Rotary to host caregiver training for Alzheimer’s, dementia

TORRINGTON – Those who suffer from Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of age-related dementia are not their only victims.
Even as the disease essentially robs its sufferers of themselves, it also takes a heavy toll on the people who care for them. Now, a group of local Rotarians is hoping a pilot training program being launched this month will offer better levels of understanding to the community and, eventually, some brief respite for those often overtaxed caregivers.
Tom Kelly, past president of the Noon Rotary Club in Torrington, and a group of his fellow Rotarians have purchased access to an online program from a Minnesota group called HealthCare Interactive. Formed in 1997, the group provides a wide range of Alzheimer’s- and dementia-care training to groups and organizations around the country.
The initiative to bring the training to Goshen County was undertaken by a smaller group, all Rotarians, who started what they’re calling a Satellite Rotary Club to serve members who couldn’t attend the regular noon meetings of the larger group, Kelly said. Several members of the group have been impacted by Alzheimer’s through parents, friends or acquaintances and decided to embrace what they saw as the need for better understanding and information in the county, he said.
“It just seems like so many members of our society, if they don’t have a family member (suffering from Alzheimer’s or dementia), they know of someone who does,” Kelly said. “That’s why we tackled this project.”

Kelly spearheaded the plan, with the help of fellow Rotarians Danielle Wondercheck, Michel Traher, Ellen Burbank and Melissa Miller. The group received assistance from the Goshen County Economic Development Corporation in the form of funding through proceeds from the GCEDC end-of-year banquet. That allowed them to purchase software licensing from HCI, which they will be making available to the general public, free of charge, Kelly said.
The training will be offered two ways, he said. Starting at 10 a.m. on March 28, the group will host hour-long training sessions at the Senior Friendship Center in Torrington. The sessions will cover topics ranging from the basics of dementia to behavior relating to dementia and end-of-life care.
For those who can’t attend the weekly, Tuesday sessions, Kelly and the group will make available online access so people can take the training at home, at their own pace. Each individual module is several hours long. Training volunteers, regardless of whether they attend the sessions or study at home, must complete each module before the program will allow them to advance to the next.
Providing this training goes part and parcel with the overall Rotary International mission to provide service to the community, Kelly said. Given the aging population in eastern Wyoming and Goshen County, this seemed like the best way the Torrington group could fulfill that charge.
“We decided to tackle Alzheimer’s and dementia,” Kelly said. “We thought this was the best way for the community, not only to get the club involved, but to get the whole community involved.”
At the end of the course, participants will be certified as volunteer Alzheimer’s and dementia caregivers, Kelly said. That will give them the training and skills needed to offer their services to families caring for someone in their home suffering from dementia.
Oftentimes, the family members providing care suffer as much as the person they’re caring for, he said.
“With this training, we’ll have so many people who could volunteer, who could go out and help give caregivers and hour or a two hour break,” he said. “That would be a benefit to the person who has (Alzheimer’s) as well as the person taking care of these people.
“We had a couple of members who work in the Alzheimer’s unit at Goshen Care,” Kelly said. “We saw a need for this that wasn’t being met. What better way than going out and training people, making people aware of it, so they can keep the patients at home as long as possible.”
For more information, contact Kelly at (307) 532-3018 or (307) 532-3401.