Caregiving Boot Camp: Podcast with Zaldy Tan

"Diagnose and adios." That's the sad phrase that I've heard quoted more than once, representing caregivers' sentiment of what it's like to be told by a clinician that your loved one has dementia.

This week we talked with Zaldy Tan, Geriatrician and Director of the Memory and Aging program at Cedars Sinai in Los Angeles. With David Reuben at UCLA and others working LA realized that current caregiver training programs were lacking. Caregivers for people with dementia are stressed, short on time, and thirsty for high impact information and skills training that can be delivered efficiently. To meet this need they launched a new caregiver "bootcamp" 1-day training (with the help of Archstone Foundation which also funds GeriPal). We cover many topics, including dissemination of the bootcamp to Spanish-speaking caregivers, converting to video boot camp during COVID, and ways you can partner with them to create your own boot camp.

Listen to the podcast to learn more!

(And "Remember Me" from Coco - great song choice)

JAGS article on caregiver boot camp

Dementia caregiver IcareD website (including upcoming bootcamp calendar)

CAPC website on caregiver support

-@AlexSmithMD