Latest / Project Candor: Ordinary People. Unexpected Stories / Can Dementia Be Delayed? with Lisa Skinner | Ship's Log #27

Transcript

Can Dementia Be Delayed? with Lisa Skinner | Ship's Log #27 · Project Candor: Ordinary People. Unexpected Stories

0:02
Jeanne: Welcome to Project Candor, where ordinary people share unexpected stories that shift how we see life, resilience, and what it means to be human.
0:11
Jeanne: I'm Jeanne, Admiral of the Unexpected, and today we're speaking with an extraordinary voice in the world of dementia care.
0:19
Jeanne: Lisa Skinner is an internationally two-time best-selling author and behavioral specialist focused on Alzheimer's disease and related dementias.
0:29
Jeanne: With more than 30 years of experience supporting families and caregivers, she brings both depth and compassion to one of the most challenging journeys a loved one can face.
0:39
Jeanne: Lisa is a certified dementia practitioner, certified dementia care trainer, and certified dementia care program director.
0:47
Jeanne: She is also the host of the Truth, Lies, and Alzheimer's show, an internationally recognized TEDx speaker, and has been featured in national and global media, including Forbes Celebrity Magazine and on the NASDAQ Times Square Bulletin display.
1:04
Jeanne: Lisa, welcome to Project Cander.
1:07
Jeanne: This is going to be a great show.
1:09
Lisa Skinner: Yes, I'm excited to be here.
1:11
Lisa Skinner: Thank you so much for having me.
1:13
Lisa Skinner: And thank you for that amazing introduction.
1:18
Jeanne: Hey, that's you.
1:19
Jeanne: You've done all that.
1:21
Jeanne: So I mean, I just wanted to make sure the listeners know exactly all your successes and know that you're an expert as we get into some of these hard questions and discussions.
1:32
Jeanne: It was hard.
1:33
Jeanne: It was almost a tongue twister sometimes.
1:35
Jeanne: Yeah.
1:36
Jeanne: So uh the way we're gonna get started is I'm gonna kick it off and start with some questions.
1:42
Jeanne: And then of course we know we're gonna transition to Two Truths and a lie, but we just want to get to know you a little better.
1:48
Jeanne: So you ready?
1:49
Jeanne: Yeah, ready.
1:50
Jeanne: Great.
1:51
Jeanne: So Lisa, you've worked with caregivers and families for over three decades.
1:57
Jeanne: When someone first hears the word Alzheimer's or dementia, what is the biggest misconception that holds them back from responding well?
2:06
Lisa Skinner: That is a great question.
2:08
Lisa Skinner: And it is probably something that weighs on most people's minds.
2:14
Lisa Skinner: So it kind of depends on what context they are concerned about it.
2:20
Lisa Skinner: So can I give you a couple of examples?
2:22
Lisa Skinner: Oh, please.
2:22
Lisa Skinner: Yes.
2:23
Lisa Skinner: So I do a lot of speaking engagements, and one of the things that people they'll come up to me after the talk and they'll literally stand in line and almost whisper to me, you know, I'm starting to notice a little bit of memory problems.
2:44
Lisa Skinner: Like I'll walk into a room and I'll forget why I went in there, and you know, I put my phone down and I have to call it to find it again.
2:54
Lisa Skinner: Do you think this might mean that I'm developing Alzheimer's disease?
2:58
Lisa Skinner: And statistically, and this is a fairly new statistic, but for people 55 and older, it is the number one fear right now.
3:09
Lisa Skinner: For people, they think that they will end up with Alzheimer's disease or one of the other hundred or so brain diseases that we know causes neurodegenerative decline.
3:22
Lisa Skinner: So if it's in that context, then I explain to them about normal aging forgetfulness, nothing to worry about.
3:33
Lisa Skinner: It happens to all of us, starting at about the age 40 or so.
3:38
Lisa Skinner: And then there's an intermediary stage called mild cognitive impairment.
3:44
Lisa Skinner: So I'll explain that.
3:45
Lisa Skinner: And then we have full-blown dementia, and full-blown dementia is caused by one of these brain diseases, like Alzheimer's.
3:57
Lisa Skinner: That's the most common one.
3:58
Lisa Skinner: But like I said, there's over a hundred.
4:01
Lisa Skinner: So if it's in that context, then I kind of, you know, put their anxiety to ease by explaining that, hey, once in a while, if you just walk into a room, it happens to me all the time, and you look around and you cannot, for the life of you, remember why you walked in there and you start walking down your hall.
4:24
Lisa Skinner: Oh, yeah, now I remember, that's perfectly normal.
4:28
Lisa Skinner: We call that normal aging forgetfulness.
4:31
Lisa Skinner: I call them little memory hiccups, and that is no reason for concern.
4:37
Lisa Skinner: This is probably the most concise way I can answer your question.
4:42
Lisa Skinner: If your memory hiccups, your memory failure from time to time is becoming more frequent and more severe, and it is starting to interfere with your daily life.
4:59
Lisa Skinner: Like you're really struggling to balance your checkbook, compile a simple grocery list, forget where you parked your car in a parking lot to the extreme, then I would say those could be red flags and you may want to now consult with your physician.
5:21
Lisa Skinner: If it is a family and they get a recent Alzheimer's diagnosis, probably one of the biggest myths that I have been hearing for over 30 years is that okay, my mom's life's over, or my dad's life is over.
5:41
Lisa Skinner: I've got Alzheimer's, we know there's no treatment, we know there's no cure, and we don't know what to do and what to expect on this journey.
5:51
Lisa Skinner: I can honestly tell you that experiencing and working with thousands of people that have lived with Alzheimer's disease and dementia, it is not the end of their life.
6:03
Lisa Skinner: There are so many tools and skills and knowledge that we have now that we are enabled to provide people who live with these brain diseases with such a higher quality of life than ever before, filled with meaning, with purpose, with dignity, that really until they progress to the very end stage of these diseases, they can have really, really fulfilling lives.
6:37
Lisa Skinner: And that's probably one thing that I want people to be aware of.
6:41
Lisa Skinner: Because most people, when their first reaction is a doom and gloom reaction, and it is a long progressive journey.
6:52
Lisa Skinner: My grandmother, for example, lived with it for 20 years.
6:56
Lisa Skinner: That's a long time to maintain a relationship with a person in a harmonious way with all the behaviors and the peculiarities that show up as a result of the changing brain from the disease.
7:13
Lisa Skinner: So if that puts anybody's concerns even a little bit at ease, this is what I have experienced.
7:22
Lisa Skinner: And this is actually what I practice is empowering people to know how to provide the best type of environment for people living with cognitive impairment.
7:36
Jeanne: Wonderful, wonderful information and answer.
7:38
Jeanne: You had me laughing because I would have been the person in line going, I would have waited for you to tell me whether or not all the times I go walking around this house and I forget what I'm doing.
7:52
Lisa Skinner: Well, guess what?
7:53
Lisa Skinner: I would be a person that person in line too if I didn't know what I know, because I can honestly tell you that every time I have a little memory hiccup, that thought does enter my mind.
8:05
Lisa Skinner: Uh-oh.
8:07
Jeanne: My husband's younger than me, yeah, 14 years younger than me, actually, which is pretty cool.
8:12
Jeanne: But uh, I'm always telling him, oh, I have something's wrong with me.
8:15
Jeanne: And he's like, no, I just did that yesterday.
8:18
Jeanne: And, you know, and it puts me back into reality.
8:21
Jeanne: But I know it got better for me when I got away from a lot of stress.
8:25
Jeanne: So I wonder if that also causes people to just be forgetful.
8:31
Jeanne: I mean, if you're overwhelmed and you're trying to multitask a million things, then yeah, well, you're gonna drop one of them.
8:38
Lisa Skinner: Many, many studies have been done on stress related to memory impairment.
8:45
Lisa Skinner: And there is definitely a correlation.
8:47
Lisa Skinner: But what a lot of people don't realize, there are other medical conditions that can also mirror similar symptoms to dementia symptoms.
8:58
Lisa Skinner: And a couple of those is like a urinary tract infection.
9:02
Lisa Skinner: If it goes untreated, it turns into sepsis, which means the infection gets into our bloodstream and it mimics very similar symptoms that we see with Alzheimer's disease and other brain diseases that cause dementia.
9:21
Lisa Skinner: The difference is it can be treated with antibiotics.
9:24
Jeanne: Wait, before you go on, I have to just make this interjection here because you're just blowing me away.
9:29
Jeanne: Because my sister had a UTI and she couldn't remember where her car was in the parking lot.
9:36
Jeanne: And she had to call her daughter, I think.
9:39
Jeanne: I don't, I don't remember the whole thing.
9:41
Jeanne: But she was petrified and it was a UTI.
9:45
Jeanne: Now she's fine.
9:46
Jeanne: Yes.
9:46
Jeanne: But I had no idea.
9:48
Jeanne: I kind of thought she was nuts.
9:50
Jeanne: I was we were all thinking, well, maybe something is wrong, right?
9:54
Jeanne: But um, I had no idea there was a correlation with that.
9:57
Jeanne: I can't wait to call her after this.
9:59
Jeanne: Yeah.
10:00
Lisa Skinner: And the difference is when it results from like a urinary tract infection, the symptoms come on pretty quickly, like within 48 hours, once it gets into the blood.
10:13
Lisa Skinner: Dementia, Alzheimer's disease-related dementia does not happen that quickly.
10:19
Lisa Skinner: It's a very, very slow burn.
10:22
Lisa Skinner: Yeah.
10:24
Lisa Skinner: One other common medical condition I'll tell your audience about, because a lot of people suffer from this condition and it's a thyroid condition.
10:34
Lisa Skinner: But again, just like a urinary tract infection, it's treatable.
10:40
Lisa Skinner: So if all of a sudden you start like severely forgetting things and you have like really noticeable uh memory decline that just kind of came out of nowhere, you might want to check with your physician and be tested for a urinary tract infection, a thyroid condition.
11:00
Lisa Skinner: There are several other things, but to answer your initial question, stress.
11:06
Lisa Skinner: We know that COVID-19, one of the, you know, for a lot of people, one of the permanent or really long-term side effects is brain fog and memory issues.
11:20
Lisa Skinner: Some people have fully recovered from those.
11:22
Lisa Skinner: And some people, even though they may have had COVID-19 years ago, are still struggling with memory issues.
11:29
Lisa Skinner: We don't know a lot about that one yet.
11:32
Lisa Skinner: And if the people who are still struggling with it can be reversed.
11:37
Lisa Skinner: But UTIs and thyroid conditions and some of these other underlying medical conditions that mimic dementia symptoms can be cured because the cause is from something treatable.
11:53
Jeanne: Wow.
11:54
Jeanne: So, you know, I'm going off script here because I had questions for you, but you're just blowing my mind here with some of this stuff.
12:00
Jeanne: I really don't think physicians are well, I know that they're nice and all, and they prescribe and they talk to you a little bit, but they don't spend the time like you're just doing right now saying about the UTI, about the thyroid, about stress-related um issues that might appear as dementia Alzheimer's and scare someone.
12:24
Jeanne: They don't spend that time.
12:26
Lisa Skinner: It's true what you're saying, and it's probably one of the biggest complaints that people have.
12:32
Lisa Skinner: And one of the reasons why is physicians really don't get any training on dementia symptoms and that there are other other underlying reasons that mimic them.
12:44
Lisa Skinner: I saw a statistic oh, maybe six, seven, eight months ago uh from the World Health Organization, and I was blown away.
12:55
Lisa Skinner: It said that 62% of primary care physicians today still believe that normal aging forgetfulness, what we've been talking about, is or that Alzheimer's disease is related to normal aging and that it's not a separate brain disease that's attacking our different parts of our brain, depending on what brain disease it is.
13:19
Lisa Skinner: That absolutely like flabbergasted me that in 2026, a lot of physicians are still that behind the eight ball that they think it's normal aging.
13:32
Lisa Skinner: It's no.
13:33
Lisa Skinner: So there's a lot that we need to catch up on, and this is one of the reasons why I speak at a lot of medical conventions.
13:43
Lisa Skinner: And a lot of these physicians tell me that, Lisa, what you shared today, I had no idea.
13:49
Lisa Skinner: Because they really don't receive training in this arena, and it's passed on to the patients and the families, and it's you know, it's creates an even harder situation for people than it already is.
14:03
Jeanne: Absolutely.
14:04
Jeanne: So I shouldn't be mad at my doctor when he just but he shouldn't like just swipe things away because, oh well, different aging things.
14:13
Jeanne: Because I I do have, and this has nothing related to dementia, but you know, I did have them telling me, oh, you need uh back surgery or whatever.
14:22
Jeanne: And but they sent me a rehab.
14:24
Jeanne: I got to rehab, and the guy isolated a muscle that was just stuck.
14:31
Jeanne: Oh.
14:31
Jeanne: And he started massaging it, and then he started giving me exercises where I strengthened it.
14:36
Jeanne: I don't even have any back pain anymore.
14:38
Jeanne: I didn't need to have a stupid surgery, which I did not want to have because I've got horror stories about I see people having them and taking months to recover.
14:47
Jeanne: And it's just like this guy, this therapist, must have done extra research because he actually told me a solution that was non-surgical.
14:57
Jeanne: Went back to the doctor, he's like, Well, good for that.
15:00
Jeanne: You know, I was like, Don't you even want to know?
15:03
Lisa Skinner: You know, one of the things that I've learned in my lifetime, and you probably have too, it sounds like it, in today we really have to be our own advocates for our health care.
15:15
Lisa Skinner: And if that means getting second opinions or challenging them, or knowing that a UTI urinary tract infection or a thyroid condition can mimic dementia symptoms, we need to bring that up.
15:31
Lisa Skinner: It's like, wait a minute.
15:32
Lisa Skinner: I have learned that a urinary tract infection, once it gets into the blood, if it goes untreated, can mimic dementia, but it comes on much quicker.
15:44
Lisa Skinner: Can we test me for a UTI?
15:47
Lisa Skinner: That's why knowledge is so powerful, because if we don't know these things, we won't know to ask and challenge our doctors who absolutely, you know, most of them are aware of that, but the ones who aren't will dismiss it.
16:03
Lisa Skinner: It's like they wouldn't even think to test you for that because maybe they're they're not aware that a person psyche can come on like they have full-blown dementia, like mid-stage to later stage, but it's a urinary tract infection that needs antibiotic treatment.
16:24
Lisa Skinner: And I've seen hundreds of these cases over the 30 years.
16:28
Lisa Skinner: Hundreds.
16:30
Jeanne: Well, I'm waiting for more information out on the web, but my husband makes me mad sometimes because when I say, Oh, I don't feel good, this is wrong, and then he'll say, Well, what has your Google doctor told you?
16:42
Jeanne: Because he says, Do you have to amputate your leg?
16:46
Jeanne: Because like, you know, it gives you all kinds of false information out there as well.
16:50
Jeanne: But I mean, it you do have places you can go to, and so uh you're just one of those stops that people need to go to for definitely for this kind of information.
17:01
Lisa Skinner: Yeah, that's uh precisely why I do what I do.
17:05
Lisa Skinner: It's because, well, I've I actually was introduced to Alzheimer's disease 50 years ago.
17:11
Lisa Skinner: That was my first experience.
17:12
Lisa Skinner: It was with my grandmother.
17:14
Lisa Skinner: And I was, you know, a teenager, and I was completely caught off guard and unprepared when she started telling me about these birds living in her mattress, and they'd come out at night and peck her face, and she asked me if I saw all the rats running around her floors.
17:33
Lisa Skinner: Turns out she was diagnosed with senile dementia, which is synonymous with Alzheimer's disease.
17:39
Lisa Skinner: And then I ended up making it a career to help other families.
17:45
Lisa Skinner: But one of the things that's been consistent within that entire 50 year span since my grandmother is there's so much false information out there, myths and stigmas and things that have been circulating around for that period of time and probably before, that it's almost impossible to separate fact from fiction.
18:10
Lisa Skinner: So I wanted to become a reliable resource for people.
18:17
Lisa Skinner: And that's why I do the podcast and the TV show and tell the truth and provide information that's accurate and not harmful, like all these myths are out there that just make life even more difficult if your family is touched by this disease than it already is because of false information.
18:40
Jeanne: Wow.
18:41
Jeanne: And it's very sad that you had to deal with this with your grandmother because it sounded like that was something that really tortured her.
18:47
Jeanne: That's a horrible kind of feeling to be in, thinking that there were animals crawling on the floor and birds in her mattress.
18:55
Jeanne: I mean, that that seems like the worst of the world.
18:58
Lisa Skinner: Well, I've actually had eight family members who have lived with it.
19:00
Lisa Skinner: My grandmother was the first, and then there were seven more.
19:04
Lisa Skinner: So it's yeah, it's been a primary focus in our family.
19:10
Lisa Skinner: And so I totally relate to what everybody I've had a front row seat many times over with heartbreak when it comes to this disease.
19:19
Lisa Skinner: I even had a dog that had dementia.
19:22
Jeanne: Oh, we did too, actually.
19:24
Jeanne: Go ahead and tell your story on that.
19:25
Jeanne: On the dog?
19:26
Jeanne: Yeah, because that was interesting.
19:28
Jeanne: I didn't even understand that when we had him, but the vet said, your dog has dementia.
19:33
Jeanne: Yeah, yeah.
19:34
Lisa Skinner: And when my dog Oliver, who is a uh cockapoo, was about 13 or 14, he started doing some really peculiar things, behaviors, and they were so similar to what I see in human beings that the thought crossed my mind, does this dog have doggy dementia?
19:55
Lisa Skinner: I didn't even know dogs got dementia.
19:57
Lisa Skinner: Me either until we experienced it too.
19:59
Lisa Skinner: Yeah.
20:00
Lisa Skinner: But, you know, he'd get stuck in corners and couldn't figure out how to turn himself around.
20:06
Lisa Skinner: You know, he started having house accidents that he hadn't had for a long time.
20:12
Lisa Skinner: He was confused.
20:14
Lisa Skinner: He just all a lot of similar symptoms that I've seen in humans.
20:20
Lisa Skinner: So I took him to the vet.
20:22
Lisa Skinner: And I said, Am I just reading into this because this is what I do professionally?
20:27
Lisa Skinner: And he put him Oliver through a few tests and he said, No, Lisa, you are not reading into anything.
20:33
Lisa Skinner: Oliver has what we call K9 cognitive dysfunction, aka doggy dementia.
20:42
Lisa Skinner: And he said it's common in around 50% of dogs over the age of about 12 or 13.
20:50
Lisa Skinner: I said, You're kidding.
20:52
Lisa Skinner: That was what our age of our dog was 13 when he got it.
20:55
Lisa Skinner: So it's very common.
20:57
Lisa Skinner: Unbelievable.
20:58
Lisa Skinner: Yeah.
20:58
Lisa Skinner: But at least I know how to take care of him.
21:00
Lisa Skinner: And he lived till he was 18 and a half.
21:03
Jeanne: Well, ours didn't live that much longer afterwards, but that was only because we lived in a place where if he wandered off, he could have fallen in a prairie dog hole.
21:16
Jeanne: We were in Wyoming.
21:17
Jeanne: My nightmare of a life.
21:19
Jeanne: But um in Wyoming, prairie dog holes are like massive.
21:23
Jeanne: And then um there's coyotes and you know, wolves out there that um if he had wandered off, he would have gotten, you know, just eaten.
21:32
Jeanne: So we had to be careful for him.
21:35
Jeanne: We didn't think it was safe for him to live much longer.
21:38
Jeanne: He he stayed till about 14, but he was getting real bad.
21:43
Lisa Skinner: That's a real concern because humans wander off all the time and just in a heartbeat will forget who they are, where they are.
21:53
Lisa Skinner: They can't tell anybody their address or how to get home or who their family members are.
21:58
Lisa Skinner: So if it can happen.
21:59
Lisa Skinner: To people with dementia, it certainly is true of dogs that they would really be putting themselves in harm's way if they wandered off and then just had no idea how to get to a safe place.
22:15
Jeanne: Yeah, that's true.
22:16
Jeanne: That's what the vet told us.
22:17
Jeanne: And they said, you know, he's they said you gotta think about it.
22:19
Jeanne: It was hard, hard, hard for all.
22:21
Jeanne: Because animals can't talk, and they're just a little bit different.
22:26
Jeanne: Well, definitely they're different than humans, but they're just a little bit different on how to com they communicate with you.
22:31
Jeanne: So we were scared for that.
22:33
Lisa Skinner: I don't blame you.
22:34
Lisa Skinner: Yeah.
22:35
Lisa Skinner: We kept a close eye on Oliver.
22:37
Lisa Skinner: We kept him in the house and we didn't let him go out without a leash after he was diagnosed because of the same concerns you had.
22:45
Lisa Skinner: Yeah.
22:46
Jeanne: Yeah, our dog was called Dunn, but it was because we had two dogs.
22:52
Jeanne: We named them Brooks and Dunn.
22:54
Jeanne: I don't know if you like country music, but Oh, they're one of my favorite country duos.
23:00
Lisa Skinner: I've loved them for decades.
23:02
Jeanne: I know.
23:03
Jeanne: So I don't know why we did it, but we named a weave and register of AKC Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn, uh Anderson.
23:12
Jeanne: I love it.
23:14
Jeanne: They were awesome.
23:16
Jeanne: Unfortunately, Brooks had died of kidney failure.
23:18
Jeanne: It was at seven, but um Dunn lasted so long, and then he was so wonderful, wonderful.
23:24
Jeanne: And he sang.
23:25
Jeanne: It was so funny.
23:26
Jeanne: He sang all the time.
23:28
Jeanne: And Brooks was black and white, you know, just like Kix Brooks, his dark hair.
23:32
Jeanne: And then Dunn was kind of reddish tan, kind of like Ronnie Dunn.
23:37
Jeanne: But he sang all the time.
23:38
Jeanne: It was amazing.
23:39
Jeanne: And his favorite song, and I've said this on another podcast, was Old Susanna.
23:44
Jeanne: So if I sang it, that dog would jump up on his hind legs and dance and dance.
23:49
Jeanne: Oh, that is so cute.
23:51
Jeanne: I have no idea why he liked that one.
23:53
Jeanne: But every time I came home from work, I started singing it and he would just dance like crazy.
23:57
Jeanne: I was like, yep.
23:59
Jeanne: And we could say too that we, hey, we're just hanging out with Brooks and Dunn, and people would look at us like we wouldn't explain.
24:06
Jeanne: We just whatever.
24:08
Jeanne: It was just fun.
24:10
Jeanne: That's a great story.
24:12
Jeanne: But you know, I know it's hard for families, and you know, there's been times like my dad when his father got dementia and he went to visit him, he had to be part of the nursing home, and he didn't know who he was.
24:29
Jeanne: That's that's just just heart-wrenching.
24:32
Jeanne: And then I remember my dad's sister, she died in her 90s, which was great.
24:38
Jeanne: But she toward the last few years, I remember talking with her, and she looked at me and she's like, Now whose daughter are you?
24:47
Jeanne: And then I said, Jack's daughter, which was my dad, and her brother.
24:51
Jeanne: I'd say, I'm Jack's daughter, and she'd go, Oh, you are?
24:54
Jeanne: I had no idea.
24:57
Jeanne: Jack had a daughter.
24:58
Jeanne: And it was so sad because she was like my favorite aunt, and there was just, oh, I don't know.
25:06
Jeanne: It's devastating when that happens, but it seems to happen a lot.
25:09
Jeanne: And how do you help people deal with that?
25:12
Jeanne: I mean, and not take it personally, because boy, it's not personal.
25:16
Lisa Skinner: I have had so many family members over the decades tell me that that's probably one of the hardest things for them that has happened on this journey of theirs with their loved one, their parent or their grandparent, is when they don't recognize them.
25:33
Lisa Skinner: It hurts to the core because they do take it personally.
25:38
Lisa Skinner: How can my own mother not recognize me?
25:41
Lisa Skinner: How can my own grandfather not recognize me?
25:44
Lisa Skinner: So, what I do is I explain to them why that happens, and it completely changes their understanding of not being recognized, and then they realize it's not personal.
26:00
Lisa Skinner: So, do you want me to explain?
26:02
Jeanne: Yeah, I would love to hear because I mean it just I know it tore my dad up, and I remember tears in his eyes, and he wasn't a crybaby or anything.
26:10
Jeanne: And then when she said that to me, it was like, I know you're in there, but I I know your memory bank on that one's gone.
26:20
Jeanne: And I tried to just say, I still love you, you know, but it was hard.
26:25
Jeanne: So go ahead and help me.
26:28
Lisa Skinner: Okay. This has helped a lot of people.
26:30
Lisa Skinner: I came up with kind of a an analogy to help people understand.
26:34
Lisa Skinner: It's not true of every single brain disease that causes dementia, but it is true and very common with Alzheimer's disease and some of the others.
26:44
Lisa Skinner: The hallmark of Alzheimer's disease is short-term memory loss first.
26:50
Lisa Skinner: That's the part of the brain that Alzheimer's disease pretty much damages first.
26:57
Lisa Skinner: So during this process, long process, we go through several stages of progression.
27:04
Lisa Skinner: So there's mild stage, there's the middle stage, and then there's the late or very severe stage.
27:12
Lisa Skinner: So as the brain continues to be damaged, the short-term memory, think of it like it's hooked up to a light switch.
27:24
Lisa Skinner: And when that light switch is on, our short-term memories are functioning normally.
27:29
Lisa Skinner: But as the damage becomes more severe, so around the mid-stage, that light switch flips on and off, on and off, on and off continuously.
27:42
Lisa Skinner: And then by the late stage, for some people it's off completely.
27:48
Lisa Skinner: They have no short-term memory whatsoever, it's gone.
27:52
Lisa Skinner: Some people you can still kind of get a flicker out of their short-term memory, but it's questionable.
28:01
Lisa Skinner: So during this mid-stage, when it's on and off, on and off, on and off, we kind of have to go by the cues of what they're saying to us so we can tell if their short-term memory has kind of short-circuited for that moment, because what we know is our long-term memory stays intact right to the end.
28:25
Lisa Skinner: So when that short-term memory malfunctions, that person is pulling from their long-term memory.
28:32
Lisa Skinner: So think of it as like they're they're traveling back in time to a different period of their life, and we don't know what that timeline is.
28:43
Lisa Skinner: It can change or it can vary from person to person.
28:47
Lisa Skinner: So let me give you an example.
28:49
Lisa Skinner: My mother-in-law was one of my family members who had dementia, Alzheimer's disease, and we had her over one weekend.
29:00
Lisa Skinner: We were watching her, and I was visiting her in the living room, and she seemed to be fine and completely lucid.
29:10
Lisa Skinner: There were no signs of distress.
29:12
Lisa Skinner: And then out of nowhere, she pops up from the sofa that she was sitting on and she says to me, I need to go home.
29:22
Lisa Skinner: I need to go home right now.
29:25
Lisa Skinner: Somebody has to take me home.
29:27
Lisa Skinner: I gotta get there.
29:28
Lisa Skinner: And I said, Marianne, what what's wrong?
29:31
Lisa Skinner: And she said, I just realized Marty's at home waiting for me, and it's probably close to dinner time.
29:38
Lisa Skinner: I have to get home and feed my husband his dinner.
29:41
Lisa Skinner: Now, Marty was my father-in-law, but he was my late father-in-law.
29:46
Lisa Skinner: He had passed away about four years earlier.
29:50
Lisa Skinner: Now, in that moment, her short-term memory switched and flipped her off, and she traveled back in time to when her husband was still alive, and she believed a hundred percent that he was at home waiting for her to come home and feed him dinner.
30:13
Lisa Skinner: Now, what we teach is called join their reality, is to not try to correct people who are having these memory confusion episodes.
30:28
Lisa Skinner: Because let's say, in my mother-in-law's case, if I had said to her, Marianne, what are you talking about?
30:35
Lisa Skinner: Don't you remember?
30:36
Lisa Skinner: Marty passed away years ago.
30:39
Lisa Skinner: Yeah, he's gone.
30:40
Lisa Skinner: He's been gone years.
30:42
Lisa Skinner: That could have ended in a really severe situation where she could have responded back to me saying, What are you talking about?
30:53
Lisa Skinner: He was fine when I left the house this morning.
30:56
Lisa Skinner: What happened?
30:57
Lisa Skinner: Why didn't anybody tell me?
30:58
Lisa Skinner: I've got to get to him.
31:00
Lisa Skinner: Because in her mind, in her reality, she believes wholeheartedly that he's alive and well and waiting for her at home.
31:10
Lisa Skinner: So for me to all of a sudden announce to her that he's deceased, could have to put her into a panic or a shock.
31:22
Lisa Skinner: So these are some of the things that we have to retrain our brains to when it comes to dementia, because it can do a lot of harm to try to correct somebody who believes what they believe at that moment.
31:38
Lisa Skinner: Now, it's possible, oh, it did happen that I talked her through it and convinced her that it was that he knew she was there at my house and he was perfectly okay with it.
31:53
Lisa Skinner: And just get home when you're ready and enjoy your visit with your family.
31:59
Lisa Skinner: With your family, yeah.
32:00
Lisa Skinner: And she said to me, She goes, Are you sure?
32:05
Lisa Skinner: Are you sure it's okay?
32:06
Lisa Skinner: Because you know, I worry about Marty.
32:10
Lisa Skinner: I said, I'm positive.
32:12
Lisa Skinner: So she settled back down and then everything was fine.
32:17
Lisa Skinner: And we call this technique, this this methodology, joining their reality, meeting them where they are.
32:26
Lisa Skinner: And my cue, my clue that she was not in the present moment was telling me that Marty was waiting for her at home and he was still alive.
32:39
Lisa Skinner: So I knew that that short-term memory switch had just short-circuited and gone off for however long it was gonna stay off.
32:47
Lisa Skinner: And she had in her mind she was back uh many years when he was still alive and well.
32:54
Lisa Skinner: And this happens all the time.
32:57
Lisa Skinner: So we have to now she could have that memory switch could have flipped back on while she was in my company, and she could have brought it up later saying, you know, I really miss Marty.
33:12
Lisa Skinner: It's you know, this the last few years have been so hard without him.
33:17
Lisa Skinner: Then I would have known, based on what she's telling me, that her short-term memory flipped back on, switched back on.
33:25
Lisa Skinner: So really pay attention to what they're talking about, and you will know if that short-term memory has temporarily malfunctioned and they've traveled back in their mind to another time frame of their life.
33:40
Lisa Skinner: Some people travel back to their childhood and they are asking for their mommies and their daddies, and why hasn't my mommy picked me up from school yet?
33:52
Lisa Skinner: So that's your cue or your clue that their short-term memory switch, their short-term memory is malfunctioning and they are back into a different time frame of their life.
34:06
Jeanne: So wow.
34:07
Jeanne: Does this make sense?
34:08
Jeanne: Yes, it does.
34:09
Jeanne: And I gotta tell you, I mean, so I had my husband now is my second husband, and I always tell him, This is crazy.
34:16
Jeanne: It's like I know my grandmother had dementia, I know there's some dementia in our family.
34:20
Jeanne: If for any reason I ever tell you or call you my first husband or ever tell you anything like I should be back there or be married, please forgive me.
34:32
Lisa Skinner: Explain to him if you do, and this is what he can expect to happen.
34:36
Lisa Skinner: So if I start talking to you as if you're my first husband, it's not me.
34:42
Lisa Skinner: It's where my mind is living at that moment.
34:45
Jeanne: Yeah, that makes it better because to me, it's like you know, the person you love so much, you don't want to hurt them.
34:51
Jeanne: And I know that people don't want to hurt, you know, their families either, but it's not on them, apparently, the way you're talking about it makes it so clear.
34:59
Jeanne: You know, one other thing before we switch to our game.
35:03
Jeanne: I know I have talked to a lot of people that are in like extended living or different homes, and if they have memory issues, you know, they can't, they don't want them cooking, they don't want them, you know, do it, but they can garden.
35:18
Jeanne: They let them garden that I know they have hydroponics a lot in some of these assisted living places.
35:24
Jeanne: And the one thing I learned was they have animated or battery-operated pets.
35:32
Jeanne: I think that is so fantastic.
35:34
Jeanne: Where they actually have pets that people can hold in their arms and that they purr, like if it's a cat and they wiggle and move, and it gives them that soothing effort that they have a pet.
35:48
Jeanne: That's the then the caregivers, you know, at the end of the day when they go to bed, they just take them and shut them off, put them in a locker.
35:54
Jeanne: But for them, it still gives them that quality of life.
35:58
Jeanne: You talked about that a little bit earlier.
35:59
Jeanne: Is that one of the things you're saying that you can still have this great quality of life?
36:03
Jeanne: There's things, tools to help them.
36:06
Lisa Skinner: And this is um one of the reasons why when we people like me who've been trained in what's called a person-centered approach to care, I'm a certified dementia practitioner in that methodology, to know as much as we can possibly know about their lives when they were healthy and do they like dogs, do they like cats?
36:30
Lisa Skinner: So then if we know that uh the person that we're caring for was an absolute cat lover, we might introduce one of those real life looking cats that purrs and feels soft.
36:45
Lisa Skinner: One of the things that we don't lose, because it's a very basic human need, is the need to we never lose our instinct for nurturing and for touching and having ourselves soothed and calmed.
37:04
Lisa Skinner: It's a very bottom basic level of the Maslov's hierarchy of needs.
37:10
Lisa Skinner: So some people love were dog lovers, some people were cat lovers.
37:14
Jeanne: I'd be both, but I'd be happy with an animal.
37:16
Jeanne: I don't know if I can be without one.
37:18
Lisa Skinner: Me too.
37:19
Lisa Skinner: Me too.
37:20
Lisa Skinner: I'm I love both all animals, but I'm primarily a dog love.
37:25
Jeanne: Yes.
37:26
Lisa Skinner: But there is kind of a trick to introducing something like that.
37:30
Lisa Skinner: The one thing I wanted to comment on, depending on the person, because everybody's different and everybody experiences their dementia journey differently.
37:41
Lisa Skinner: Some people with dementia believe that that cat is real and they take care of it like it is a real cat, and other people living with dementia know it's not a real animal, but it's serving a purpose of comforting them and being a companion to them and making them feel good.
38:09
Lisa Skinner: And one thing that we do know about people living with dementia, and I say this all the time, they may not recognize your face, they may not know your name, depending on the day, but they will rem will remember for a long time how you made them feel.
38:31
Lisa Skinner: And those real life looking dogs and cats and other animals that are available make them feel loved, make them feel purposeful because they're able to care for it and nurture it.
38:50
Lisa Skinner: So those are a very important part of caregivers providing a higher quality of life for people with dementia is exactly what you just brought up, and I'm glad you did.
39:03
Jeanne: Oh, thanks.
39:04
Jeanne: I just I was so fascinated by that that when we got our dog, and um this has nothing to do with dementia, but we got a little puppy.
39:13
Jeanne: We um got one of those little rabbits that had a heartbeat in it, and it thump, thump, thump, thump, and you know, at night we let him sleep with it.
39:23
Jeanne: That dog has never had any kind of anxiety over being in our house because he slept with his little bunny friend that had that heartbeat, and every morning he'd get up and he'd pull that bunny out with him to wake him up for the day to be with them out of the cage.
39:39
Jeanne: It was adorable.
39:41
Jeanne: My husband and I talk about it all the time, and we just it just does so much when you look at it, um, when you think about it, about how wonderful this little puppy cared for that fake bunny.
39:56
Jeanne: And when I saw they were doing that in, you know, you know, different aging homes or assisted living, I had seen it before, but it really brought it home with our dog.
40:06
Jeanne: And I just I want somebody to give me one of those.
40:09
Lisa Skinner: I think it just proves that animals have the same emotional needs that people do.
40:16
Jeanne: Yeah, that's true.
40:17
Jeanne: It's just like I guess, and this is another whole topic on animals, but if you go to YouTube, just do this for me, listeners too, go find this monkey in Japan called Punch, whose mother abandoned him when uh he was born because of you know a difficulty pregnancy and heat exhaustion, because it was a heat wave at the time in Japan.
40:44
Jeanne: And he was nurtured and fed by the zoo keepers, but he couldn't relate to the other monkeys.
40:51
Jeanne: He had no nothing to help him.
40:53
Jeanne: And so one of the zoo um staff, caretakers, I guess, brought him an IKEA orange orangutang, big orangutan.
41:05
Jeanne: And that little monkey just latched onto this little, you know, stuffed animal and used it like a surrogate mother.
41:15
Jeanne: So you have to go look at those videos.
41:17
Jeanne: I can't even describe them.
41:19
Jeanne: You will cry from the tenderness that he felt from you know having that monkey and being able to hold on to it when he had nobody else.
41:28
Jeanne: That story touches my heart.
41:31
Jeanne: It is so beautiful.
41:32
Jeanne: You have to see it.
41:33
Jeanne: People were flocking to this Japanese zoo from all over the world.
41:37
Jeanne: In fact, if I'd had the money and I knew about it when it was going on, I would have flown over there to see this little baby monkey.
41:43
Jeanne: But it's just like the people trapped in their body, they just need something.
41:49
Jeanne: And those little animals, those mechanized animals, is just so helpful.
41:55
Lisa Skinner: Well, to feel that they still have a purpose and to feel like they still matter.
42:00
Lisa Skinner: These are all the things that never leave us.
42:03
Lisa Skinner: I don't care how damaged your brain is and how far gone your short-term memory is, those are instincts that do not leave us.
42:12
Jeanne: Right, exactly.
42:13
Jeanne: And so, yeah, so I guess to the listeners, you know, if you have somebody suffering, you know, with dementia or you have someone in assisted living that may just be trapped in their own mind, you know, think about whether you could get on one of these animals because I'm just in love with them.
42:31
Jeanne: And that's my own plug.
42:33
Jeanne: Sorry about that, Lisa.
42:34
Jeanne: Well, this has been so great.
42:37
Jeanne: I just think this is a wonderful, you know, conversation we're having here.
42:40
Jeanne: And I hate to switch it, but we're ready to play Two Truths and a Lie.
42:44
Jeanne: Are you ready for that?
42:45
Jeanne: Sure.
42:45
Jeanne: Yeah, so let's see another side of Lisa here.
42:48
Jeanne: We're gonna switch to our game.
42:50
Jeanne: Um, one of my favorite parts of the podcast, and it's playing Two Truths and a Lie with a Guest.
42:55
Jeanne: Uh, the rules of the game are the guest has provided me with three headlines up front that are some stories about herself that either, well, two are true for sure, and one is a lie or a twisted truth.
43:09
Jeanne: So I'll read the headlines and I'll guess which one I think is the twisted truth.
43:13
Jeanne: She will go through the stories for us, and then at the end she'll reveal.
43:17
Jeanne: So don't tell us before you get through all these stories.
43:20
Jeanne: Oh, I won't.
43:21
Jeanne: Okay.
43:21
Jeanne: I think this is great.
43:23
Jeanne: This is fun.
43:23
Jeanne: Yeah, this will be fun because yours were just like I don't, you were a nature person.
43:28
Jeanne: That's all I can say.
43:29
Jeanne: So I'm gonna share my screen and read the headlines.
43:32
Jeanne: This episode is sponsored by Rebel 180, the home of brave pivots and fresh starts.
43:40
Jeanne: Rebel 180 is all about helping you rediscover what's possible when you stop settling and start listening to that little tug inside that says, Life can be different.
43:50
Jeanne: Whether you're navigating a career shift, dreaming about a new direction, or standing at the crossroads wondering if it's time for your own 180 degree turn, Rebel.
43:59
Jeanne: 180 is a reminder, you don't need permission to change your story.
44:04
Jeanne: And now, as we open the door to our second sponsor, we're stepping into the world of tech.
44:08
Jeanne: Simple socket print, the lightweight blazing, fast label print solution designed for those who need reliability without the blue.
44:16
Jeanne: With version 1.5, you get instant printing in milliseconds, fully maintained print sequence, and automatic base6040 decoding all without needing print driver installs.
44:27
Jeanne: If you're running SQL Server 2016 or newer, Simple Socket Print 1.5 drops right in and gets to work.
44:34
Jeanne: Keep your workflow simple.
44:36
Jeanne: Keep your label printing fast with Simple Socket Print.
44:39
Jeanne: Thank you to our sponsors.
44:41
Jeanne: So, number one story.
44:47
Jeanne: Lisa locks eyes with a mountain lion alone on the trail with nowhere to run.
44:52
Jeanne: That's story number one.
44:54
Jeanne: Number two, Lisa's peaceful hike turns tense when a bear blocks her only way out.
45:01
Jeanne: And number three, Lisa almost steps on a rattlesnake hidden in plain sight.
45:08
Jeanne: So those are three stories.
45:10
Jeanne: And I'm going to guess that the hike with the bear is not true, but I I don't know.
45:18
Jeanne: So I'll let you take over and you just explain these stories to us and tell us what they're all about.
45:24
Jeanne: Okay.
45:26
Lisa Skinner: So I used to have a horse and I was at the barn, which was kind of in a remote area.
45:34
Lisa Skinner: There was trails everywhere and things like that.
45:37
Lisa Skinner: And I was sitting on the back of a truck with the tailgate down that belonged to the barn manager's wife's brother.
45:49
Lisa Skinner: So I was sitting there and my back was facing the front of the truck, and I was sitting in front of a hitching post for the horses, and all of a sudden I feel these paws jump on top of my shoulders and over my head.
46:09
Lisa Skinner: And I looked down and it was a mountain lion.
46:12
Jeanne: Oh my gosh.
46:13
Lisa Skinner: But I have to tell you that it was not a wild mountain lion, it was the pet of the brother of the barn manager's wife.
46:24
Lisa Skinner: And it was probably eight or nine months old.
46:27
Lisa Skinner: He had had it since it it was a young cub, and now it's about eight or nine months old.
46:34
Lisa Skinner: It had been declawed in the front, but not in the back.
46:38
Lisa Skinner: And he still had all his teeth.
46:40
Lisa Skinner: And, you know, he just literally landed on my shoulders and then over my head.
46:46
Lisa Skinner: And, you know, mountain lions instinctively go for the jugular with their teeth.
46:52
Lisa Skinner: So he still had the opportunity to do that, but he didn't.
46:56
Lisa Skinner: And the guy's name was Bruce, and he raised this cub, this mountain lion cub from I don't know, a few weeks old.
47:03
Lisa Skinner: I don't have any idea where he got it.
47:06
Lisa Skinner: So I always say to people, how many people can say that they came face to face with a mountain lion, even this set of circumstances.
47:17
Jeanne: And he jumped over your shoulders.
47:19
Jeanne: Whoa.
47:19
Lisa Skinner: Oh yeah, he landed on top of me.
47:21
Lisa Skinner: And he was just, I guess, just wanting to play.
47:25
Lisa Skinner: But and unfortunately, he didn't live much longer than that because he got a hold of one of Bruce's sleeping bags, tore it to shreds, and the the filling blocked his intestines.
47:39
Lisa Skinner: Oh, oh, oh.
47:40
Lisa Skinner: But um, yeah, but I've always loved animals.
47:44
Lisa Skinner: The more exotic, the better.
47:46
Lisa Skinner: So that was a special experience for me.
47:49
Jeanne: Wow.
47:50
Lisa Skinner: How about the bear?
47:52
Lisa Skinner: Okay.
47:52
Lisa Skinner: So we were in Tahoe, and we were hiking through a forest right by Echo Lake.
48:02
Lisa Skinner: If any of you know Echo Lake.
48:04
Jeanne: I have heard of it.
48:05
Jeanne: I haven't been there.
48:07
Lisa Skinner: Okay.
48:07
Lisa Skinner: So we're hiking along, and then we come upon this bridge.
48:13
Lisa Skinner: And we start to step up on the bridge, and all of a sudden, on the very opposite side of the bridge, this bear pops up.
48:24
Lisa Skinner: We must have startled it.
48:25
Lisa Skinner: It was, I don't know, like looking for something, food or whatever, on the other side of the bridge, and it heard us approach, and we s actually started to cross the bridge, and it pops its head up and kind of looks at it at us for a minute, and we just like, uh oh, what do we do?
48:45
Lisa Skinner: Well, lo and behold, he starts coming towards us over the bridge.
48:52
Lisa Skinner: And we always knew if this happens, you don't run because that that instinctively wants to make them chase you.
49:01
Lisa Skinner: But we were right on the sh near the shore of Echo Lake.
49:05
Lisa Skinner: So my husband and I went running into the water hoping that he wouldn't follow.
49:10
Lisa Skinner: And he could have because bears like water, they go in water, but he didn't.
49:17
Lisa Skinner: And he kind of, you know, stood there like he was thinking about it, but eh, they're not worth it.
49:24
Lisa Skinner: I'm not gonna get all wet for those two.
49:28
Lisa Skinner: So he just went back and went back over the bridge and went about his business.
49:34
Jeanne: Yeah, I I've heard a lot of people on the podcast even talking about hiking and this and that avatar.
49:40
Jeanne: And I'm thinking to myself, I'm just not gonna do that.
49:43
Jeanne: I'll just rock my treadmill.
49:45
Jeanne: Wow, a bear.
49:47
Jeanne: All right, how about the rattlesnake?
49:49
Jeanne: Because I hate them.
49:50
Jeanne: I'm sorry.
49:51
Jeanne: I shouldn't hate anything, but I do not have to.
49:53
Lisa Skinner: Well, I told you I used to ride horses and I would ride on the trails and I would run into them all the time.
49:58
Lisa Skinner: But this was at my house.
50:00
Lisa Skinner: So we lived in Northern California and in a subdivision that backed up to uh what well, it was still a cattle ranch.
50:12
Jeanne: Okay.
50:13
Lisa Skinner: Some of the land had been sold off to build the homes, but the cattle ranch was still there.
50:18
Lisa Skinner: And so I came home one day and I went out into my uh backyard uh to the patio, and I saw my cat out there.
50:28
Lisa Skinner: So I went and sat down.
50:30
Lisa Skinner: I picked the cat up and I sat down on the lounge chair with my kitty, and I was petting my kitty.
50:37
Lisa Skinner: And all of a sudden I hear this chchchchch..
50:40
Jeanne: yeah, that little rattling sound.
50:46
Lisa Skinner: And I thought, oh, somebody sprinkle sprinklers must have just gone on.
50:50
Lisa Skinner: I ignored it and it stopped for a minute, and then I hear louder.
50:59
Jeanne: I thought it rattled like back and forth, like I don't know.
51:03
Jeanne: Just like that.
51:04
Jeanne: Yeah.
51:06
Lisa Skinner: Faster.
51:06
Lisa Skinner: So I look to my left.
51:09
Lisa Skinner: I don't see anything.
51:10
Lisa Skinner: I looked to my right, and curled up in a ball was a five to six foot rattlesnake just about a foot from me and my kitty.
51:23
Lisa Skinner: And it was serious.
51:26
Lisa Skinner: That rattle was shaking so fast and so loud that I thought, oh my gosh, he is going to strike at me any second.
51:40
Lisa Skinner: And they can strike up to I think twice their length.
51:44
Lisa Skinner: So he definitely could have gotten me.
51:47
Lisa Skinner: And I just said, okay, Lisa, don't panic, don't panic, don't panic.
51:52
Lisa Skinner: I never confronted a rattlesnake that close before.
51:57
Lisa Skinner: So what I did, thank goodness my kitty was still on my lap, I just really calmly, you know, clutched her and held on really tight, and I turned to my left very slowly, the opposite direction from where the snake was clearly about to come after me.
52:20
Lisa Skinner: And I beelined it for my sighting glass door and got into the house with my cat.
52:26
Lisa Skinner: So when I did that, it startled the snake and it took off and slithered under these boards that happened to be in my backyard.
52:41
Lisa Skinner: But I was nervous about it going over there because I had two dogs in a pen that the snake could have gotten to, and they had no place to run.
52:54
Lisa Skinner: And the snake could have gotten them if it had wanted to.
52:58
Lisa Skinner: So unfortunately, at the time, my husband had gone to the store.
53:02
Lisa Skinner: So I there was I was helpless.
53:04
Lisa Skinner: I didn't know how to protect the dogs, I had the cat safe.
53:08
Lisa Skinner: So my husband finally got home and I told him the story, and we didn't have like any guns in the house, but my son, I think he was 10 or 12 at the time, my son had a pellet gun.
53:23
Lisa Skinner: So my husband ran up to his room, got the pellet gun.
53:27
Lisa Skinner: I told him that the snake had slithered under these boards, and he shot the rattlesnake in the head.
53:35
Lisa Skinner: Took two shots.
53:36
Lisa Skinner: The first one didn't kill him, but the second one did, and then he cut the tail off and gave it to me as a trophy.
53:46
Jeanne: I know I've seen them sell them for on necklaces and stuff, but uh I I don't really want to carry them around around my neck.
53:54
Lisa Skinner: No, I didn't do that.
53:56
Jeanne: I think I stuck it in a like a like a treasure box, just to remember.
54:01
Lisa Skinner: I don't think uh yeah.
54:02
Lisa Skinner: But those are my stories.
54:06
Jeanne: Which one of these is a lie, Lisa?
54:08
Lisa Skinner: So you think the bear one is the lie?
54:11
Jeanne: Yeah.
54:12
Jeanne: I don't know.
54:13
Lisa Skinner: It is.
54:14
Jeanne: It is?
54:15
Lisa Skinner: It is.
54:16
Jeanne: Oh, okay, good.
54:17
Lisa Skinner: Now, why did you think before you heard my stories, why did you just initially go to that one?
54:22
Jeanne: I don't know.
54:23
Jeanne: I just knowing that you had told me something about where you were from, I didn't think there would be a bear, you know.
54:30
Jeanne: I mean, I'm thinking bears in mountains and stuff.
54:33
Lisa Skinner: Well, to be honest with you, part of the story is true.
54:37
Lisa Skinner: I twisted it.
54:38
Lisa Skinner: We really did go on a hike.
54:41
Lisa Skinner: We were with another family and their two girls.
54:44
Lisa Skinner: We got to this bridge and up pops this bear on the other side of the bridge.
54:51
Lisa Skinner: Now, the lie part, the bait up part, is that my husband and it was just me and my husband, and that we turned and ran and jumped in the lake.
54:59
Lisa Skinner: I made that up.
55:00
Jeanne: Oh, okay.
55:02
Lisa Skinner: But the rest of it is true.
55:04
Lisa Skinner: We really did come upon a bear, and we saw him as soon as like we put our feet on the bridge to cross it, and he kind of just popped up.
55:15
Lisa Skinner: And but the truth of that story is that he turned and ran the opposite direction from us and did not come after us over the bridge and force us to jump into the lake.
55:29
Jeanne: So it didn't really block you and scare you.
55:32
Lisa Skinner: It was like Yeah, no, he he was more scared, I think, than we were because he turned and ran the other way.
55:39
Jeanne: Well, I didn't know you were going to say you were in Lake Tahoe, because I was just thinking, you don't have a bear where you're from.
55:45
Jeanne: So okay.
55:46
Jeanne: Anyway.
55:47
Jeanne: But I got it right.
55:49
Lisa Skinner: You did.
55:49
Lisa Skinner: But um all three stories are at least partially true.
55:55
Jeanne: Yeah, that's great.
55:56
Lisa Skinner: One and three are were I told you exactly, you know, from start to finish how the whole thing played out.
56:04
Lisa Skinner: Two, I just twisted it.
56:06
Jeanne: Twisted a little bit.
56:07
Lisa Skinner: But there really was a bear.
56:09
Jeanne: Well, you have been such a phenomenal guest, and this has been such a great conversation.
56:13
Jeanne: I really like these stories because thinking about heavy things like Alzheimer's and dementia, and then we see you're out there living your life still and enjoying yourself, even if there's rattlesnakes, lions, and bears shocking you, but you're having fun.
56:31
Jeanne: So I I really love this.
56:33
Jeanne: And I know people are gonna want to get in touch with you.
56:36
Jeanne: So I'm going to show them ways that they can.
56:40
Jeanne: You can contact Lisa on Facebook and X and LinkedIn, YouTube, and then you can learn more about her on her sites, uh Dementia Awareness Speaker.com and MindingDementia.com.
56:56
Jeanne: Is there anything you want to say to the listeners about how to get in touch with you?
57:00
Lisa Skinner: I just want to uh offer up one suggestion.
57:04
Lisa Skinner: Um, I've been doing my one podcast for about three years.
57:10
Lisa Skinner: Uh, I think I'm up to 150-something episodes, and I'm mentioning this because it is a free resource for people, and I talk about everything under the sun that relates to living with any of these brain diseases that progress to dementia.
57:28
Lisa Skinner: So it is a resource for people to learn more about the disease, talk a uh uh, you know, a lot of stories, true stories, a lot of myth busting.
57:39
Lisa Skinner: And then more recently, I launched a brand new television show.
57:44
Lisa Skinner: It's the same name as the podcast, The Truth Lies and Alzheimer's show, completely different audiences.
57:50
Lisa Skinner: That one streams on E360 TV, but you can access both those shows on my YouTube channel.
57:58
Lisa Skinner: And the reason why I do this, I mentioned earlier, is so I can be a reliable resource for people who are, you know, either currently dealing with this in their life or will at some point in the future.
58:12
Lisa Skinner: So hopefully you will find a trusted resource to tell you things truthfully and accurately and be able to believe.
58:24
Lisa Skinner: Because I research everything.
58:26
Lisa Skinner: I don't present any information if I don't make sure that it is accurate.
58:32
Lisa Skinner: Things change rapidly in this industry.
58:35
Lisa Skinner: So I spend a lot of time saying on top of it, but I want to bring people the truth of how to cope with this in a positive way.
58:45
Lisa Skinner: And a lot of people don't even think those two words go together.
58:51
Jeanne: Yeah.
58:51
Jeanne: Dementia and positivity.
58:54
Lisa Skinner: But it's very, very possible.
58:56
Lisa Skinner: You just you just have to have the information in your possession.
59:01
Jeanne: So well, you're you're just like a saint for doing this, because I think it's just um something that's very much needed.
59:08
Jeanne: Like I said earlier, doctors don't give you all this detail.
59:11
Jeanne: But thank you for being on the show.
59:13
Jeanne: And to the listeners that are listening in, I hope you enjoyed this.
59:17
Jeanne: And if it resonated with you, please reach out to Lisa and also please join us again um next episode where we'll have another great guest.
59:28
Jeanne: And from your Admiral of the Unexpected, until I see you again, I wish you smooth sailing.
59:34
Jeanne: Thank you.
59:36
Jeanne: Thanks for joining me on Project Candor, where the doors are open, the stories are unexpected, and the treasure is always real.
59:43
Jeanne: If today's episode made you laugh or think, follow the show and share it with your crew.
59:49
Jeanne: Otherwise, I might just make you swab the deck.
59:52
Jeanne: I'm Jeanne Andersen, your Admiral of the Unexpected.
59:55
Jeanne: See you on the next Voyage.