Alzheimer’s Goggles and Other Lessons from the Dementia Wing

So as the generic LinkedIn job search post starts - "After 8 years managing adult day centers in Israel..."

My last of those 8 years was managing the dementia wing of a large day center in Be'er Sheva. The Beit Shemesh center which I had previously run also included a dementia wing, but this was my first really intense, immersive experience in the world of cognitive decline. 

I would not wish this devastating disease on my worst enemy / ok, I would wish it only on the worst enemies of Israel and the Jewish people.

I met older adults (and one not-so-old) with rich histories, careers - some who ruled the roost professionally and in their home lives.

I worked very closely with their family caregivers. The day center model is stronger in Israel by participation rates than in the US - in large part because the National Insurance Institute encourages older adults who receive funding for home caregivers to stay active and get out of the house - affording them a 6 hour day in the day center for the price of 2 or 2.75 caregiver hours. 

This beautiful model is truly life-changing - not only to the care recipients, but also in allowing those caregivers (family and paid) some respite from the brutal routine they endure.

How life-saving are we talking?
During a major war with Iran throughout March 2026, we opened the center after the first week of war, but were forbidden by the overseeing Welfare Ministry to operate transit vans. So no less than 3/4 of our normal number of participants got a ride with their family caregivers, literally risking their lives en route to our center in order to enjoy the good life that we provided them. This means they knew that the alternative of sitting idly at home was so detrimental that they would rather die of one of the countless ballistic missiles that Iran was lobbing in our direction than stay at home. 

Some striking memories from my encounter with dementia:

• Music is an unbelievably powerful tool. My favorite use case - the secretary told me to call back one older adult's daughter to discuss something. Amid the dizzying daily task list, I forgot to call back - then remembered and reminded myself by singing a song with the daughter's name. When I returned her call, I told her about that memory trick. She replied, "you'll never believe this - my father named me after that song!" At the end of the day, when waiting for the transit van, that same father would become, and stay, very agitated. So I started a regular tradition of playing that song that he loved enough to name his daughter after! It immediately turned his anxious face into an ear-to-ear grin, as he danced away his troubles with me.
• You think beer goggles are bad? Try Alzheimer's goggles. Inappropriate sexual advances are very common among folks with dementia. My staff and I worked to prevent this, but with a one caregiver to 10 visitors ratio, we couldn't always get there in time. One man was especially hard to contain, and he often went for the most frail women in the center.
• The power of our services was seen most clearly in the little things - we tried to "set up" one day center visitor, who is the most lovely conversationist, with an eager "volunteer" - a visitor from the non-dementia wing. But the one without dementia was discouraged when his coffee buddy kept forgetting his name and the whole situation of sitting down together with this man who appeared to him every few minutes to be some stranger.
  Well, that dementia participant would eat breakfast and lunch every day with a fellow memory care participant who told me every other day that he was called in to work at the hospital in the middle of the night.
  These two, who are clearly each on their own wavelength, would chat for so long over meals that they'd have to get shooed out at "closing time" for our staff.
• YouTube really has almost everything! One participant was a former star of the local soccer team. The week I left the job, I decided to try out a video search despite his having played decades ago. There he was, making moves around the field! 
• The power of routine for people with dementia is immense. After closing the center for almost two weeks during the war with Iran in June 2025, I couldn't believe my ears when so many of our visitors kept asking me where the bathroom is. That brief break really threw off their orientation.
  But then I saw it again with the even shorter 3, or sometimes 2 days that we took off for the Jewish holidays.

Off to the Emda - Alzheimer's Association of Israel's annual conference on this crucial subject.