LONGMEADOW –  The Longmeadow Council On Aging Director Jim Leyden is teaming up with the Community Relations Director at Ruth’s House Assisted Living Maryanne Shelb as well as the Program Coordinator with the Alzheimer’s Association Springfield Chapter Heather Jaggadowski in an effort to make Longmeadow a Dementia-Friendly community.

At the Sept. 18 Select Board meeting the three met with the board to discuss the process of becoming a Dementia-Friendly community and the benefits to implementing this program.

“Literally, there are four phases.  We convene, we engage, we analyze and we act. Currently right now we’re in the middle of analyzing and engaging, we want to know, how aware do we feel the community is?  How much training do we feel is necessary?  When and how do we begin?” Shelb continued, “There’s 4,498 residents in Longmeadow age 60 and over.  In my community alone, in our assisted living, there’s six residents in their 70’s in our secure, locked, dementia unit, and we have three residents under 70.”

Jaggadowski offered statistics of the United States in regard to how the country and state measure up to Alzheimer’s.

“In the United States alone, more than 5 million people live with Alzheimer’s disease, someone develops Alzheimer’s disease every 66 seconds.  It’s the sixth leading cause of death in the United States.  A goal of the Alzheimer’s Association will be that within three years the state of Massachusetts will be the first dementia-friendly state within the United States,” Jaggadowski added. 

“There are 21 towns that are going to become certified, and we’re hoping that this town will be one of them.”

Shelb offered a hypothetical situation, where someone could be in the grocery store line and they notice the person in front of them is confused and doesn’t understand why they need to pay for their groceries.  She proposed that being dementia-friendly, another person in line would be able to recognize the signs of dementia and be more compassionate and patient with this person.

“It is something that we should become more and more aware of, because it makes this a happier place to be.  If we become dementia-friendly, it’s something where people aren’t afraid to be here and or stay here if there’s a diagnosis,” Shelb said.

In January there will be a kickoff where Director of the Dementia-Friendly Massachusetts Chapter Emily Kearns will be speaking.

“It’s a great program clearly,” Select Board Vice Chair Mark Gold said.

Shelb made it known that they are not asking for monetary funds, only town support and the spread of awareness.

“We would also be asking for town departments to be supportive of the initiative when it comes to certain trainings or any types of presentations that we might have, it would be good to include all of the town departments for the buy-in of this project including restaurants and local business owners.  It’s definitely a collaboration from everybody within town to really educate and bring awareness,” Leyden said. “It is going to take a partnership within the town.”

In order for the town to become dementia-friendly, the town will have ongoing training that educates the departments.

“There’s just certain goals to meet regarding education, and the education is free, the Alzheimer’s Association recently rolled out a program for educating police officers.  They’re looking at educating firefighters and EMT’s and other professionals in the community to recognize the signs of someone having dementia, the one thing about this disease is that it doesn’t discriminate,” Jaggadowski said.

Area towns that are also working on the dementia-friendly initiative include Agawam, Westfield, South Hadley, Ludlow and West Springfield