybe one too many invitations. That's okay. Just really checking in with ourselves and making ourselves a priority. We can do that while we take care of others. I know one caregiver, their self care was splitting firewood and another ones was washing the dishes with warm, soapy water and to me those sound like chores, right? But to them, that was their self care. So self care is really different, and dependent on each person. Another great tip for self care is physical activity. Physical activity can definitely improve brain health such as parking further away at the grocery store, taking the stairs if you can instead of the elevator. Just doing those small things. For me it's helpful to ask a family member or friend to join me. You can join your local YMCA or your rec center and you don't have to go up and use all of the gym equipment, just using the pool or walking around their indoor track if they have one, things like that, just to move. There are lots of ways that we can remind ourselves to move throughout the day. I embarrassingly have too many sticky notes in my office. 1 of them is just by my computer. And it says, remember to stand up you can also set alarms on your phone if you're sitting too much to just remind you to get up and stretch for a minute.
Brooke:That's why I don't think the sticky notes are silly. They're there to remind you. That's like your Apple watch, they alert you to stand. We always get too wrapped up in our lives or work that we forget to do those things.
Kristin:My mom is in her eighties and she does chair yoga. That's for people who may not be able to stand or be a fall risk or don't have the same balance that they used to have. That's very helpful for her even to just sit in a chair and be moving her arms and the upper half of her body like that.
Brooke:We teach matter of balance. I'm a matter of balance coach. As a 30 year old, I do it with them and I'm sore in certain places cause you don't use some of those muscles. Walking uses different muscles than when you're doing chair yoga. We use different parts that I'm even sore after doing chair yoga.
Kristin:It's so good for you. Any kind of movement like that.
Brooke:Physical activity is really important. Doing little things really adds up. So parking further away at the grocery store, taking the stairs, maybe taking your bags of groceries in multiple trips instead of one trip reduces your risk of a fall as well. Those things really do add up. Another thing we're going to talk about is nutrition and eating healthy. A lot of us because we're busy, we might be eating out, which may not be the best for us.
Kristin:Most of us are exposed to more sugar and salty foods. Just everything in moderation, but adding things to your diet and eating a variety of different foods. Adding fruits, vegetables, nuts or trail mix, beans, whole grains, lean meats, fish, poultry, healthy fats. Eating a varied diet like that can be really helpful.
Brooke:Eat the rainbow, right? You want to fill your plates with different colors, red strawberries, yellow pineapples, leaf greens. So you want to eat the colors.
Kristin:Eat a variety.
Brooke:Seasonings, it's a way to reduce your sodium. I took a wonderful class by Michigan State University Extension about eating and physical activity. One thing that they had us do is track our sodium. And I was like, Oh, I should be fine. But I had everything bagel with cream cheese and turkey and that was like what my daily sodium should be just right there. I was like, okay, I'm not as good as I thought I would be.
Kristin:That's surprising. I know I probably wouldn't be thinking about that, but especially if you go out to eat a lot of the fast food can have just so much sodium, you've hit your daily intake with just one meal.
Brooke:Yes, or drinks too. That's one thing people have to consider is the drinks that they're drinking. Have you ever seen where you take sugar packets or sugar cubes for what it should be for a can of soda and it's staggering. You're like, I would never eat that amount of sugar, but yet I'm drinking it in one soda.
Kristin:Just starting to read labels like that can be really helpful. I was shocked by that. You can't even really feel how much sugar you're getting. I had a friend who, that was her last year resolution was to only drink soda occasionally. She still drinks it occasionally. She says, I'll always have a pop with my pizza but she substituted like lots of other more healthy fizzy type drinks for her soda.
Brooke:Again, that's familiarizing yourself with how to read nutrition labels. That's a huge thing that I don't think a lot of people understand or know how to do properly. We're talking about healthy eating So do you have any other tips about healthy eating?
Kristin:You mentioned eating, eating the rainbows. Adding in more fruits and veggies to your meals adding in more beans and whole grains. I've made an effort myself to choose leaner cuts of meat.
Brooke:So what would be some leaner cuts of meat, Kristen?
Kristin:Chicken, turkey, maybe going for that instead of eating beef or ground beef every single day. Fish as well.
Brooke:Fish and seafood. Some tips. I think a great one too is meal prepping. Looking at what you wanna make throughout the week. It does make it easier to eat healthy, I'm going to make this meal. So then you're not having that urge to eat out.
Kristin:Planning your meals can really help because we're so busy and by the time we're hungry and trying to decide what we want for dinner, it can be too late because we're just are hungry and we want to grab what's there. So planning meals can help. It can help with grocery shopping too, to help us kind of stay focused.
Brooke:At the grocery store, maybe you buy a pre cut fruit platter and then you put it in individual bags, so that's still meal planning, but to meet the need of that person.
Kristin:Yeah, I like that.
Brooke:You talked about cognitive engagement, such as wordle. What are some other forms of cognitive engagement? What is cognitive engagement for those who don't know?
Kristin:Cognitive engagement is just, using your brain, learning new things, trying new things just to engage your brain. There's lots of different ways that we can do that taking a class. Learning something new. Developing a new skill and, just connecting with other people.
Brooke:Up here in our region, it would kind of be the senior citizen centers or the Commissions on Aging they offer, a lot of things that you talked about. They offer home delivered or congregate meals, exercise classes. They offer that cognitive engagement piece, also the socialization. I think it's what you kind of talked about. If you're interested, go join your commission on aging or senior citizen center to see what's available.
Kristin:All of those things you mentioned just can support our brain, brain health, brain and body health and reduce our risk of Alzheimer's and dementia. My mom is an amazing master knitter. Her whole life she can create the most beautiful things when she knits. But I never learned. Recently I just asked her mom, will you show me how to knit? And so she showed me and I am not great at it. I started with the scarf. This is full of holes, but it was challenging, I didn't really want to worry about how good or bad I was going to be at it. I just wanted to learn something new. So just doing that kind of met those two things of cognitive engagement and learning something new, but then also the connection with my mom and I were reminiscing about some of the things that she'd made when I was a kid, and it was just fun.
Brooke:We're all horrible when we pick up a first new skill, but also, even teaching you that skill was something new for your mom. That was getting her engaged as well. Those are wonderful tips, especially, with the new year, someone can look at their life and it takes small steps, right? Small, manageable steps of saying, like your friend said, I'm not going to cut out soda forever. No, realistically, I'm just only going to have it at special occasions and she's like, pizza is my special occasion or weddings or birthday parties. They do good six out of the seven days, and it's just that one day that they splurge. These are great tips that I think they can all use. So with 2024 just beginning, Kristen, what does the Alzheimer's Association have planned for Northeast Michigan?
Kristin:We have some great programming planned for 2024. On March 8th we'll be participating in a Webinar called dementia research and policy of 2024.
Brooke:You'll be presenting that right, Kristen. Yes.
Kristin:We will be attending the Region 9 Area on Aging Caregiver Conference in April. We'll have a table there and I'll be on the Q and A panel for that.
Brooke:That's in Mio at the Mio Baptist Church this year.
Kristin:We'll also have a table at the Advancing Caregiving Through Technology, Embracing Diversity and Strength, and that's in Arenac on May 17th. Then I'm personally just reaching out to all of our rural communities because I can come and provide free educational programs for an event for anybody. We'll always have our 24/7 helpline available for anybody that needs it. I'm so enjoying connecting with everybody so please. If anybody wants to reach out to me directly with any suggestions or advice or just to connect, I would love that.
Brooke:I was going to ask how can someone reach out to you, Kristen if it's a COA or library that wants to have you come and speak on a topic or it's a caregiver themselves, how can they reach out to you?
Kristin:So I can be reached on my direct line, which is 231-714-6736 or you can email me and my email address is K. M. Weber. That's kmweberr@alz.org. And again, I would just I would just love to hear from anybody
Brooke:Some people calling especially, maybe to set up some of those presentations. If not, Kristen will be in our area, like we said, March, April and May. So you'll be over here in the next in the spring.
Kristin:Yeah, I'm looking forward to it.
Brooke:Well, Kristen, we loved having you today. Like I said, welcome to Michigan. Welcome to the Alzheimer's Association and the Northeast Michigan area. Is there anything else you want to share today?
Kristin:Well, thank you so much for having me. I do again just want to give everyone our helpline number. The free 24 seven support and resources line, that's 1 800-272-3900. So thanks again for having me, Brooke.
Brooke:Thank you, Kristen.
Kristin:Thank you.
Kitty Glomski:So this is Kitty Glomski and Brooke Mainville asking you to join us again next time on Let's Talk About Aging.
Carla:Let's Talk About Aging is a production of the Region 9 Area Agency on Aging, 2569 US 23 South, Alpena, Michigan 4 9 7 0 7. This Podcast was supported, in part, by grant number 90MPPG0039 from the US Administration for Community Living, Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, DC. Podcast music provided by Groove Music, selection titled"Modern Logo," created by Vadym Kuznietsov and can be found at https://elements.envato.com/modern-logo-ZVHFBJ6