Why Choose Frena Gray-Davidson as Your Alzheimer's and Dementia Trainer?

Frena's Background

Frena Gray-Davidson has lived and worked with people with Alzheimer’s disease for almost 20 years.

“My Alzheimer's story began by accident. I was looking to save rent, so I moved into a house in Berkeley, California,and became a caregiver to a 79-year-old woman with Alzheimer’s.”

It was 1986 and Frena was newly-arrived in the USA. British born and educated, she had worked as a freelance writer and broadcaster in Asia for 15 years before arriving in the USA.

“Like many people starting in Alzheimer’s care, I had no idea what to do. I attended some workshops, but I soon realized I had to learn the language of Alzheimer’s from those who actually had it.”

Paying close attention to those who have Alzheimer’s and similar dementias is still the essence of Frena’s ground-breaking work. It is how she has developed a meaningful understanding which gives new and profoundly usable tools to both family members and professional care workers.

“Our society considers people with dementia to be empty and gone-away. My work has largely involved creating a guidebook to prevent caregivers from getting lost.”

Frena has experienced many dementia care settings. They include:

• staff training in a 54-bed Alzheimer’s unit;
• setting up a day care program which was part of the National Model Program;
• establishing small care homes appropriate for dementia care;
• giving dementia care in a 24-hour at home setting.

Frena has 15 years of work as a support group facilitator ― for the Alzheimer’s Association and Agency on Aging. She also covers caregiving issues through her regular newspaper column “The Caregiver Coach.”

She brings an unmatched practical involvement with dementia care, together with years of giving training and workshops in multi-cultural settings.

"When care staff understand that all difficult behaviors have meanings, that they are communications about unmet needs, then relevant care happens. This truly creates a nurturing environment for residents with dementia and also for the staff. When that happens, residents do better and so do the staff. When staff find real meaning in their work, this reduces the turnover of staff."

“At this point, the biggest issue facing Alzheimer’s caregivers is spiritual despair. It is not Alzheimer's that makes people despair. It is the feeling that the journey is meaningless. Once people can make sense of the journey, they are released from despair.”

“The so-called difficult
behaviors of dementia are actual communications about the needs and feelings of those with Alzheimer’s.”

Frena's Bio

Frena was born and raised in London, England. She trained as a journalist and feature writer, after which she went to Asia. She lived in Nepal for two years, working at the United Nations Development Program in Nepal and becoming the NBC Radio Correspondent for Nepal. She also taught at the British Council in Kathmandu.

From Nepal, she moved to Hong Kong. She traveled extensively throughout the region, writing guidebooks to Thailand and Sri Lanka.

After having studied Traditional Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture in Hong Kong for five years, working in a free clinic in Kowloon under the supervision of her teacher, 4th generation Chinese healer, Dr Butt Chak-Kai, she wrote several books on Chinese culture and healing.

In California, she was the founding director of a non-profit Alzheimer’s education organization and began teaching Alzheimer’s and dementia care to family members and professional care staff.

During this time, she began to be in demand as a public speaker, teacher and Alzheimer’s educator.

Using the lessons of living in a multi-cultural background, she learned Alzheimer’s from people with Alzheimer’s. This innovative approach enabled her to observe and bring some new ideas to the picture we have of Alzheimer’s.

• she was the first to write that people with Alzheimer’s tended to have experienced unusual hardship in their childhood;
• she was the first to write that the so-called final stage of Alzheimer’s actually only occurred rarely, to 1 person in about 35. Everyone else dies of the normal health conditions of old age;
• she was the first to write that people with dementia self-medicate their anxiety with walking;
• she has successfully created care plans which can eliminate sun-downing entirely;
• she has created the Three-Point Plan which enables almost all so-called difficult behaviors to be solved;
• she uses and recommends
  the therapeutic use of aromatherapy and music in residential environments.

With her practical knowledge of Alzheimer’s behaviors Frena became a trainer for the professional care- givers for the California Residential Home Licensing Department. She was a staff trainer in dementia for Hillhaven, Alameda. She has also given presentations and trainings for:

• the Florida Association of Nursing Homes;
• Bethany Homes in North Dakota;
• Royal Alzheimer’s Disease Society of Great Britain;
• Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital of Tropical Diseases in American Samoa;
• Morton Plante Hospital in Florida;
• Hawaii State Department of Aging;
• the Montana State Ombudsman for Long Term Care and the Alzheimer’s Association of Montana;
• Oregon Coast College;
• California Department of Health and Human Services;
• Siuslaw Community College;
• the Caregiver Foundation of Arizona;
• Area Agency on Aging Southern Arizona;
• and many more.

“Care staff have to make successful heart relationships with people with dementia. That’s the only way to soothe the terror and loneliness of those we care for. I teach increased skills in doing that and give them a set of tools that can be used under almost any circumstances to solve these problems.”