03-03-2025
Kupuna Caregiver: Therapeutic TV helps people with dementia, caregivers
HONOLULU (KHON2) – Caring for your loved ones with dementia comes with many challenges, but a new video streaming service helps create engagement and reduce agitation and caregivers, who are often times the spouses, need that kind of Schrier's husband was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia at the age of 47. She said like so many family caregivers, she had no idea what to do.
'So I did a deep dive, started taking classes,' said Schrier who is the co-founder and president of Zinnia TV. 'A lot of my learning was about, how does a caregiver take care of themselves? And so what I was looking for in creating Zinnia was a tool that would allow the caregiver not only to bring more joy and and and ease into the life of the person that they support, but also help reduce their own stress.'
Schrier says Zinnia TV is a streaming service with a library of videos intended for people who have difficulty tracking a plot or telling fact from fiction.
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'What we know through our research is that watching these videos helps create connection and engagement. It's so important for people with dementia to stay engaged,' said Schrier. 'It also is really effective at reducing agitation for a person who is living with dementia.'
These videos even suggest folks to engage in activities of daily living, like drinking water which is something people with dementia are at high risk of becoming dehydrated.
'The video, 'Let's Drink Water,' just shows people drinking water, dogs drinking water,' said Schrier. 'So what these videos do is they model the thing that we want the person we support to be doing right now.'
Simple, yet effective and provides caregivers much needed respite.
'If the person is so engaged in the skiing video or the basketball video or the sewing video, that I can actually take a few minutes to go and peel a carrot and get dinner started. That is a huge relief for me as a caregiver…knowing that I have a tool that can make my life a little easier because it makes his life a little easier, that's what we're all about.'
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