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Dakim Blog

July 8, 2011

Caretaker, Heal Thyself!: Part 3

Written by: Brenda Matteson

I don’t know about you, but when I’m keyed up, stressed out, or having a mini-nervous breakdown, I H-A-T-E HATE when people tell me to relax! And I’m not fool enough to try to tell you that either. Things go how they go; and you feel how you feel. Relaxation comes with practice—often amounting to doing something to burn off nervous energy, such as deep breathing, counting to 10 (or 1,000,000!), walking around the block, self-talk (in your head or, if you’re like me, muttering mantras aloud), engaging in primal scream therapy, or taking a long-overdue time out. It isn’t always possible to simply suspend our responsibilities in order to manage stress or anxiety, though, is it?

So, what about a little change in perspective?

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July 5, 2011

Caretaker, Heal Thyself!: Part 2

Written by: Brenda Matteson

Hopefully you have had a chance by now to either play a brain fitness session or some other kind of brain exercises with your loved one with dementia and make the observations I suggested in my last blog, “Caretaker, Heal Thyself!: Part 1.” Now, let’s put those observations into some practical methods for living with dementia in the real world.

Dakim BrainFitness has built-in NuroLogic Technology, which adjusts the level of challenge directly based on a player’s performance. However, as we caregivers try to give our charges a good workout, stretch them a bit on good days, compensate for bad days, and keep their spirits up, sometimes we can help too much. Before we know it, we’ve inadvertently “played them up” to a point where they are being asked to perform brain exercises that are beyond their cognitive abilities. They can no longer play successfully on their own. They are in over their heads—and so are we!

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July 1, 2011

Caretaker, Heal Thyself!: Part 1

Written by: Brenda Matteson

Based on the comments and question I received from “BeWell” on my blog posting entitled “It’s All Brain Work, Baby!” I thought it would be a good idea to expand a bit on the practice of “cluing and coaxing.”

As a caregiver helping a person with dementia play a brain fitness program like Dakim BrainFitness, “cluing and coaxing” is pretty straightforward. As I said in my comment to “BeWell,” I like to think of it as “me taking little steps toward the person with dementia until they have enough clues to help them take just one step toward the answer to whatever question is floating in the air at the time.” And that is true.

But brain exercises are pursued in a bell jar of sorts, where the goal is to build cognitive skills that can be transferred over to tasks of daily living. That is, although Dakim BrainFitness exercises are created to reflect daily living, during a brain training session, the real world is put on hold so that attention, focus, and concentration can be practiced to their fullest with a minimum of distractions.

So, what about the real world? Where the decks are not clear, the lighting isn’t perfect, time is not on our side, alarm clocks and doorbells are ringing, we have not had enough sleep, pots are boiling over, meals have been skipped, the engine on the car smells funny, and there’s way more than just one baby bird chirping for quality one-on-one time. These are the very natural and human factors that often contribute to the moment at hand, and they are not optimal for the same kind of “cluing and coaxing” that you do during a brain fitness session.

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June 27, 2011

Bridge the Generation Gap with Brain Fitness

Written by: Brenda Matteson

My dad was never all that great with entertaining the grandkids at a kid’s level. He loved my nephews to bits and marveled at how bright they were, but he was a man of words, so he was the grandpa who mostly liked to talk to them.

This worked great for my older nephew because he, too, enjoyed conversation. When engaged in conversation with “Grandpa Mel,” he would ask questions and listen attentively (if not always enthusiastically!).

As for my younger neph…a non-verbal little fellow…the prospect of conversation?…not so much! He would stare at my dad, looking uncomfortable and cornered—like he’d been called on to defend a doctoral dissertation. If there is such a thing as an awkward silence with a toddler—well, that’s what generally resulted from their interaction.

I wish now that my dad had been around when he could have played a brain fitness program like Dakim BrainFitness with his grandkids. Sharing the responsibility of solving puzzles, remembering delayed-recall information, and figuring out solutions with kids simply adds a whole ‘nother dimension to a cognitive workout, not to mention what it does for their relationships. It is a wonder to see the interaction of children and seniors working their way through the brain games together.

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June 21, 2011

It’s All Brain Exercise, Baby!

Written by: Brenda Matteson

I find that in the working world, success is often about skewing the situation in your favor and playing to your strengths. Whether it is calling a meeting in the morning because you’re sharper then than in the drowsy afternoon, or only communicating through email and letters so you want to avoid having to think on our feet (perhaps not your best cognitive skill!).

Since no one is cognitively perfect, it’s no surprise that we’ve all dabbled in this all of our lives. Such “cognitive coping skills” are the methods we use to stay in the game, protect our dignity, avoid embarrassment, retain control over our lives for as long as we can, and maintain as much of our sense of ourselves as we possibly can.

Photographic portrait of Charles Darwin, naturalist and author

Charles Darwin, naturalist and author of "The Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection"

I think it’s easy to construe such coping skills as games people play, but they’re not. They are a result of the competition and natural selection that drive us at the very core of our being–yup, the stuff Darwin was talking about. Our nature is to keep moving so we can keep up with the pack. Coping skills of the kind I mean are part and parcel of our arsenal of how we do that.

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