Emily's Second Reflection

Hello to you all!  Emily here with a new update on my time volunteering at the Best Friends Day Center.

Yesterday, I conducted my second visit to the Best Friends Day Center with music in-hand.  I had my father bring all of the piano music that he could find back home to me so that I could let the participants pick out what they wanted to hear.  Luckily for me, they really didn't care what I played.  I'm so thrilled to having been able to provide the participants and other staff with music.  One of the participants (we'll call her Anne for confidentiality reasons), was especially pleased with the gospel songs I had handy.  Anne is an absolute joy to be around.  She loves to talk about her life when she was younger, and when she knows a song, she sings right along.

Activity and crafts area.
Front table is where most socialization takes place.

I was also very fortunate to witness the participants' reactions to someone of another culture.  Right before lunch, a Muslim woman visited the center to see what volunteers did as she wanted to become a volunteer herself.  It should be noted that the majority of participants are of the Christian faith, and I'll admit, a lot of my prior experience with the older generation is that they are very suspicious of those who practice another culture.  Call me biased, but that's just my experience.  Anyway, everyone was very quiet at first, analyzing this new visitor who seemed so different from themselves.  Then, someone spoke up and asked "What's your name?"  From that point on, it was conversation and laughing for the rest of the woman's visit.  It was wonderful to see how welcoming the participants are and staff are of others!

Unfortunately, pictures are a bit hard to provide for this blog due to confidentiality reasons.  Although, we have been told that it may be reasonable to take pictures inside that do not show the faces or other identifying feature of the participants.  Hopefully next week I can provide some of these images! (See edit below.)

With love,

Emily

Edit: I got a couple of pictures during my last visit, so I'll add one to this post :)

Vikram's First Reflection

Welcome to Becoming Best Friends! My name is Vikram and I will be posting regularly about my experiences at the Best Friends program at Bridgepointe at Ashgrove Woods. My first visit was Friday, fortunately I got there soon enough to experience all of music time! How music time works is, anyone can play an instrument or perform for everyone if they want and there will always be group participation at some point. For my first music time, we each got a book with the 50+ pages of lyrics to songs and a lady played the piano while everyone else sang along. Personally, I am a little shy and find it hard to sing in front of people I just met but hopefully I get into it with time. I could have been completely blind to the fact that a lot of the residents were struggling with Alzheimer's Disease. The music had therapeutic properties; everyone's stresses and sadness were forgotten. What surprised me when talking with my new friend was that sadness and emotions aren't caused by Alzheimer's, they're expedited by it. I now actually believe the onset of Alzheimer's can be induced by emotional trauma such as the loss of a spouse. That's one of the things we were told to avoid talking about but I found that with my new friend, that's all she wanted to talk about. I tried making small talk about places and food and got little feedback but she seemed to want to talk about the thing that made her the saddest. Maybe we need to vent our emotions and talk about the ones we lost otherwise we'll never find closure in losing them. I am by no means saying forget about them or move on but if they were such an important part of someone's life. It should be important to remember all the good things and times with them and learn to appreciate the time spent with them rather than dread having years that could have been with them stolen.

Going back to the atmosphere of the program, it was like a big family with everyone poking fun at each other and young at heart. Some of the residents were not as energetic but everyone still participated in the activities. I do like the activities, however I think it would be cool to get more one-on-one time with people and be able to sort of mingle and form little groups for discussions where Best Friends could talk about their life stories within each other and find similarities and differences.

Angela's First Reflection

     Hello world and welcome to Becoming Best Friends where I'll be making regular posts about my experiences at my Service Learning site for this Spring 2016 semester! I chose to do my Service Learning at Best Friends Adult Day Care at Bridgepoint at Ashwood Grove where I get the opportunity to work with participants with Alzheimers and other forms of dementia. The reason why I chose this organization is because while doing research on this organization I thought that the idea of becoming "best friends"with the participants was a really interesting and fun approach that I'd like to be a part of. Basically, the Best Friends Approach is about building a strong relationship with the participants and learning about their history and background to get closer and relate to the participants.

     I was super excited for my first day at Best Friends and was not disappointed in the slightest. All of the participants there were extremely friendly and seemed really excited to see me there and kept giving me compliments. In addition to that, all of them seemed to be good friends and would make jokes with each other. During my first day we spent the morning before lunch gathered in a room playing the game Rephraze, a game where common sayings have been rephrased into different things and you have to guess what the original saying was. Although I wasn't able to stay for much of lunch I did get to help with it a little bit before leaving for the day. Even though I won't be able to go back for another week I'm already looking forward to it!

Lindsey's First reflection

2/7/16
 Hello Blogger!
       This is my first time blogging so bare with me here. In this blog i am going to share with you my experiences at my service organization called Best friends day Center.Best friends day center is hard to beat when it comes to value, and care. Not only do they have a caregiver answering phones for 24-hours, they have people that want to help the ones in need. This service benefits those who suffer from the emotional effects of a disease called Alzheimer's. The symptoms of this disease may cause loss of memory, mental clarity, and sometimes maybe even language capabilities, over time. This is a very serious disease, and mostly elderly people face it. 
        No one needs to be alone with those kinds of symptoms. Sometimes its easier to get help from people that become expertise in this field. Giving patients the chance to have some fun, and interact with more people that also have alzheimer's. Giving them the comfort,and relaxation they need. This service is not only beneficial to the ones receiving care, but to the families that are indulged in this facility.  Giving the caretakers of the family a little break is alway good. It's a very hard time for some families.There is a lot of emotional stress that comes with Alzheimers. Seeing a love one suffer through that can be heartbreaking. 
       Best friends day center gives you the right kind of best friend you need. Someone that will help you when things get a little much. It's hard to see a loved one going through that disease. You do not have to go through it alone. This is why I picked this center for my volunteer work.  Putting smilies on peoples faces why you sing, play games, and entertain is just a great feeling. My mother takes care of elderly patients, and quite of them developed Alzheimers.  Knowing I could have the chance to help people like that again made my choice the best one for myself.

Emily's Orientation and First Day Reflection

Hello readers!  This is my first post documenting my time spent volunteering at the Best Friends Day Center - an organization that is a part of a Christian Care Community called Bridgeport at Ashgrove Woods.  I will hopefully be updating regularly (that is, weekly) starting this Thursday.

During my first visit, my orientation, I discovered that 'Best Friends' is actually a universally accepted approach to caring for people with dementia.  This approach encourages volunteers to become, well, best friends with the 'participant' of the organization.  This encourages the building of relationships and trust within the small community provided to the participants.  We were told that it is important to treat the participants as just that - participants.  Those with dementia and Alzheimer's are just as much of people than those without.

From what I have researched and been informed of, the Best Friends Day Center cares for adults with dementia and Alzheimer's during the day while their caretakers go to jobs or run errands.  The participants are cared for in a multitude of ways including everything from performing fun activities, to having lunch, to having an on-staff nurse available.  This past Thursday, I officially started my volunteer experience and was able to witness the way in which the Best Friends Day Center cares its participants.  Together with other staff and participants, I helped to make "Get Well Soon" cards and Valentine's Day decorations.  We listened to the piano tuner and talked about the lessons that we had received as children.  I also assisted in providing lunch for the participants.

From my experience and research, I have concluded that the ultimate goal of the Best Friends Day Center its staff is to make the participants feel safe, loved, and at home.  I was even invited to help provide some entertainment to the participants when they all found out that I can play the piano.  As can be seen in the image to the right, music is a large factor in how the Best Friends Day Center builds community, so I am honored to be presented with the opportunity to help continue to build community.

With love,

Emily

Image provided by http://tomeblen.bloginky.com/2015/01/13/best-friends-seeks-more-male-volunteers-for-alzheimers-care/.

Katelyn's Initial Reflection

Sunday, February 7, 2016

Hello, and happy Monday! This is the first post of mine in a series of posts that will continue throughout the Spring 2016 semester, as I blog about my experience with my Service Learning site for the CIS 112 (Accelerated Composition and Communication) course at the University of Kentucky. I was assigned to the Best Friends organization for my Service Learning site, and upon my initial research, I realized that the site isn’t called Best Friends, rather that Best Friends is the name of the approach the organization uses. The site’s actual name is Bridgepointe at Ashgrove Woods, and it is a community for individuals suffering from dementia. The Best Friends approach which they use emphasizes the importance of building relationships with respect, empathy, support, trust, and humor, in order to provide truly compassionate care. This approach also places importance in acknowledging the life stories of the individuals, which is crucial when working with individuals who have Alzheimer’s or dementia. 

In conducting research over the organization, I came to understand that there are different types of care, both around-the-clock care where the residents live in the home, as well as day care for individuals while their loved ones are busy during the day, which is the type of care I will be working with. These different types of care include nursing and personal care, medication assistance, daily meals, transportation, vital signs monitoring, and other services to help make the individuals comfortable. In volunteering my time at Bridgepointe, I hope to learn humility in working with the residents, and I am incredibly excited to be enlightened by any stories and memories shared with me. I also hope to establish friendships with the individuals, and a desire to continue volunteering with Bridgepointe. 

Thus far, I have yet to begin volunteering, but I start this week and can hardly wait to begin sharing my experience. However, I attended my orientation at the site last week and was thoroughly pleased with what I saw. Everyone working there had a smile on their face and seemed to be proud of the work they were doing, and I was given the chance to look over some of the information on current guests. This information contained loved ones, favorite memories, pets, education history, and other significant life facts. It was touching to begin learning about some of the individuals I will be working with, and makes me very humbled to be given such a great opportunity to help others. After I left my orientation, I browsed Bridgepointe's Facebook page and found an image which touched my heart, and simply says what I believe is a good way to sum up the role of friends, family, and caretakers of individuals suffering from dementia: 

At this point in time, I am pleased with the site I have been assigned to, and am excited to begin volunteering at the Adult Day Center, learning and working with the Best Friends approach. Until next time, friends!

Best,

Katelyn

Images retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/Bridgepointe-at-Ashgrove-Woods-1512999975665429/?fref=ts