Redefining Dementia

A Deep Dive into Advanced Care Planning with Jim Kinsey

Person Centred Universe Season 1 Episode 6

Prepare yourself for a rich and enlightening journey into the world of advanced care planning with our distinguished guest, Jim Kinsey. As the director of member services at Planetree International, Jim's knowledge of the field is both vast and profound. Together, we'll unravel the intricacies of advanced care planning and system navigation, highlighting the crucial role of personalized care, and the value of understanding individual needs. 

We unmask the stigmas that often shadow dementia, emphasizing the importance of listening to the voices of those directly affected. Advanced care planning, we'll discover, is a beacon of guidance for home caregivers, providing respite and decision-making confidence during challenging times. Jim shares personal experiences, and underscores the impact of a well-prepared advanced care plan and its role in easing the grieving process for everyone involved. 

We'll delve into the significance of safety, self-determination, and creating dementia-friendly environments that uphold these values. A humanized approach to care, we'll learn, can enhance autonomy and redefine the narrative around dementia. As we entertain thought-provoking questions and exchange enlightening ideas, our conversation will challenge listeners to shift their perspective and redefine the concept of dementia itself. So, join us on this remarkable journey as we reshape the way we think about dementia and advanced care planning.

You can find Jim Kinsey on LinkedIn or by emailing jkinsey@planetree.org

About our Hosts:

https://www.personcentreduniverse.com/about/

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Redefining Dementia. I'm Ashley King and I'm Daphne Noonan. Thank you for joining us. We are your co-hosts as well as the co-founders of Person Centered Universe, where we help you provide person-centered dementia care at home, at work or in your community. Through the Redefining Dementia podcast, we are striving toward a better world for those affected by dementia by sharing resources and insights from experts around the world.

Speaker 2:

When consuming resources or media about dementia, the focus is often on the challenges, stigma and fear that may accompany a diagnosis of dementia. This podcast seeks to shift that narrative to focus on and celebrate living well with dementia and what that means for caregivers, through the sharing of stories, resources and helpful life experiences. We hope to provide you with helpful and meaningful takeaways for your journey ahead as special note before we begin.

Speaker 1:

This information shared in this podcast is for educational purposes only. If you or someone you know is experiencing symptoms of dementia, we encourage you to seek medical advice from a qualified healthcare professional.

Speaker 2:

We are happy to welcome the prolific Jim Kinsey to today's episode of Redefining Dementia. Jim is the director of member services at PlainTree International and leads PlainTree Continuing Care Member Sites in the implementation of a person-centered care culture. He specializes in leading complex healthcare systems to advance their person-centered experience. Additionally, jim works with organizations to improve their outcomes related to care and engagement. Jim is a regular contributor to the Connecticut Patient Safety newsletter, where he serves as a member of the board of directors, and has recently co-authored a chapter and served as an advisor for the book Managing the Long-Term Care Facility Practical Approaches to Providing Quality Care.

Speaker 2:

Today, jim is sharing his wealth of knowledge on the topic of advanced care planning. He identifies the difference between advanced care planning and system navigation and explains why advanced care planning is about so much more than end of life, as well as why it is such an important step in personalized care. Jim walks us through the importance of having difficult conversations as early as possible and why advanced care planning has the potential to change the grief process in a meaningful way. We discuss how advanced care planning helps with the living yet to be done and that being able to express choices allows people living with dementia to maintain their self-esteem and dignity. We hope you enjoy listening to Jim talk about this topic, which he is very passionate about. Hi, jim, thank you so much for joining us. It's good to have you.

Speaker 3:

Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we're so excited that you have decided to join us and really looking forward to hearing your expertise around advanced care planning, and, specifically, we know that our audience at home, caregivers, are going to be really delighted to hear from you as well, and so maybe what I'll do is I'll start out by just asking you to start by explaining for us what the difference is between advanced care planning and system navigation and what's the difference, and in this respect, you know why does the language matter in terms of those two terms? What we often hear used.

Speaker 3:

Great question to start us off, I think the important thing is to understand how pivotal words are when we're talking about providing care and when we're talking about things like advanced care planning and system navigation. And the reason why the words are pivotal is because they really do seem like they're similar things, but when you really start to talk about what each one of those are, it really is very different. So system navigation is how an organization helps a caregiver and their loved one navigate the health care system itself. So it's less about the individual and more about you go here for X or you see this specialist for Y. Oftentimes there are organizations in North America hospitals or physician practices that actually have nurse navigators that actually become I guess you could associate it most closely with becoming like a case manager for the person and their caregiver.

Speaker 3:

Advanced care planning is focused 100% on the individual, and although advanced care planning has been perceived to only be about end of life, it really is so much broader than that. It's important that we we talk about how broad it is, because what evidence shows is that how we live is how we will want to die, and so we need to understand, before a person reaches their end of life, what's most important to them, what are the things that are most important to them, what are the needs that they have now, that they'll have at the end of the, at the end of life? This is 100% something that all of us should be doing, but my passion for advanced care planning really comes to a head with persons living with dementia. Now that we have earlier diagnoses, now that we have the ability to still connect with individuals when they're newly diagnosed, that's when we still, that's when we need the most to find out what's important to you.

Speaker 3:

Who do you want by your bedside, who do you not want by your bedside? You know what are the, what are your activities of daily living? What's important to you about your privacy? What's important to you about the type of music that you like or the way that you like to engage? And I think those are the aspects of advanced care planning that really become pivotal for family caregivers to understand from the individual, while we still can capture that information, and we can still capture that information from family members as well as necessary. So advanced care planning again, think personalization of care, think everything you always wanted to know about a person, and then for system navigation. It's how do I navigate my health care system, how do I navigate a hospital, how do I navigate multiple physicians and multiple special?

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much for that, jim. I think that really gives a clear distinction and definition for both advanced care planning and system navigation, both being really significantly and critically important for anyone who's going through their journey with dementia. So thank you, and so I do have a formal question, but I do just want to mention, I want to maybe identify the parallels between essentially many of the aspects of advanced care planning that you're defining and how that relates really closely to another passion of yours, person-centered care. And so can you provide us and our listeners a few practical examples of how advanced care planning can help throughout the continuum of the dementia journey, maybe from diagnosis right through to the end of life?

Speaker 3:

Sure. So person-centered care is about delivering the care based upon the person's needs, their goals and their desires, and so that synergizes with advanced care planning, because what we're finding out are the needs, the desires and the expectations of the individual.

Speaker 3:

So early on in a dementia diagnosis and advanced care plan would be useful for not only acquiring the information that we're going to need later in the diagnosis, but also about how does the person want family and friends to interact with them now. What is it about them that they want to remain intact? I think sometimes persons living with dementia and their caregivers automatically start to kind of have conversations with family members and friends that are really almost intellectually inappropriate, for lack of a better phrase.

Speaker 3:

People start to talk down to the person diagnosed with dementia as if they immediately got the diagnosis Monday and Tuesday, can't understand anything, and so advanced care planning in the early stages would be how do you want to engage? How do you want to interact? What's most important to you during those interactions? How do you want your family to help you while you're still able? How do you want your family to be able to give you cues about certain things that you might be forgetting? Or if you lose a word or if you lose a thought, how do you want us to intervene? Some people may not want the intervention because they're just processing and they may not be able to get it out the way they used to, but they will come to that. Some people would ask for post-it notes on cabinets and on the refrigerator, and certainly in the bathroom. So that I can maintain my independence, I might need those kinds of cues. We may collaborate with someone living with dementia on a routine of memory triggers leaving the toothpaste right next to the toothbrush, leaving the soap clearly in one consistent place, those types of things. As we get later into the diagnosis, the advanced care plan really becomes essential in making sure that we're still honoring how that person wants to live their life. And so, regardless now of their ability to recall or their ability to maintain short you know, anything short term, it doesn't matter, because we have captured already what is most important to them. Certainly, in mid-stage dementia, maybe some of the post-its are obsolete now, maybe some of the memory triggers aren't working as effectively as they were, but what's essential to the care of the person is that they're still being treated with the dignity, the respect as they requested it, as they wanted it. Also, at this stage, it's helpful for not only family caregivers but for other caregivers that may be supporting the person, to really understand how to engage that individual, how to engage that individual in, you know, passing time during the day or maintaining what brain health that they can still maintain. For myself, I'm not a traditional male person. You're not going to engage me with cars or engines or carpentry or anything like that. What's important for you to know is I'm happy with a book, I'm happy with a film, I'm happy sitting still. You know, all of those things would be what would be essential for you to understand. And then, in late-stage dementia, as life begins to transition, those things still are essential. What music? Who do I want there? How do I want my privacy protected? How do I want my family involved, if at all? Do I want to die at home? Do I want palliative care prior to end of life? Do I want hospice care when the end of my life is near? All of that is part of this ongoing process of advanced care planning.

Speaker 3:

One of the things that I get to mention that I don't want to forget so I'm going to mention it now is that an advanced care plan is almost like a living document. You know, just because we choose something on Monday doesn't mean by the following Friday we still enjoy it, and so we have to adapt with the person, and particularly the person living with dementia. We adapt to how they respond to what we're providing. So we adapt to. You know, maybe, for example, I've always loved books, but maybe suddenly now I'm rejecting them, and that could be because I'm frustrated that I can't read any longer or I'm not sure what the object is, and so then we have to go back to the advanced care plan and say, okay, that's not working anymore. What is so? It's a living document.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so much of what you just said resonates with me and I'm sure, with Ashley as well.

Speaker 2:

And just going I wanted to just comment on just to the, I guess, authenticity of one of the comments you made early on in that in that topic, jim is, we had the pleasure last week Ashley and I have interviewing a dear friend of ours.

Speaker 2:

His name is Jim Mann and he has been living with dementia since 2007 and living very well, and that he spoke quite a lot about that concept of people who are often, when they receive a diagnosis, not only the people around them but the person themselves, because there's such a stigma associated with a diagnosis of dementia that the person themselves often will kind of automatically kind of move inside of themselves a little bit and, you know, assume that, okay, now this is the end and you know we go to kind of automatically, we have to take the stages in our mind because of the stigma associated with the disease and you know what he attributes a lot of his success is that he didn't do that and he said, you know, and he and his family created supports around them so that he could continue to do the things that he did when he was a dog with his dog or you know, go get a coffee at the local coffee shop.

Speaker 2:

And it just struck me when you were talking that, yeah, advanced care planning can be a really powerful tool for that right, because it's essentially like getting down to the practicalities of what you know how you're going to actually execute a plan.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and another thing definitely is, when done to the extent that we're speaking of it also is a mechanism for the person living with dementia to maintain control and to not necessarily, you know, go into that dark place and just say, okay, this is who I am now and because of that, people need to know things and people need to understand things. And, you know, there is a sense of self empowerment when you start owning that process of advanced care planning and owning that process of saying, no, this is going to work, it won't work, and I think that people often forget that it is a way of empowering myself to control my care.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, like you say, you often say it in relation to long term care, which is a different topic for a different day, but the analogy of like someone going through the vestibule and then all of a sudden you know they have to, they feel or we make them feel sometimes like they need to change, and then the same thing right is that stigma exists in society, so that's a good tool for, I guess, interacting or counteracting the effects of stigma. For sure.

Speaker 3:

I think definitely. It's also not just the stigma but it's capturing the voices like Jim and getting people to talk about. You know we have that we share a friend in Brian that lives in Florida as well, that lives with dementia, and I think the more that we can help those individuals, demonstrate that it doesn't go from diagnosis to end of life to the point that there are.

Speaker 3:

there is living to yet be done, and I think an advanced care plan helps with that, but I think the stigma can be helped by having voices like Jim and Brian's become part of the conversation so that people can see that there are, just as there are a variety of ways of living with any disease, there are a variety of ways of living with dementia.

Speaker 2:

So we talked to we've talked quite a bit about the individual living with dementia. Can you talk to us for a couple minutes about how you feel advanced care planning can actually be very helpful to the home based care partner. So the individual who is, you know, supporting a person living with dementia at home and in their community?

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So I think of a couple of ways. One of the first ways is that it allows for the caregiver to take respite, even if it's for an hour or two or what have you. But we have outlined in an advanced care plan what a person enjoys, what they don't enjoy, how to support them, how to communicate with them, how they want to be communicated with, and that allows confidence for the home caregiver to really be able to say okay, I'm going to go to the store and here, and I know you have what you need to take care of. You know, my loved one.

Speaker 3:

The primary outcome of advanced care planning not just for home caregivers, but this is for anyone that is ever in this situation is that is your confidence to make the decisions that the person wants in the moment when it's the hardest to make a decision. But if I have in writing and you know I'm not talking about something formal, that's, you know, notarized or whatever but if I have a person's advanced care plan or their, their wishes in my hand and their handwriting that says I don't want this, and that gives me confidence to fight for that, that gives me confidence because I'm doing the right thing. You know your audience. I'll share with them just a little bit about my background in terms of that. I'm not a nurse by profession, but haven't done that in some years, but can still recall the nights standing with family members while an individual is actively at the end of life and they're still trying to decide what to do and what would that person want. I just share that with you because that's nothing but a traumatic experience and that family will struggle in grief and will struggle in time constantly wondering if they made the right decision. Regardless of what decision is made, you will never have the same confidence level that you would have when you have that in your hand and you know that you've talked about it and you know that you've done everything that that individual wanted, and I think for that alone it's worth the conversations of constructing an advanced care plan, as difficult as they can be. You know you don't want to wait until the person's not able to contribute anymore. The person isn't processing the way they used to, and so I think when we can talk to caregivers at home about that experience of having that decision already made and help them also understand that that triggers grief in a different way. So I'm just going to share a personal example.

Speaker 3:

My wife died of cancer two years ago and knowing that we did everything that she told us she wanted and that allowed for my sons and I to grieve in less of a traumatic way and more of a way of finding meaning in her death, understanding what that meant for us now moving forward, how to move forward, we didn't have all of those plaguing questions that I have personally seen my own family go through, my own extended family go through.

Speaker 3:

Those questions didn't exist.

Speaker 3:

So the grieving process was very, very different because we had the knowledge of what the individual wants, and I can't underscore enough how important that is.

Speaker 3:

You know they they reference dementia as the long goodbye and it's important to note that, even though we are grieving at different stages of dementia with the individual, that when that individual is no longer with us, it's still powerful, it's still going to impact us. And you know, my grandfather lived with dementia for 10 years and I think my, my mom, was most surprised at the way she reacted at the cemetery because she had always said I have said goodbye to my father, he's not been my father for the last five years and I think that's how she reacted she still was burying her dad and so she kind of had that experience of that prolonged grief process but still triggering that that end of life grief because, no matter if he knew her and not, he was no longer here. And I think that these are the reasons that advanced care planning, particularly dementia, are so important, so that we can have that sense of confidence that you know we did what the person wants.

Speaker 1:

Thanks so much, jim, for sharing both of those very personal stories and relating it directly back to experiences that you've been through, so important for us, like you've shared, to understand just the depth and the breadth of advanced care planning.

Speaker 1:

And I think, having my own personal experiences and we often aren't, we don't think we don't take the time to consider what that looks like and and, being on the other side of it, knowing that kind of wondering and questioning if we did the right thing, like you said, can be really challenging and and can really more deeply impact the grief.

Speaker 1:

And so I think that's really important for recognizing that, because there are so many facets to advanced care planning again, pulling it back to working in long term care, we often see it different facets of it relating to food and dietary needs and, you know, beyond just those medical things that we consider important to think about, are there any tools or tips that you have for care, especially care partners who are living in the community, to really think deeply and fulsomely about this topic and about advanced care planning and how can they, you know, start down their journey with creating an advanced care plan that you know addresses many? I know we can't always address every consideration that may come up. But how can we really think about that multi, the multi facets of advanced care planning?

Speaker 3:

You know there's there's a number of ways. First, the internet is rich with resources around advanced care planning. A lot of those resources do focus on more end of life than than any anything else, but it's a place to start, I think, also finding a person that can help navigate the advanced care planning journey. Family members will sometimes find it easier for someone that is neutral to lead the discussion so that they can really immerse themselves in the experience instead of trying to keep a conversation on track. The the other piece is to. This is going to sound very odd, but have some fun with it, because there are things that are going to come up that people never thought they'd ever have to have a preference around.

Speaker 3:

For example, how many of you have thought about who you would like to take you to the bathroom or who would?

Speaker 3:

you like not to take you to the bathroom? This is a question that's important, you know and you know, and and it's not just about my dining preferences around food but what are those nuances around the person? I think all of us have these little things about the way we eat or the way that we design our meals that are unique to just us. And what does that look like? You know and you know, really talk about you know the music and talk about the enjoyment and I think, particularly advanced care planning with persons living with dementia. It's also a reminiscent opportunity. It's also an opportunity to look back with the person and say do you remember when we went to that concert?

Speaker 3:

Probably don't start with do remember, but you enjoyed that concert or we enjoyed that concert together and that was one of our favorite television shows or whatever. But it doesn't have to be heavy all of the time and I think that that's important because we're talking about. We're talking about a subject that is a pathway to the end of someone's life, but that doesn't mean there isn't joy in it. It doesn't mean that there isn't oddly enough fun in it, but we can find just the simple things to remember during the process. They can bring us joy.

Speaker 3:

I'll just share with you a personal story. My wife, wendy, when she she decided she was picking out her earn and that was going to be her job and there were I'm not kidding you audience, there were 22 earns in our Amazon shopping cart. And when she looked at me and tossed to me the iPad and said I don't have to look at it, you pick it out and we still laugh about that to this day because it's like she wanted such control over over that and then decided in the in the moment, I just don't have to look at it, I don't have to look at it so you know, find some ways in which you can have some joy going into it, because it's because it really is a reflective time.

Speaker 2:

Wow, so many good. I've been thinking while while you're talking, jim, with all of your amazing answers, is not for today, but maybe we'll need to get you back for a part two episode where we focus on grief and grief processes, if you'd be up for that. I know that's an area that you you're very. You have a lot of wisdom to share as well. I know we love to throw that, so we just have a couple more questions for you and I'll ask one.

Speaker 2:

This is a question that we've been at. These last two questions we were asking everyone who's coming on as a guest and it's been really cool to see the different variety and the answers around this question. So our podcast is what we hope is that our podcast will be a vehicle where people can come to you know, begin to redefine the experience of what it means to be, you know, diagnosed with dementia or supporting someone who has received a diagnosis of dementia and so for you as a caregiver, or you know, someone who's in very actively involved in leadership in person centered care, how would you personally like to redefine dementia and the dementia journey through your work?

Speaker 3:

Clarification my work in person centeredness or my work in advanced care planning.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, both.

Speaker 3:

Both. Yep, great question. Yeah, one of the frustrations that I have and I know is shared by a number of folks that do work that I like I do and work like you and Ashley do is the concept of the term person centered. And person centered is a great philosophy, is a great term, and I think that I would like to see it defaulting less to person centered, being reflective of caregiver preferences or housing or nursing home preferences, or and to truly make it person centered.

Speaker 3:

An area that needs more discussion and probably more research is around safety and how a person is kept. I don't even like the phrase kept safe. You know, we are always looking at it from the lens of how do we protect the person, and while that may be true, we also have to ask ourselves how might we be damaging the person? Because risk is not just about keeping a person safe, it's the method in which we do it, and and instead of how do we keep a person safe? I wish the question would become how do we create an environment where the person can maintain self determination Right? How do we, how do we have to rearrange a, you know, furniture or does, or the way in which design helps a person, walk through hallways and you know how. At home do we continue to support the person the way that they wanted to live and and have an awareness to safety and certainly not saying safety is an important but I think for the future of dementia care and person centered care, it really needs to be a conversation that has had more times than not.

Speaker 3:

I'm starting to see some more long term care organizations and some associations. You know we'll have ethics committees or ethics discussions, but as important as they are because I think that's a huge advancement they're usually done with really complex issues and concerns and nothing documented and and all of those things. So what that level of discussion for? Are we going to use a chair alarm? Are we going to use a bed alarm? Because they have the same kind of impact. So that's what I'd like to see for the future and I do believe that if we can structure advanced care planning for, you know, of course, in individual homes and for individuals, but if there's a way to structure true advanced care planning into residential living for older adults, I think that that will help drive that next level of transformation.

Speaker 3:

Right now, many organizations you know I work with or partner with and I'll say you know how are we capturing advanced care plays that? Oh well, that person has a DNR order. Well, that's not an advanced care plan that tells me what to do when they stop breathing and they don't have a pulse, but it doesn't tell me what to do up until that point. So figuring out a structured way to have advanced care planning in residential living, I think, is going to be essential. But in order to drive that, we have to first drive it in the community, because organizations respond to what the consumer is telling them, what they need. So you make the argument in a community and then that leads to what the expectation is when my loved one moves into care.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, it really is. I mean, you know, we see it, we have seen it, we keep hearing about it, how families are going to and do have a strong voice, they want to provide the best quality of care. And you know, I think what I'm hearing and what I'm learning today is that advanced care planning is really that guiding tool, that guiding document to really inform change, both at the individual level, but it can also inform change within large organizations.

Speaker 3:

Exactly.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so thanks so much, jim. I mean again, Daphne has already said it, but I think we need to have you back.

Speaker 1:

You know an hour 45 minutes is an enough time, but I think you've provided really important advice and suggestions and guidance for anybody you know listening to this podcast and hearing how critical and how crucial advanced care planning is, especially, you know, even for me, who you know works within an organization in long term care, you've really opened up my eyes to the use of advanced care planning. So thank you for that. So my last question is and you kind of touched on it, but I'll, you know, leave it open to whatever you'd like to answer this but what is your hope for the future for people affected by dementia?

Speaker 3:

Well, my overarching hope is a cure, so I'm sure that goes without saying. But in absence of a cure, I think that we have to continue to advocate for the humanization of care, help people understand that I may not be able to make all of my choices, but I can still make some choices, and to help caregivers, both at home and in long-term care, to really understand that those choices I can make are some of the most important things that you can support me doing, because it keeps myself a steam intact and it keeps my ability to feel valued intact, and I think.

Speaker 3:

David Troxel and Virginia Bell are the creators of the best friends approach to dementia care, and I heard David speak many, many, many years ago, and one of the things that he said in this presentation that has stuck with me all these years is that it's in the doing.

Speaker 3:

It's in the doing, and he started that by telling a story of older adult that was reading a book on the front porch of the nursing home and and the staff were really kind of upset but also at some point trying also, they thought, to preserve her dignity she was reading the book upside down. The book was upside down, and so he walked that staff through. It's in the doing, she's happy, she's relaxed, she's turning the pages upside down or right side up, and so the younger has the ability to read. So it's in the doing, and I think that that is one of the best things that I have ever learned in my own, in my own journey, and so continuing to, to help people understand that and to not be so focused on what the outcome is as much as what is gained in the doing.

Speaker 1:

And so I think, that's one of the things that I really love about the book. I love that answer.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely All of your answers are amazing, thank you, oh, thank you so much for being here. We absolutely love talking to you anytime, but this is a topic that we were so excited to kind of just dig into with you and hear from you, and thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 3:

And thank you so much for being here, and thank you equally as blesses we have been to have this chat today.

Speaker 2:

Well, thank you both for having me, and it's been a great time to spend with with both of you and your listeners and I look forward to the next time, and I look forward to the next time we can talk about the book. I think we're going to be in different sort of areas.

Speaker 3:

but if there's, is there any place that people can find you Like? If you do have any social media things for your own, you know, personally or at work? I have my email address, which is Jay Kinsey at plane tree PLAN e t R E E dot org. And yeah, those are the two primary ways of getting ahold of me. I do some other independent consulting work. I basically maintain the one email address and then if a person is interested in doing something, then I shift over to another account. That sounds all very suspicious, but trust me with you that there are reasons why I need to do that.

Speaker 2:

I'm just going to make sure that we share that in the, in the show notes and stuff too.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, and just. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us, jim.

Speaker 3:

Today we are very blessed and staffing said and I'm equally blessed knowing both of you, so I appreciate the time.

Speaker 1:

It's a insightful and impactful podcast delivered by our good friend and colleague, jim Kinsey.

Speaker 1:

His insight into advanced care planning and how it can connect with person centeredness, I think, allows us and provides us the opportunity not only to see the synergies between the two concepts, but also allows us to recognize or better define how we look at advanced care planning holistically.

Speaker 1:

I think the other thing that he implores us to do after listening in the last few minutes of that podcast identifies just how important it is for us to consider how do we encourage people to continue living, even as we are in the position that they're facing you know their own, their own passing and how do we incorporate advanced care planning and living autonomously together, much like what Jim Mann shared in a previous podcast and if you haven't listened to it, I encourage you to do so because these two work so harmoniously together, these two podcasts encouraging people and encouraging our loved ones to live well, and that really is the crux of person centeredness.

Speaker 1:

And so I implore you to consider that when you're creating your advanced care plans, whether it be for yourself or for your loved one, for a friend, and I also consider encourage you to think and consider who is it that you want to take you to the bathroom? It's such an important question and one that's so overlooked. It was such a pleasure speaking with Jim, and I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did and as much as we did recording it. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Redefining Dementia podcast. We hope that you have found this information helpful and inspiring, no matter where you find yourself in the dementia journey, whether you are a person living with dementia, a healthcare professional, family and friend care provider, or an ally, we aspire to shift the narrative and redefine what dementia means to you.

Speaker 2:

This podcast was made possible by the New Horizons for Seniors program. Our music is written and produced by Scott Holmes, the podcast was produced by Janna Jones, and we'd like to offer a very special thanks to our affiliates at Lifelong Inspiration and, of course, to our amazingly talented and knowledgeable guests who gave of their time to share their expertise with us.

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