The Intersection of Habits + Routine
“Where are my keys?”
“Where did I last set my phone down?”
“Did I turn off the oven?”
“Has the dog been fed?”
“Did I take my medicine?”
“The thoughts, the anxiety, the worry; will it ever end? Or will it be more difficult tomorrow?”
Anyone else have those fleeting thoughts as they go to leave the house? Most likely. Imagine if someone is living on their own with some type of cognitive impairment. How do they or a family member ensure their personal safety while also supporting their ability to accomplish specific daily tasks.
To support or provide care for a person living with dementia means layers or worry, strategizing, and coming up with effective coping strategies. Coping strategies can vary from reminders on sheets of paper affixed to walls in a room, daily phone calls or text reminders, to utilizing the latest technology of Alexa or Google. If you or your loved one are familiar with the need for cues to guide their next move, these examples may seem all too familiar.
Science has revealed to us that routine and habit-forming processes are instrumental for people with various types of dementia to safely navigate their day. Why is this approach effective and worth noting? Simply put, there is growing evidence that assistive digital technology, when combined with behavioral approaches, can be useful interventions that help individuals who need additional cognitive assistance, including the many forms of dementia.
Thankfully, there are new tools and resources that support both caregivers and people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease related dementias (AD/ADRD) with routine and habit-forming processes. MapHabit is a suite of solutions that can do just that. Designed for individuals and their support partners, MapHabit helps improve quality of life for both by providing an effective tool to reinforce routine habits and help individuals complete daily routines like bathing, eating, taking medications, and engaging with family members.
MapHabit’s approach is research based on procedural memory and the spared habit-forming portions of our brains. As Alzheimer’s Disease and other dementias progress in stages, MapHabit saw the potential of the “Neostriatum”, the portion of the brain that retains habit memory. With proper process documentation and consistent delivery of care, there is a significant reduction in the stress that support partners and family members experience when challenging situations come up.
What Success Looks Like
The Person Living with Dementia - a successful day for a person working through cognitive decline can look different depending on the stage and progression of the disease. However, the basic notion of using one’s abilities to engage in activities that bring joy and comfort without undue agitation, frustration or emotional distress are highly sought-after outcomes for both the individual and caregiver. This may be simply stated but extremely difficult to ensure due to the individual’s routines, needs, and desires.
Support Partners (family and extended assistance) - For a support partner, the idea of a successful day looks a bit different. Knowing there is 100% dependence on you as a caregiver to optimize success is often a heavy load to carry, met with highs and lows. Often the bulk of focus rests on completing tasks of activities of daily living, such as eating, grooming and bathing. Once these basic needs are met, the next goal is to foster those moments of joy and comfort through meaningful engagement which can be emotionally taxing after direct care is provided. Observing moments of self-sufficiency, independent interaction and peaceful expression are big wins in the day of a support partner.
The Role of the MapHabit Suite to Support Desired Success
MapHabit was created to be a simple, yet sophisticated digital technology tool that seeks to strengthen routine behaviors for optimal living with the preserved cognitive ability that remains. MapHabit has created its solutions to benefit multiple people that play a role in supporting those on their dementia journey. Many of the individual tools and resources that are needed to reach successful days mentioned above are present in the suite of solutions MapHabit has developed with strategic partnerships.
1. MapHabit Application
MapHabit uses assistive technology to develop mind mapping software programs that create a visual map of instructions or procedures. In its simplest form, a visual map is a series of connected pictures illustrating the sequential steps for successfully completing routine activities. The software application includes four fundamental offerings that directly impact the end user(s); caregivers (staff or family) and person with dementia:
Support Independence - with MapHabit, you can easily create personalized visual maps to guide one through various daily activities. This also leads to decreased stress and frustration associated with the inability to create simple daily tasks when tools are not present. Routine habits are then reinforced, and small victories are achieved.
Reduce Out-of-Pocket Healthcare Costs - By helping individuals complete daily living activities more independently for longer, MapHabit can extend an individual’s time at home and optimize preventative care with medication and doctor appointment reminders.
Family Insights and Connectedness (even when remote) - Family members can share personalized messages, photos and videos with their loved one to stay connected and can track their loved one’s completed activities – even if they live remotely.
Caregiver Consistency and Education – Understanding learned behaviors and individual interventions for multiple residents takes time and caregiver consistency. MapHabit can work closely with family members and professional support partners through education to truly understand patterns of behavior, routines and creating a strategic care plan that uses procedural memory to help individuals recall habits. When changes in assignment for care are needed, MapHabit individualized mapping tools can reduce the friction and time needed to learn new idiosyncrasies. And because the routines themselves are documented step-by-step, the period to “catch up” on how care is delivered for individuals is significantly reduced.
2. Daily Stim Engagement Toolkit
MapHabit’s Daily Stim is a cognitive engagement program that offers daily content for cognitive, physical, and emotional wellbeing. Each daily activity provides unique content every day broken into three map sessions. This resource is perfect for caregivers and community activity directors. Daily Stim takes the guess work out of your day by delivering evidence-based techniques to extend cognitive function and provide useful activities for the individual(s) in your care.
In the market you can find abundant resources to engage and activate minds of people living with dementia. However abundant these options are, it should be noted that not all interventions are created equal. Additionally, the resources and training needed to ensure people know what to do with the contents or props is lacking. This engagement is not in a prop, but rather the ability of the support partner to be an instrument to deliver the needed meaningful approach.
Aside from providing a kit of the supplies needed for these cognitive exercises, Daily Stim also helps support partners and activity professionals by outlining a three-step method:
Cognitive Stimulation - The interactive portion of the Daily Stim includes a mix of mental acuity games, hands-on puzzles and cognitive activities;\
Stress Reduction - Seated stretches and gentle exercises to awaken the senses;
Emotional Support - Guided practice to boost positivity, mindfulness, and relationship building techniques to promote openness and gratitude.
By using these methods in conjunction with each other through a positive, process driven approach, individuals are cognitively stimulated in more ways than traditional cognitive activities.
3. LiveWell Dementia Training and Wellness Reviews
There are many choices when it comes to dementia training, and many assume that these traditional methods will change behaviors and methods in caregiving. But the truth is, knowledge retention is a problem with traditional dementia training methods and many learners revert to their old processes and methods when they go back to the individuals they support. And with turnover at an all-time high for professional caregivers, how do you make sure that the same quality of care is consistent for the individuals?
With MapHabit’s LiveWell Dementia Training and Wellness Reviews, you can create a solid foundation for your support team as you navigate the complexities of dementia care. How does it work?
Evaluate: Everyone under the support team’s care will go through Wellness Reviews, where the individual’s needs, preferences and capabilities are evaluated to give them the best care possible.
Apply: With the guidance of MapHabit’s experts, caregivers create maps that are developed specifically for the individual’s unique profile on the MapHabit application, based on their Wellness Reviews. Along with LiveWell Dementia Training’s library of learning maps about dementia, the individual’s profile on MapHabit becomes a handbook for everyone on the individual’s support team.
Refine: Current caregivers can continue to modify or adjust these maps as new behaviors and observations emerge during periodic Wellness Reviews. Meanwhile, new caregivers can quickly learn the individual’s routines and habits as they continue to use the MapHabit application.
By creating a dementia training program that is tangible, personalized, and interactive, there is an increase in care partner engagement that leads to improvements in care for the individuals.
Let’s Revolutionize Your Day
Regardless of the setting in which one is receiving care or support MapHabit has created an application and resources with you in mind! The goal and mission are to maximize your time of enjoyable moments and peace with those you care about who are navigating the journey of dementia. Time is a precious resource in this relationship and more minutes should be spent in a state of success; filled with small achievements, achievement of daily goals, calmness and informed care rather than frustration, exhaustion and even tears.