On February 1 --  despite the start of yet another snow storm! -- a lovely group of professionals gathered to hear Paul Raia, PhD of the Massachusetts Alzheimers Association speak to the Metro West Alzheimers Partnership, hosted at Traditions of Wayland, MA. This was primarily a Q&A session -- what types of questions did we need help answering for ourselves, patients and families?

It was a real treat to have an opportunity for such a free-ranging discussion with Dr. Raia, who is both a delight as a human being, and a master source for such information. Also, it was a chance for group brainstorming of common challenges, gathering the experience and wisdom of all the professionals in the room -- which added together among the 40 or so of us was probably most of the way to the 1,000-year mark!

I can't say enough about how such peer-to-peer sessions are an important addition to any professional's work.  While that was my first meeting with this local partnership (partnerships are local working groups with the Alzheimers Association -- here is the list of partnerships in MA), it certainly will not be my last -- the Metrowest Area Partnership is beautifully organized and has really high-quality offerings at their meetings.

For those for whom Dr. Raia's name is not familiar, he deserves some introduction. Following that, I will list about four things I thought were vital take-aways from the session.

Paul Raia, PhD (photo at right) is an innovator along many dimensions in the field of dementia. He's been directing patient care and family support at the Alzheimer’s Association over 20 years, and now serves as vice president of clinical programs at the MA/NH Chapter. He developed the "Habilitation Therapy" approach to dementia which focuses on the patient’s emotions and their remaining capacities -- which is an approach we very much support and use at Caring Companion. He started the first support group in the US for early-stage patients, and the first support group for young children with parents or grandparents who have Alzheimer's. Many of his projects have become best-practice models and have been replicated nationally. Spending a morning with him, I saw how his enormous clinical experience and expertise clearly shone through, as did his great warmth, compassion and understanding.  This is a very special man, and if you have the chance to hear him speak, I recommend you snap it up immediately.

Here are the four important take-aways I want to talk about here; these I'll post more about each of these in coming days:

1. Four things that slow down Alzheimer's progress in the early stages (discussed here)
2. The dementia diagnostic process: is it important that patients go through it? What does it involve? (discussed here)
3. Depression and dementia (discussed here)
4. Two books he recommends most for families to read (discussed here)