What Dementia Looks Like and Resources to Navigate the Journey Ahead

In this episode of Second Half Conversations, we talk about one of the most difficult and overwhelming realities many families eventually face:

What does dementia actually look like, and where can families turn for help?

Sondra Ziegler is joined by Michelle Pauda, Care Navigator for Ziegler Estate Law Group, and Barbara Singer, Community Outreach & Education Coordinator for the Garrison Institute on Aging at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, for a thoughtful conversation about dementia, caregiving, and the support services available to families navigating this journey.

Together, they discuss the difference between normal aging and dementia, common signs families may begin to notice, and why an early and accurate diagnosis can make such a meaningful difference for both the individual and their loved ones.

The conversation also explores the emotional side of caregiving—including caregiver exhaustion, fear, isolation, and the uncertainty families often feel when trying to make decisions about care, safety, and the future.

Barbara also shares the many resources available through the Garrison Institute on Aging, including caregiver education, support groups, respite programs, memory clinic services, and practical guidance for families who may not know where to begin.

Most importantly, this episode is about helping families feel less alone.
It’s a compassionate conversation about recognizing change, finding support, and navigating dementia with greater clarity, understanding, and care.

Highlights from this episode:
The difference between normal aging and dementia
Common signs and symptoms families may notice early on
Why dementia is an umbrella term for many different conditions
The emotional and practical realities of caregiving
How isolation often impacts both caregivers and individuals with dementia
The importance of early diagnosis and care planning
What the Garrison Institute on Aging offers families in West Texas and beyond
Support groups, respite programs, memory clinic services, and caregiver education resources
Why families should not wait until a crisis to seek help

🎧 Listen now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube.

Creators and Guests

Host

Sondra Ziegler

Executive Director of Ziegler Estate Law Firm

What is Second Half Conversations?

The second half of life can be full of meaningful moments—more time with family, new opportunities, and the freedom to focus on what matters most. At the same time, it often brings important questions about planning, caregiving, relationships, and the future.

So that’s exactly what we talk about.

We'll tackle difficult topics like estate planning and care navigation, strategic aspects of taxes and business succession planning, and the dynamics of relationships and seasons that come with the second half of life.

Because if done right, the second half can be the better half.

Sondra Ziegler: 00:00

Welcome to Second Half Conversations. I'm your host, Sondra Ziegler. This is a space to discuss all kinds of topics about the second half of life, from complicated legal topics like wealth protection and business succession planning that we break down in a practical way, to long term care planning and care navigation when you have a loved one on a care journey, to leaning into fully experiencing new seasons of life, of work and relationships. Our team and guests are here to equip you to take full advantage of where you're at. Because if done right, the second half is the better half. Let's get to it.

Sondra Ziegler: 00:41

We are so glad to have joining us today on Second Half Conversations, Barbara Singer. Barbara is the coordinator and community educator for the Garrison Institute on Aging at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. And also joining us today is our own Michelle Pauda, who is the care navigator for Ziegler Estate Law Group. So, Michelle, welcome again. Barbara.

Michelle Pauda: 01:10

Thank you.

Sondra Ziegler: 01:11

Welcome. We are so glad to have you here today.

Barbara Singer: 01:12

Thank have you for having me.

Sondra Ziegler: 01:15

So for our listeners, just to map out our journey here, I'm hoping, Barbara, that we can talk about dementia, what it is and what it isn't. And also the Garrison Institute on Aging. Like, what is the Garrison Institute? Most of us in West Texas have probably heard of it, but I'm sure that we are not aware of all that it has to offer and all that the Garrison does in our community. What are its programs and support services? All of that good stuff.

Sondra Ziegler: 01:45

And how our listeners can benefit from those services. So before we get started, though, I always like to ask people, how did you get into this line of work in doing what you do for the Garrison, if you don't mind sharing a little bit of that with us.

Barbara Singer: 02:05

No, not at all. Not at all. I moved to Lubbock two and a half years ago from Carson City, Nevada. I lived there forty years, and I was born and raised in the Washington, D. C. Area, so I lived there.

Barbara Singer: 02:20

My mom had six people in her family. Five had dementia. And my grandfather, who at that time it was called senility because the word Alzheimer's had not come out yet at that time. My mom was living in Maryland.

Barbara Singer: 02:35

I was living in Nevada. I was a long distance caregiver. And my sister and I, my sister who lived in Minnesota, we had no clue what we were doing, but we needed to help my mom and her sisters who had dementia. And so we muddled through it, and so we decided that after we figured out what was going on, that's why I'm at Garrison is because I want to help the people who do have dementia and their loved ones and their caregivers because they, so they don't have to go through what my sister and I went through all those years ago. That's my story.

Sondra Ziegler: 03:11

Wow. That is an incredible backstory, to have had that many people in your family have dementia. Also, I'm wondering if you're missing the trees and water that you had in all those places that you lived?

Barbara Singer: 03:32

I'm definitely missing, definitely missing the trees and the mountains, but not the snow. I'm so glad I don't have to shovel anymore. Yep.

Sondra Ziegler: 03:45

Well, and I grew up in Kentucky, so I had trees and water too. But I have to say there are no better people than the people in West Texas. Loved being here. I don't know if that's your experience too, but very, very friendly.

Barbara Singer: 04:02

Very friendly. Very friendly. So I've been with Garrison two years now and I do the education and outreach, for Garrison. And I appreciate you having me on the podcast because that's the hardest part is getting the word out. Because people will say, Well, where were you six months ago when I needed you or a year ago? And I'll go, I'm here. It's just that people don't know about the Garrison Institute on Aging. So any way I have of getting the word out is I very much appreciate it.

Sondra Ziegler: 04:36

Well, we're thrilled to have you because we have quite a number of clients ourselves who have dementia, one form or another of dementia, who they are calling, their spouse's calling, or maybe it's their child, you know, their adult daughter or son who's calling our office because we're an elder law firm as well as estate planning. And so part of our job is to help those families on this journey to figure out what do they need in terms of legal documents and how is it different with that diagnosis, or even not a diagnosis, but you suspect your loved one has dementia, is losing capacity. What do we need to do now in order to protect your assets and your options for care? And we can talk a little bit more about that later. But, so, Michelle, I know before we came on, Michelle was telling you a little bit about what she does.

Sondra Ziegler: 05:41

But, Michelle, could you just share just for our listeners so they will know, what does a caregiver do at a law firm? I mean, a care navigator do at a law firm? Why do we have a care navigator on our staff?

Michelle Pauda: 05:56

Well, a lot of times our clients come in and they're kind of at a loss of where to go. They have a loved one that has dementia or been diagnosed with dementia or they've been caring for them for a while and they're looking for resources or maybe even placement for their loved one. And they don't even sometimes know where to start. And so my job, I've been doing discharge planning for over twenty years. And so my job is to kind of guide them based on their needs and their family's needs and just kind of see what would be the best thing for their loved one.

Michelle Pauda: 06:31

The first place, the best, you know, if they need resources at home, just kind of going through how we can keep them at home if that's what they choose and with supportive services.

Sondra Ziegler: 06:46

So picking up on what Michelle was saying about her role as a care navigator in our firm, from our perspective, before Michelle arrived, we just had a missing part of the planning, Barbara. So when a, let's say it's a daughter, calls our office and, you know, mom has had a diagnosis of some form of dementia, they know they're going to have a care journey. We don't know how long that journey is going to be and what the steps are going to be along the way, but we know that there's a care journey ahead. Mom's going to need increasing amounts of care most likely throughout the rest of her life. And so, that family would come and sit around our conference room table.

Sondra Ziegler: 07:41

And we did a fantastic job of looking at their, what legal documents do they already have in place, if they have any legal documents in place, which of those need to be redone now that dementia is in the picture. Because especially if it's a married couple, if mom is married and her spouse is still living, then, you know, not only her documents need to be redone, a lot of times her spouse's documents need to be redone because she's probably named in her spouse's documents as a power of attorney, as a financial power of attorney, as a medical power of attorney, as potentially an executor if that person passes away in their will, maybe a trustee in a trust. So all of those roles will have to be re examined, and most likely someone else will have to be named. But even beyond just changing who's named in their existing estate planning, a lot of times, if we're doing benefits planning, so if this family is going to need Medicaid to help pay for some long term care in the future, then we're going to be taking a look at their asset picture to see if they could qualify.

Sondra Ziegler: 08:54

If their assets aren't situated right now such that they could qualify? Could they? Are there things we can do under the rules to get them there? So, all that to say, if we're doing benefits planning, the estate planning has to be coordinated with that. We want to make sure that if there's benefits, applications that we're looking at to help pay for this care, that their estate planning handles their assets in such a way that they're not going to be disqualified at some point in the future, even if we get them eligible right now.

Sondra Ziegler: 09:31

Because if we don't coordinate with the estate planning, sometimes the person who's needing care who becomes eligible for Medicaid can inherit assets if their spouse passes first, and they'll then be disqualified. They'll lose their benefits. So there's a lot that goes to it. We were good at that. We were very good at looking at the asset picture and the legal documents and making that all work together and helping them get qualified for benefits.

Sondra Ziegler: 10:02

But what we couldn't do, our attorneys, our paralegals, we didn't know how to help them make these care decisions. And so that is a crucial piece of this because so often we would see by the time people came to our office, the caregivers were exhausted. They were beyond exhausted. And they just, it, they just needed help with the mental load that making decisions about care that you don't really know how to make. They're not medical professionals usually.

Sondra Ziegler: 10:41

They've never walked this road before. So they didn't know what the choices are and how to make a good choice and where their loved one is and is likely to be in the future. So that's that's a very long winded way of saying we are so glad to have Michelle part of our team now because she's a part of that team with the attorney and the paralegal helping the families navigate this journey. So, okay. So let's get into a discussion.

Sondra Ziegler: 11:12

I would like to find out before we talk more about what the Garrison has to offer, because I know it's quite a bit. Let's just do kind of a basic, let's provide our listeners with a basic understanding of what is dementia, what isn't it, and as we get into this, I do want to give a little disclaimer. This podcast is not meant to provide medical advice specifically for our listeners in terms of their particular situation, nor legal advice. This is educational purpose only. So if you think your loved one has dementia, we definitely would point you in the direction of your medical professional to get that diagnosis.

Sondra Ziegler: 11:56

So with that little disclaimer, what can you tell us, Barbara, about what dementia is?

Barbara Singer: 12:03

Well, dementia is the umbrella, is an easy way to explain it. And under the umbrella of dementia is all the different types, like Alzheimer's, which is the most one that everybody has heard about. But there's also Lewy body dementia, frontotemporal dementia. There's Parkinson's dementia. There's mixed dementia where there's different types of dementia, all different types of dementia.

Barbara Singer: 12:28

It's just like the umbrella of cancer, all different types of cancer underneath. It's the same idea for dementia. It's just that everybody thinks of Alzheimer's because that's the one that's most known. But each dementia is different. The symptoms are different.

Barbara Singer: 12:45

The part of the brain that is affected is what determines what type of dementia that you have. So we need to try and figure out what type of dementia you have so we can do, the medication may be different, the treatment may be different. So that's why we try and figure out. And that's part of our memory clinic, is determining all these pieces of the puzzle that we do. For example, we might do an MRI.

Barbara Singer: 13:15

We might do, more cognitive testing. We might do blood work. And then we talk to the loved ones, the family. We work with, the entire family, not just the person with dementia. And we, find out what's going on at your home. What's happening? What are your loved one doing? And then from all those pieces of the puzzle, we put it together and can kind of figure out what type of dementia the person has. And that way it's easier to do a care plan for them.

Sondra Ziegler: 13:50

That is so valuable. What are some of the... understanding now that it is multiple conditions really, dementia is an umbrella term. What are some of the most common things that people may see in their loved one who has dementia of different types? Like, what are some of the things they might be looking for, or maybe seeing right now?

Barbara Singer: 14:16

There is short term memory loss, okay? You can't ask them what they had for breakfast. They won't remember. You can ask them what they did thirty years ago or what movie they watched or things like that. They can remember way back, but their short term memory is pretty much gone.

Barbara Singer: 14:35

So that's why the questions that are going on now are very, very difficult. They probably will not be able to answer. They may not, driving is a big issue with people with dementia. They may have fender benders. They may get lost going to the grocery store, the one that they've been to for years, or going someplace that they go to eat.

Barbara Singer: 14:58

They might not know how to get there or they might get lost coming home. You might find bills all piled up and they're not paying their electric bill or their gas bill or things like that. And so you need to go through their mail and see what is going on, if they do a checkbook or make sure payments are made. They may not be able to do living skills. Maybe they don't remember to brush their teeth.

Barbara Singer: 15:26

They might not remember how to take a shower or a bath, or they don't do it as often as they should, or change their clothes. They might wear the same outfit every day. Does that give you an idea? Now, one thing I will tell you, there is normal aging and then there's dementia. Normal aging, I'm 75 years old and I still sometimes forget where did I put my keys, but I can backtrack where I was and I can figure out where my keys are because I know what I did when I came in the door at home and where I put them, but it takes me a few minutes longer.

Barbara Singer: 16:03

Or I can backtrack and say, Well, I was in the bathroom, then I was in the laundry room, then, Oh, I was in the kitchen, and that's where I put them on the kitchen counter. But a person with dementia can't do that backtracking because of the short term memory loss. Does that make sense? That makes sense. That way, and with normal aging, yes, I can't multitask anymore, but that doesn't mean I have dementia.

Barbara Singer: 16:29

I may lose my keys, but that does not mean I have dementia. So you have to kind of balance it out, what's happening in your life. And it may take me longer to come up with an answer of somebody's name, but it'll come back, but it'll take me a little bit longer. So you have to see that there is normal aging and then there's dementia. Dementia is a lot more, they may not, a person with dementia may not remember their husband or wife or their children, adult children or grandchildren.

Barbara Singer: 17:00

They may not remember their names. Some of those types of, does that answer your question?

Sondra Ziegler: 17:06

I think so. I'm glad to hear you say that about normal aging, because I'm only 54, and I don't remember some people's names as quickly. Just don't as I used to. Can just already see that. So that makes me wonder, Michelle, in the work that you do and have done in all different levels of long term care in your career, a side note, that's another reason Michelle was perfect for our care navigator position because she's worked in home care and assisted living and nursing homes and also as a hospital discharge planner.

Sondra Ziegler: 17:40

She knows that whole continuum. But do you think of any other typical examples in addition to the ones that Barbara named? I know covered it pretty well, but in terms of things that you might see.

Michelle Pauda: 17:53

Like she was saying, a lot of times you'll notice that they're sometimes wearing clothing that's not appropriate for the weather or they're not doing their laundry and so their clothes is soiled. They might not be grooming anymore, fixing their hair and shaving and those kinds of just their appearance changes along with the other things that dementia can bring. But just things that they normally were, that is important to them daily, they're not doing those things anymore.

Barbara Singer: 18:28

And they don't wanna go out. Like no social contact. They don't do the hobbies they used to do. They don't visit their friends that they used to visit. They're just more of sitting at home on the couch. And that's the worst part. People with dementia and people, older people need to socialize. And that's really important. Socialization is very, very important.

Michelle Pauda: 18:55

And I think sometimes I've noticed that they don't like to because they're afraid someone's gonna ask them a question that they don't know. Yes. And so they'd rather just stay at home and not have to be, you know, answering those questions and kind of getting embarrassed by not knowing, not remembering anymore.

Sondra Ziegler: 19:14

Yeah, that was gonna be my question is if some of that is because of fear really of people finding out how much they've declined or that they can't remember things that, you know, they would be expected to.

Barbara Singer: 19:30

They lose their friends because the friends don't know. They think, I don't know what to say to them. I don't know how to act around them. So they don't come around anymore. So they don't go out for coffee anymore. The friends need to be on, It's okay. You can go out and have coffee still, whether the person has dementia or not. They still need to socialize. They still can talk. They still, you know? That's a big sad part of it, is they lose their friends.

Sondra Ziegler: 20:03

Yes. Barbara, tell us what the Garrison Institute on Aging is. What are the parts of it, the main parts of it? And what are the programs and support services that you provide? Let's take with, Let's take that first question first. What is the Garrison?

Barbara Singer: 20:26

Garrison is part of Texas Tech Health Sciences Center, and we're just part of that. And we have different sections. One is located on 4th Street at the Health Science Campus, and that is our brain bank. We ask if people can donate their brains to us, and we do research on those brains to help with diagnosis, to help with learning how to find different yeah, so that's low we have that.

Sondra Ziegler: 20:57

Okay, when you said brain bank, I thought you just meant like sort of, this is where all the really hard science goes on. But no, you mean they have brains.

Barbara Singer: 21:08

No, no. This is where you, you donate your brain and it doesn't matter if you have dementia or not. We have all, because that's where the researchers are. The people who do all the research for us are at the Health Science Campus on 4th Street. And we ask people if they will, we have a person that's in charge of that, will help you get through the paperwork and everything of donating your brain to us for research purposes.

Barbara Singer: 21:36

And it can be a person who doesn't have dementia or a person who does have dementia. And by doing that helps us with our research. So we have that. And then I'm located at 6630 Quaker Avenue. It's Quaker in the Loop. We are not at facility that's on 4th Street.

Sondra Ziegler: 21:59

Okay, I've seen where you are though, I think.

Barbara Singer: 22:05

Quaker in the Loop is how I say it, because when I first came here, everybody thought I was working at the facility on 4th Street, but no, we don't have a connection with them. So that's where the Garrison is located. We do education. So we have a support group. We have Care Partner Academy where we do different topics.

Barbara Singer: 22:31

In March, we're going to have a person talk about balance, which is really important for people who are older. It doesn't have to have dementia, just everybody. You don't want to fall. So this is balance and prevention of falling. Last month, we did, Is my loved one ready to go to a facility? And if so, what do I do? Where do I start so people don't know where to start? So we did that last month. We've done communication. We have all these different workshops.

Barbara Singer: 23:03

They're for one hour, the second Tuesday of the month. So the first Tuesday of the month, which is our support group, the Care Partner Academy. Then we have a grief group for people who have lost their loved ones to dementia. It's a group just for them. And then we have Healthy Partners, which is located at the Winsong Building at Carillon where we have specialists that come in like we've had a cardiologist, a nutritionist that come in and talk about aging in general.

Barbara Singer: 23:35

And all of these sessions are recorded, both Care Partners and Healthy Aging. Everything is free and we do record it's on Zoom. So if you can't get out of your house because your loved one, you can't leave your loved one, it's on Zoom and we're also recorded. So if you can't, you can watch it at a later time and we have a QR code that you can go to and I have all that information if you need it. So we have those programs.

Barbara Singer: 24:03

We have, you're talking respite for caregivers. They need to get away from their loved ones. They do. And so we have a respite program that's free, Creative Minds, Tuesdays and Thursdays from one to four And they do recreational activities at the Garrison Institute on Aging and do all kinds of programs with the people with dementia so that their loved one can go out and do whatever they want for free. So that's free. So we have that. We do Dementia Live! Which is a simulation of what it's like to have dementia. And I think that's really important. We do that with families.

Barbara Singer: 24:42

We also do it as training with facilities so that they can see what I always wondered, what is my mom thinking? What is it like to have dementia? This is a simulation where you actually do things, do chores, with headphones that are making noise, goggles for that, because some people with dementia don't have peripheral vision, they have tunnel vision. So we put goggles on you, we put headphones on you, we put gloves on you, because people don't have that tactile feeling. And then we give you chores to do like button a shirt. That is really hard for people with dementia because they can't feel the buttons.

Sondra Ziegler: 25:21

Oh, absolutely.

Barbara Singer: 25:22

You give them chores to do, and then, we give you about seven minutes to do them. Then afterward, we talk about it. How did it feel? So that then you better know, you will know better how to work with your loved one, or if you're in a facility, how to get the people that you're working with. Maybe to get them changed, maybe you want to get them changed out of their clothes for put on pajamas or vice versa.

Barbara Singer: 25:48

So it helps them know what's the best way to, work with people with dementia. So those are a lot of our programs that we have. We're always adding more, but our main one is the memory clinic. Our memory clinic, we will if you haven't been diagnosed, we will have a diagnosis. We do neurocognitive testing.

Barbara Singer: 26:14

We work with a geriatric psychiatrist who works with you. We do the testing. And then we do a care plan. We do, so that we're working with the whole family to, provide. We have a care navigator such as what Michelle does who you can call on the phone and have questions like, I don't know what to do because my husband's sundowning.

Barbara Singer: 26:38

You can call and find out. So we do offer that. That's our memory clinic. And then if the person with dementia has Medicare A and B, Medicare provides a program called the Guide Program, which offers more services for the person with dementia. So it provides a twenty four hour helpline.

Barbara Singer: 27:03

We have a $2500 credit for respite a year for Home Instead, where care partner can go out and do what they want, and they have $2,500 a year where they can go spend with Home Instead.

Sondra Ziegler: 27:20

That's fantastic.

Barbara Singer: 27:22

So we have, I'm just giving you a real short, trying to be short, not going to a lot of detail.

Sondra Ziegler: 27:27

That's a lot, no, that's fabulous.

Barbara Singer: 27:30

The things that we're offering, I mean, we're like two or three months out at the most for appointments. If you went to Dallas or someplace, you're waiting a year.

Sondra Ziegler: 27:40

Oh my.

Barbara Singer: 27:40

And if you want, we service, today a lady came from Albuquerque to come to the clinic. In New Mexico, we have people coming from Amarillo. We're starting to move into some helping in Amarillo now from all over West Texas and New Mexico. We do have a lot of people. The need is there.

Sondra Ziegler: 28:09

Yes, the need is great and we know that it's growing. You know, that the incidence of dementia is expected to grow quite a bit the next, know, thirty years.

Sondra Ziegler: 28:24

It's supposed to grow really exponentially. So I can imagine those services would be just a godsend really to families who have a loved one who are struggling with dementia. I wanted to focus on the, well, first of all, the support services. So the, the support group, because I, because I heard you say, there's support services, but there's also caregiving educational information that's a different session. So support service separate from the educational component of how to be a better caregiver in the support sessions.

Sondra Ziegler: 29:07

Tell me about what those look like. If I have a loved one who has dementia, what can I expect at one of those meetings?

Barbara Singer: 29:16

The support group is for people whose loved ones do have dementia, and that's the place to it's a support group. It's for people to be able to talk to someone who knows what you're going through. They're walking through the same shoes as you are. It's a person that knows so they can sometimes you find different ways to, like, I don't know how to deal with sundowning. So someone in the group might say, Have you tried something?

Barbara Singer: 29:50

So they suggest different ways to handle situations because, talking to your friends is wonderful but they don't understand. They think your loved one looks wonderful because a person with dementia looks perfectly fine. I mean, they're going to say, Why are you complaining? But a person, when you go to a support group, they understand what it's like to live twenty four hours a day with someone with dementia. Having the same question asked over and over and over again.

Barbara Singer: 30:21

What do I do? How do I handle this? So I also do a support group at Carillon the second Thursday of the month through the Alzheimer's Association and it's like people are learning from each other and they're helping each other. We cry together, we laugh together, we have fun, but we also try and help each other.

Sondra Ziegler: 30:48

That's priceless, really.

Barbara Singer: 30:50

I totally believe in support groups. When I was in Nevada, I had two support groups for ten years and it becomes a family. It really does. And they're able to help each other through all of the trauma that happens at home where they can't talk about it to everyone. We also have, if they want to do a one on one, some things you don't want to talk about to a group, we have Texas Cares, which can be done on the Zoom or telemed, where you can talk one on one to counselor and get some therapy help. And those programs, all the education ones are free. The memory clinic does have a copay depending on your insurance.

Sondra Ziegler: 31:37

So tell me a little bit more about the memory clinic because number one, how hard is it to get in? How long does it take to get into the memory clinic? Is that what you were referring to when you were saying?

Barbara Singer: 31:49

Yes.

Sondra Ziegler: 31:49

Three months? Or six? Did you, is that, am I right about that? Three months. Yeah, exactly.

Sondra Ziegler: 31:55

So that's really not bad. And then to, to have that comprehensive diagnosis is just huge. Because, you know, we don't want to be taking medication that has been just prescribed by your family doctor with no more specific diagnosis, you know, then, you know, maybe they'll assume it's Alzheimer's. I'm not saying there's not that family practitioners can't know a lot about dementia, but you really want people who deal with this day in and day out, specialists, to pinpoint what of dementia your loved one's struggling with. So tell us a little bit about who is involved as far as experts in the memory clinic that's helping make these determinations.

Barbara Singer: 32:47

We have a geriatric psychiatrist, a neurologist, a clinical psychologist, a speech pathologist. We have, that are all experts in the field of dementia. And you know what? We don't take the patient away from their doctors. We work with their doctor.

Barbara Singer: 33:08

What we do is we ask for a referral and we ask for any kind of medical information. If they've done an MRI or blood work, we don't want to repeat it. Want to get the results. We want to get the results. Then we work with them.

Barbara Singer: 33:23

And then once we have all of the information and we've made a care plan and a diagnosis and everything, we send everything back to that doctor, that physician, or that neurologist, or whoever they've seen and, come to us for. Because even the neurologist, I'm not saying anything against them, but they make a diagnosis of dementia and that's their bailiwick, okay? But we come in after that and tell you how to live with that diagnosis of dementia. Do you know what I mean?

Sondra Ziegler: 33:55

That's that, yes, that's that, Now what? piece.

Barbara Singer: 33:57

We carry it further. We carry it further than what the neurologist or the PCP would do. They have a limited amount of time. They have a limited amount that they can give in terms of resources. That's where we come in as the resource part of it.

Barbara Singer: 34:14

But we would never take anyone away from their regular doctors. We work with everyone. And one thing I didn't say was, do you know, even if you come to memory clinic and we find out that you don't, you do the screening and everything and you might not have dementia, but we've set a baseline. So the earlier they get in, the better. We can set a baseline and this is how you are today And this six months from now or a year from now, and they come back, we can say, here's how you've changed from here to here.

Sondra Ziegler: 34:48

For our listeners who may be hearing this and thinking, I want to get my mother in, you know, at the Garrison Institute at the memory clinic for this comprehensive diagnosis and care plan. How do they go about doing that? Do they, do you only take people on referral from their primary care physician, or can they contact the Garrison directly to make that appointment?

Barbara Singer: 35:14

You can contact us. The number is [phone] is the memory clinic. We will talk to you and if you can't get a referral from your doctor, we'll help you do it. We'll help you get the referral. Sometimes it's difficult and people have trouble getting a referral.

Barbara Singer: 35:37

We'll help you, but we do ask you can call us first, make an appointment because the appointment takes time to get your medical records sent to us with a referral, but you can call us and we will help you with that. That would be the best way is to call and yeah, to get an appointment.

Sondra Ziegler: 35:57

So if, tell us, as far as your other services, if you are someone listening to this who would like to take part in the caregiver support group or the caregiver education sessions that you've described or the grief support session that you have described. How would I find out about those? I know you mentioned that those are available by Zoom if people get out, which is a common problem when you're helping care for a loved one who has dementia. Can we go to your website and find the links to those meetings that are recorded or have, I guess, the ones that are upcoming, maybe a video link if they have a live one, or the recorded ones that have already happened?

Barbara Singer: 36:50

Yeah, you can go to our website or I'll give you my phone number and I can email everything to you. We have it all, so it can be emailed out. My phone number is [phone]. And if you leave me a message if I'm not there, I work part time, but I will call you back and I will email you anything you want. If you don't have the email, I will make copies and put it through the regular mail for you so you can watch it or watch one of our upcoming or one of the past videos that we have because that's our whole idea is to help.

Barbara Singer: 37:31

We want to find out what people need. What do caregivers need? How can we help? I mean, we can design beautiful programs, but if it's not what you need, you know, that's part of what we do is trying to figure out what everybody and we like to hear from the caregivers and find out what's good for them.

Sondra Ziegler: 37:54

Well, Barbara, it's clear to me that you enjoy what you do, helping families who are walking this journey. And it's a much needed role that you play. And I hope that we can help in some way get the word out through this podcast, because that's a tremendous resource. Garrison is a tremendous resource, and we're really blessed to have it in West Texas. So, thank you so much for coming on today and giving us all this great information and how to find it. We appreciate you.

Barbara Singer: 38:30

And thank you. Thank you both so much, and thank you, Michelle, for everything you're doing to help these people because they really appreciate, I know everyone appreciates what you do.

Michelle Pauda: 38:41

Well, thank you. I appreciate that.

Barbara Singer: 38:44

So thank you. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to call.

Sondra Ziegler: 38:48

A quick reminder that today's conversation is for educational purposes only. It is not meant to be legal advice because to give you legal advice, we need to meet with you and know your specific situation. Thanks again for joining us today for this conversation and remember to make the second half the best half.