Seniors of Canada Website

Every now and then there are very positive stories that catch your attention. This is one The Seniors of Canada website is a vehicle that gives seniors the ability to tell their stories. Here is what the website authors say on their “About us page”. This is a site worth more than one visit. On this website, you’ll see and read the photos and stories of seniors in the Hamilton Community including a Seniors of Canada initiative: Iconic Ageing. We hope you enjoy seeing the project and that it challenges your notions about ageism and the ageing process.

Hamilton umbrella, undergraduate students had the opportunity to take pictures and gather stories from iconic places and seniors in Hamilton. Through this initiative titled ‘Iconic Ageing’, a collaboration with Associate Dean in the Faculty of Social Sciences at McMaster University, Dr. James Gillett and his students went out and engaged, organize & documented the narratives from seniors at ‘iconic’ places in Hamilton, Ontario for his course on “Representations of Health and Illness Across the Life Course”.

As graduate students in the field of ageing, we often find ourselves so immersed in the theoretical and empirical content of our field, that the very subject of our interest—older people—becomes peripheral to our everyday work. Importantly, it has recently come to our attention that with the demographic shift, innovative initiatives to tackle stereotypes of ageing and ageism have yet to be made. In a ‘Humans of New York’ fashion we thought that by providing snapshots of the everyday lives of Hamilton’s older people, beyond the extremes and picturesque ideals promoted by the media, one will be able to view what seniors really look like and hear their stories, in a manner void of negative or positive connotations.

In May 2017, Members of the Gilbrea Student Group at McMaster University successfully received a Student Proposals for Intellectual Community & Engaged Scholarship (SPICES) grant with the goal to represent ageing as it truly is. A true passion project for our group, we hoped to conquer ageism, mitigate the stereotypes associated with ageing and shine a light on the everyday lives of seniors in the Hamilton community. We think we’ve done our goal justice.

We began the project with a focus group, where five seniors from the community gave us their input on our initial ideas, name and goals of the project. We got wonderful and encouraging feedback, and used that to move forward, ensuring that we maintained our goal of representing seniors the way they wanted to be represented.

We then met with seniors at a time and place of their choosing, and listened to their stories and took their photos. We met all of them somewhere that was an everyday part of their lives, at events, somewhere they enjoyed being, where they would want to be captured or doing something they loved. We asked questions about their lives and about what ageing means to them. We then distributed these images on our social media to reach as many and this photobook is the result of those meetings, stories, and photos.

Our final goal was to showcase our project in a photo-exhibit event in the heart of Hamilton, where the public was welcome to come and see the everyday lives and stories of people in their community.

Over the past year, the Seniors of Canada team has been putting together images and stories of some amazing seniors in the Hamilton area, and it’s finally time for everyone to see what we’ve been working so hard on. And now we’re here, presenting our pictures and stories in a book that sums up the spirit of our project; that ageing is a natural part of life and that being a senior doesn’t make your life or story any less valuable or interesting.

Unpaid caregivers and the supports available

The federal, provincial and territorial governments recognize the need to keep seniors at home as long as is suitable for the person, as well as the benefits of doing so. They also recognize that their caregivers require significant support. The literature describing and analyzing services that support and sustain people with dementia living in their own homes is growing. The expansion of these services and programs is also growing, partly due to policies and practices that are increasingly emphasizing the benefits of supporting people to live in their own homes, for the individuals, their caregivers and health systems at large. While there are multiple gaps in the evidence base, some of the practices and recommendations that may help keep seniors with dementia in the community longer include:

·         Avoiding unnecessary hospitalizations by ensuring safe environments and providing assistance and support with more instrumental activities of daily living like shopping, food preparation and managing finances

·         Improving early detection, which could be beneficial in modifying lifestyle in order to delay the onset of symptoms as long as possible and in expanding cognitive reserve through intellectual stimulation

·         Maintaining and improving activities of daily living, like getting dressed and managing personal hygiene, by providing rehabilitation/exercise programs

·         Providing group housing options for seniors who would otherwise be living alone and unsupported

·         Providing better technology and support to seniors with dementia in the community

·         Providing meaningful breaks to unpaid caregivers through respite care and adult day care programs for individuals with dementia

·         Ensuring that education, training, practice guidelines and tools for front-line home care providers are available to support them to provide high-quality person-centred dementia care

Providing effective support to those living with dementia in the community and their families is an important component of dementia strategies. Such support helps caregivers to maintain their caregiving activities and have a personally rewarding experience.

Find out more about some of the community support resources available for caregivers in Unpaid caregiver challenges and supports.

Most seniors with dementia live at home

About 61% of seniors with dementia in Canada live at home — and they require support while staying there. There are approximately 5.8 million seniors in Canada and about 5.5 million live at home. CIHI analysis finds that of the estimated 431,000 seniors living with dementia in 2015–2016, more than 261,000 were estimated to reside outside of publicly funded long-term care or nursing homes.

Dementia in Canada

Canadians living with dementia want to maintain their independence; they want to live at home and engage with their community,” said Pauline Tardif, CEO of the Alzheimer Society of Canada.

Comprehensive home and community care are an essential part of this equation. It helps maintain the quality of life for people with dementia while also providing needed support for caregivers.

As Canada’s population ages and chronic disease rates increase, federal, provincial and territorial governments are recognizing the need to make home care more available and accessible. About 61% of seniors in Canada with dementia live outside of long-term care or nursing homes: 69% of those younger than 80 and 58% of those 80 and older.

A Common Statement of Principles on Shared Health Priorities is a recent agreement between the federal, provincial and territorial governments to provide substantial federal investment over 10 years, in part, to improving access to health care and support services at home and in the community.

Seniors with dementia living at home have complex care needs

Seniors with dementia who receive care at home may present more challenges than those without dementia because they are more clinically complex. Some of the characteristics of these individuals include the following: 

·       1 in 5 have severe cognitive impairment

·       1 in 4 (28%) require extensive assistance or are dependent for activities of daily living

·       1 in 4 exhibits any responsive behaviours

·       1 in 4 have signs of depression

Seniors with dementia who live at home score worse on behavioural and cognitive scales compared with other seniors living at home and receiving care. Seniors with dementia exhibit responsive behaviours such as verbal and physical abuse, socially inappropriate behaviour and resisting care more frequently than those without dementia (25% and 4%, respectively).

However, among all seniors with dementia receiving home care, a larger proportion does not exhibit any responsive behaviours (75%) than do (25%). Seniors with dementia score the same in health instability (as measured by the CHESS Scale) and are admitted to hospitals less frequently. The CHESS Scale (Changes in Health, End-Stage Disease, and Signs and Symptoms) detects health instability and is designed to identify individuals at risk of serious decline.

Of seniors with dementia, about one-third of those 65 to 79 and 42% of those 80 and older live in a long-term care home. Overall factors influencing long-term care admission for people with dementia were assessed with the methodology used in CIHI’s Seniors in Transition report. 6 factors significantly increase the odds of entering long-term care or nursing homes following an initial assessment to determine eligibility for long-term care for individuals with dementia:

• Seniors with dementia who receive their initial assessment in the hospital are about 5.6 times more likely to enter long-term care as those who are assessed elsewhere.
• Seniors with dementia who live alone (without a primary caregiver in the home) are around twice as likely to enter long-term care as those who live with their primary caregiver.
• Seniors with dementia who have a caregiver who is unable to continue providing care are around twice as likely to enter long-term care.
• Seniors with dementia who have a recent history of wandering are about 1.7 times more likely to enter long-term care.
• Seniors with dementia with a moderate level of cognitive impairment are about 3.8 times more likely to enter long-term care than seniors with no cognitive impairment; those with a very severe level of cognitive impairment are about 3.5 times more likely than those with no cognitive impairment.
• Seniors with dementia who are dependent on physical assistance for daily activities like personal hygiene, eating and walking are 3.8 times more likely to enter long-term care than those who are independent; this decreases slightly to about 1.4 times if they require only supervision.

These identified characteristics can help us understand some of the challenges associated with providing care to individuals with dementia in the home and can help inform strategies to better support them and their caregivers to pursue home care for longer and more safely.

Practical advice from caregivers, for caregivers

"Sharing the Journey" is a video series - funded by the Victoria Hospitals Foundation - that offers family caregivers practical advice to help them respond to new challenges while maintaining a meaningful and healthy relationship with a loved one living with dementia. 

Much of what caregivers express as a burden could also be called unresolved grief. The videos for caregivers and families provide information about common losses related to caregiving, their potential negative impact and the importance of acknowledging and supporting grief.

The information in these videos is useful for everyone in the community who may have friends, neighbours, coworkers or customers who have dementia. These videos are also available on our Island Health YouTube channel.

The word dementia is a general term that refers to a cluster of symptoms caused by physical changes to the brain.

Research on Dementia Care.

The Cognitive Health Initiative (CHI) on Vancouver Island is a five-year, innovative clinical research program supported through a generous donation from a Victoria family with significant matched in-kind support from Island Health and the University of Victoria.

The collaborative partnership between Island Health, the University of Victoria, University of BC and Island Medical Program will integrate leading-edge research into the advancement of evidence-based practice to improve cognitive health for our ageing population.

Caring for a Loved One

Caregivers usually say that their most important goal is to care for their loved one. However, it is also important to remain physically and mentally healthy in order to care for others.

Watch Island Health's video series for caregivers. 

The following materials are available to help families care for themselves and their loved one:

Caregiver’s Manual - Dementia (Seniors Health Practice and Education, Island Health)

• ·   Getting to Know Dementia A Patients Guide
• ·   Caring for Seniors (Government of BC)
• ·   Caring for Someone with Dementia (Alzheimer Society of BC)
• ·   Family Caregiver Support Resources (Family Caregivers’ Network Society)
• ·   Become a Dementia Friend (Dementia Friends Canada)
• ·   Friends and Family Matter (Alzheimer's Australia)
• ·   Wandering and dementia (Alzheimer Society of BC