CareYaya Health Technologies

The 3-Minute Routine That Shuts Down PAIN - my interview w Dr. Laura Porter at Duke. Your loved one may be in serious pain RIGHT NOW - and you'd never know it. The 3 am wake-ups, the agitation, the aggression everyone calls "dementia behavior"? A Duke pain scientist says a lot of it isn't behavior at all - it's untreated pain nobody has named. I sat down with Dr. Laura Porter, Professor of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at Duke University and a leading expert on how families manage pain together. She's spent 20+ years studying pain in arthritis, cancer, back pain, and dementia, and what she told me changed how I think about caregiving households. Pain severity is NOT reliably tied to the damage on a scan. Two people can have identical X-rays and wildly different lives. Dr. Porter walks through gate control theory - pain signals get filtered through "gates" in the spinal cord that widen or narrow depending on tension, mood, activity, sleep, and self-talk. And it means there are FAR more levers than a pill. We also get into what nobody warns caregivers about: some of the most loving things you do may make pain worse. Taking over chores, urging them to lie down or asking "how's your pain?" fifteen times a day. Around the 18-minute mark, Dr. Porter guides a one-minute relaxation exercise live on camera. I told her I suspected it'd be the most replayed moment of the episode. BOOKMARK IT! 60 seconds, and you can do it even while waiting at a traffic light. If you're caring for someone with dementia who can't tell you what hurts, the PAINAD segment is essential. Five observable signs, free to look up, and most families have never heard of it. https://lnkd.in/ebAuu-wv

My latest article in TIME. I hope this is the way we can honor Dolly's legacy. ❤️ Please take a quick read - and let me know what you think! Thanks Devi Lockwood! https://lnkd.in/epcktJst

I wanted to share a fascinating conversation I had recently, that may interest anyone who has a loved one with dementia, or is simply worried about their own memory. There were SEVERAL things that surprised me, and that's a lot as I've been working in dementia care for years. 1. The #1 reason families move a parent into a care facility isn't memory loss, but SLEEP. That's what finally breaks family caregivers. 2. Your brain scan can LIE to you. Dr. Shifali Singh, PhD had a patient come in totally devastated after a high-end clinic told them they'd lost 60% of their hippocampus. She gave them neuropsych testing - and they were completely fine. What if the most accurate tools we have for brain health aren't imaging, but testing how the brain ACTUALLY performs? 3. Almost 2 out of 3 people diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment NEVER go on to develop full dementia. A third even revert to baseline entirely. She told me about a patient she'd diagnosed with MCI, who asked if he could still travel to Spain. She said "go". A year later she removed the diagnosis. No drugs - just walking, eating well, routine, and social contact with people. There's a lot more we cover in the interview (below). Dr. Singh and I met through the Johns Hopkins Artificial Intelligence Collaboratory for Aging Research and the a2 Collective | a2PilotAwards.ai, a program supported by the National Institute on Aging (NIA) that funds independently-led projects from people trying to improve care for older Americans. Dr. Singh is a Harvard neuropsychologist who runs the Digital Neuropsychology and Brain Health Lab at Mass General Brigham's McLean Hospital. I came at it as a dementia caregiving researcher and CEO of CareYaya. Since then, I'm pleased to say that we've teamed up on several projects to make cognitive screening more accessible for millions of rural Americans. Roughly 40% of our country sits in a neurology desert. Our work on using speech, just how you describe your day, to flag cognitive change is some of the most promising that I've seen for closing that gap. There's a lot more in the full conversation that I'm still thinking about. Why she says the most dangerous stretch for your brain is the year or two right after retirement, and it has nothing to do with aging. Why brain-training games probably aren't doing what you hope. The one free habit she'd have every single person start this week. And the question that a room of 60 Harvard undergrads answered in a way that totally stopped her. Full episode below. If you know someone caring for an aging parent, or someone quietly worried about their own memory, please share this or repost it. Most of the fear around dementia comes from not knowing what's actually true. I hope conversation fixes some of that. ❤️ Peter Abadir Rose Li Stephen Liu Rama Chellappa Alexis Battle Vivien C.le Vivien C. https://lnkd.in/eqdR75kN

You can lower YOUR risk of dementia by 45%! Share this with anyone you know that could benefit, a friend or a family member, or someone concerned about their loved ones. ❤️ A simple list of 14 modifiable risk factors hiding in your everyday life.. An expert panel in The Lancet concluded that NEARLY HALF of all dementia cases worldwide could be prevented with lifestyle modifications. One of them is SO *overlooked* it might literally be sitting unused in a drawer in your home right now. Also covering brand-new studies on coffee, ultra-processed food, vitamin B12... and a *jaw-dropping* psilocybin case study... translating the science into steps your family can take right now. Specifically covered: - The Lancet Commission's stunning finding: 45% of dementia cases could be prevented, and the 14 risk factors that hold the key - Why hearing loss is the single BIGGEST, most overlooked dementia risk factor, AND how hearing aids ALONE can cut your risk of cognitive decline by 50% - The UC San Diego study of 17,000 adults revealing that WOMEN are FAR MORE at risk of dementia, and why MOST prevention advice was never designed for them - The surprising truth about coffee, ultra-processed food, and the supplement aisle (and what's just expensive noise!!) - The psilocybin Alzheimer's case study lighting up every group chat right now For too long, I think we've treated dementia like a "coin flip" that's buried in your genes - something that either happens to you or it doesn't. The latest science says that is mostly, maybe completely, WRONG. Share this with someone you love. It may be the most important 15 minutes you give them this month. ❤️ https://lnkd.in/eGNYYATu

Is the federal government quietly laying the groundwork to pay for caregiving? My thoughts on the latest Senate proposal a few days ago - that the media totally missed - and what may happen with caregiving policy in America. What do you think? https://lnkd.in/eGXdsCfe

YOU can literally speak up for better dementia detection. Up to 76% of dementia cases are caught too late, or never caught at all... and YOU can help us change that, with ONLY 15 minutes of your time! In my years of helping caregivers, I've seen that far too many families do not get answers until their loved one's memory loss has become a CRISIS. Rural communities lack access to specialty care and screening. But, what if a simple VOICE conversation could help change that? We're launching the world's first FREE voice AI-powered cognitive screening tools, built by CareYaya and the Digital Neuropsychology Lab at Mass General / Harvard in collaboration with researchers Shifali Singh, PhD and Vivien C. and our own Maggie X. and Gavry Eshet. It's a groundbreaking research effort exploring how everyday speech patterns may help track brain health. The first phase explores whether short, phone-based voice AI check-ins can help make cognitive screening more accessible, especially for older adults, rural families, and the caregivers who often carry the burden silently. Participation is simple: * 15 minutes per day, 7 days * Done by phone call, at your convenience * No clinic visit required * $100 gift card as a "Thank You!" for your participation * Learn more or join here: https://lnkd.in/e4vmtSPk I think the future of dementia care will not just be built in hospitals and labs... it NEEDS to be accessible at kitchen tables, in living rooms, on the phones that people already use.. WITH the voices of the families who know how urgent this problem really is. ❤️ Dementia steals people's voices.. maybe one way we fight back is by listening sooner. If you are (or know) an older adult, a caregiver, or simply someone who wants to help advance early detection in dementia care, this is a small way to contribute to something that could matter for millions of families. You can help build the next generation of dementia screening. Please repost or share so others can participate in research that can change the world for millions of older adults and family caregivers! ❤️ CareYaya Health Technologies x Digital Neuropsychology & Brain Health Laboratory

My latest in U.S. News & World Report. When Bruce Willis received his dementia diagnosis, the doctor handed his wife Emma a pamphlet and told her to come back in a few months. She said she walked out of that office feeling *completely alone*. I've heard that exact sentence from caregivers that I talk to every single week. As someone who became a caregiver in my mid-30s, I also lived it myself. The slow realization that no one is coming to hand you a roadmap. There are 63 million family caregivers in America right now. Most of them got the same pamphlet, and they are all *improvising* a safety net, one day at a time. Emma's new memoir "The Unexpected Journey", I think is much more than a celebrity story. It's a working manual for families thrust into roles they never prepared for. In my latest piece for U.S. News, I unpack what her experience, combined with the lived reality of families that I speak with daily, suggests EVERY CAREGIVER should know now, not later. A few things worth saying out loud: 1. Build your care team before the crisis. Identify on paper who drives, who covers afternoons, who pays the bills, who just listens. Make the asks early. 2. Treat your own health as non-negotiable. A neurologist warned Emma that caregivers can die before the people they care for. Forty percent of caregivers skip their own medical appointments. That number should haunt all of us. 3. Get the legal paperwork done while your loved one can still participate. Power of attorney, advance directives, HIPAA authorizations. Waiting often means guardianship court, and guardianship court is brutal. 4. Understand that moving someone into specialized care is not abandonment. Emma took online criticism for moving Bruce, but her reasoning protected her daughters' childhoods and gave Bruce the round-the-clock expertise no spouse can provide alone. I think caregiving is the most invisible labor in America. It happens quietly, in bathrooms and kitchens and hospital parking lots, performed by people who never asked for the job and were never trained for it. Emma is using her platform to make that labor visible, and I commend her for it. If you are at the beginning of your own caregiving journey, I hope this piece helps you feel a little less alone. Please amplify and share, so we can help other caregivers know that they are not alone. ❤️ https://lnkd.in/eKJzVTjr