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#38 - Transforming Dementia Care Through Doll Therapy: The Story Behind The Grand Baby Project

Eric Blake: Welcome to another episode of the Simply Retirement Podcast. I'm your host, Eric Blake, and if you are a parent, a relative, a friend, or if you know someone that is suffering from Alzheimer's or dementia, you are not going to want to miss today's episode. I wanted to share some pretty amazing stats from the Alzheimer's Association. Nearly 7 million Americans have Alzheimer's. There's an estimated 6.9 million Americans, aged 65 and older that are living with Alzheimer's here in 2024. 73% are aged 75 and older, about one in nine people. That's about 11% of those aged 65 and older has Alzheimer's. That was pretty amazing to me and for our audience, and even the majority of our clients, almost two thirds of Americans that have Alzheimer's are women. So the odds are that we all know someone and the odds are that it's a mother, it's a daughter, it's a sister, it's an aunt.

And today we're going to talk about a really amazing form of therapy for dementia in Alzheimer's patients. Before I bring our guests on for all the links and resources for this episode, you can go to www.thesimplyretirementpodcast.com/ 38. Today we're again going to be joined by Mary Greer. She joined us on episode 12 to discuss how seniors can thrive in their later years by staying at home as long as possible through the use of home healthcare services. And we're going to get an update from Mary on where she's at today. But on today's episode, Mary is going to be discussing a true passion of hers, the Grand Baby Project, and I'm actually going to let her tell the audience about the Grand Baby Project because she will do a much better job than I will. So Mary Greer, welcome back to the Simply Retirement Podcast.

Mary Greer: Thanks so much, Eric. Things have changed since I was on your show the last time I have now with one U of Home Care out of Allen, Allen, Texas, because I know your audience is broader than just our area, and I made that change in May of last year. It's wonderful, amazing company to work for. The owners are so invested in their clients and in the client's families they take. The approach of this is to support the entire family. I mean, yes, we're there to take care of the person that needs care, but the family needs care too. So we are doing things in the home that they maybe don't have time to get to or maybe that female caregiver you were just talking about. She gets home from work and then she's got us make dinner, things like that where we can step in and we can take care of their person, but we can take care of them.

So we're a support system for the entire family. We serve the whole metroplex and we go out and we build those relationships. We're not just someone that's coming in that you don't know and you don't feel comfortable with. We're making personal introductions of those caregivers and we're doing a lot of things to build that comfort level and we can take care of everything from companionship all the way up to fully bedridden. We start at age 18 because diseases are coming on earlier, plus there's accidents, there's other illnesses. So we can take care of everyone and really support them as they're going through. Hopefully they're going through something that they're going to recover from, maybe a broken limb or something like that. We love those cases because they get better and they don't need us anymore. That's great. But we can also go all the way through supporting the hospice companies and being there with those family members as their family moves into the final stages of life.

And then of course, we are there for the dementia. You were giving some facts and figures on dementia. Another million people are going to be added to that role this year, and that's only going to grow as the population ages. And we're coming into what I've heard called the silver tsunami because 10,000 people a day turn 65 years old, you figure one of 'em got to live in Dallas. So we are coming into that and those folks are going to have cognitive issues. So they have mental as well as physical. And the average caregiver is a 45 plus year old female in the house. She very well could be taking care of three generations because she's taking care of her children, her and her husband, or a significant other plus aging relatives and usually working a job outside the home. That's more than we should ask anybody to do. And that's where one you love comes in because we can come in and take a lot of that burden off of her. So when she comes in, instead of sitting down and five seconds to rest, she can sit down to dinner and it makes a difference. That's awesome. So everybody has

Eric Blake: One you love. Glad that you able to give us an update on that. We both know I know the owner, Greg, you guys do some amazing work. And of course when we're talking about home care, one of those conditions as we've already touched on, is the number of people, women, men across the board that are dealing with dementia, dealing with Alzheimer's. And I have to tell you that for my podcast, I've been working shortening the intros a little bit just to get to the topics, but I knew in this case I wanted to make it a little bit longer because as soon as I ask you about the Grand Baby Project, I know I may only have to ask one question and you're off and running because I know how passionate you are about this. So it's amazing. So I know how important it's to you. So I just want you to share number one, just what is the Grand Baby Project? Just start off with that because again, I feel like the audience is going to pick up the passion that you have for it, and then we'll get into some of the other details as we go.

Mary Greer: Okay. The Grand Baby Project is a 20 year labor of love. We were started by Tanya Moon down in the Houston area, and everything we do every day is in honor of her grandmother. Her mama Ruby. Mama Ruby was in a community mama. Ruby had been thrown out of four communities because she was spicy. She hit she bit, she cussed everything that you could do. She did. This was the last community, and they told Tanya to either get control of her grandmother and mama Ruby Nanny raised Tanya, either get control of her grandmother or she had to leave, and that would've been the state psychiatric home. I don't know how the folks that are listening feel, but I killed my mama before I put her there, and that was it. They had to do something. And Tanya's cousin came and she brought a $6 doll from Walmart and she said, well, the only time nanny's good is when you're here with your baby.

And Tanya's daughter, cam was born, she was about this size, and Mala Ruby just loved her. Her life revolved around Cam, so they gave her the baby having no idea what they just gave her the baby, and it changed her life. She would live there several more years and she died with her baby in her arms. So Tanya knew she wanted to do something with Dementia Doll therapy, but she wanted her baby to grow up first. So Cam grew up, she went off to college, and so that's when the Grand Baby Project was officially born. And like everybody else, Tanya thought, well, I'll Google and get some information. Sadly, there's not any. There's only been 15 studies worldwide. One of them only had one participant. Now the UK and Japan had been doing Dementia doll therapy for about 25 years, and in Japan it is so prevalent when your loved one checks into a community, they pick out their room and they pick out their baby.

So it is being used and it's being used successfully. Doll therapy is also used successfully in our children that have been abused, but nobody was using it with our adults. So what Dementia Doll Therapy does is we go in. Now, this is very, very effective as folks are in the later stages of dementia, and it's as effective with men as it is with women, but we go in and we train the staff. Now our training comes through the Dementia Society of America, but we train the staff. We train everybody that's going to even touch the babies on how to deal with this as a real life baby because Eric, you and I know it's a doll and the guy in the kitchen that bus tables, he too knows it's a doll, but grandma does not realize that. So when the guy that bus the table sees the baby on the floor and he picks it up like this, well, we got a whole new set of problems now because to our residence eyes, he has picked up a baby by the arm, the leg, the head, and they see it as a real baby.

As our family members and our friends go through the stages of dementia, they drift away from us. They go to live in a bubble. They can't come out of that bubble. They're happy, they're safe there, and in their mind, they'd go back to times when they were the happiest. Maybe that was when they had their babies or when they were a child and playing with a doll. But we can step into that bubble and visit them. And so mama may not remember you as her son, may not remember me as the daughter, but she remembers that we are the wonderful people that come in and bring something for the baby because everything becomes about the baby. What it allows the communities and the families to do is to modify behavior without the use of pharmaceuticals. Now, unfortunately here in the United States, we are fast to throw medication at people, and believe you me, our seniors or anyone that has dementia does not need to be pickled with more medication. What this baby does is cuts down on fall risk because we all know when we were young parents, we weren't flipping around.

We're carrying our baby in our arms carefully. We want to drop our baby. It helps definitely with the behavioral modification because one of the first things that a person with dementia has issues with is taking a bath. Well, now I've got my baby. Well, I can say, Mr. Eric, we need to get you in the shower because we need to clean and change the baby. Okay, the shower's taken, now it's time to eat. Maybe you're not eating very well, Mr. Eric, we need to get you to eat your lunch because we have to feed the baby or we have to put the baby down. Okay, we are eating lunch. It helps with getting you out of your room. Isolation is going to kill a senior faster than a broken head, and 2020 darn near did 'em all in because they couldn't get out, they couldn't see their family, they couldn't socialize.

But you'll have two people sitting together on a couch. Maybe they're just speaking in word salad, but they're the same as those two young mothers comparing their babies, comparing their baby outfits. And so they're socializing, they're getting out of their rooms, they're involved with activities. Now, this is on the community level. Of course, they're involved with activities with their baby, and it gives them a new outlook and it helps them to be social again, to be a part of the group, to join in the group activities, and now they have their baby. They have something that they can take care of that depends on them, and that's a wonderful feeling because they've lost so much and now people tell them when to eat, when to sleep, what to eat, what to wear, when to go to the bathroom. They don't make any decisions on their own anymore.

And these people that we're talking about, I recently had a gentleman who had been the CEO of a Fortune 10 company and now he has no decision making abilities at all. He can't do that because he's living in a community. Can you imagine in his lucid moments how that must make him feel? So we give them back dignity. We give them back something that depends them just like our babies depended on us. Seriously, it's no different. They're a new mother and a new father, and that's how that we look at it in our presentations. We never talk about dolls. We talk about babies because they are. Now, if we get into a community where people do refer to them as dolls, we take our cues from them. If I give you this baby, if I present this baby to you and you say, oh, that's a doll, I'll usually say, yes it is, but it makes you feel so good just to hold this doll really close when you're talking.

It makes you just feel good warm inside. They're going to cue into that. Now we leave a baby in the community for every resident because let me tell you, peer pressure is as bad at 90 as it was at nine, except a 90-year-old will take a baby by force the next morning at breakfast when everybody has a baby and they don't have one. So we leave a baby for everyone, but it is as effective with men as with women, and the effects is instantaneous. I did a shower in Red Oak last December, and we all know that Red Oak is one street south of Dallas, and I gave the baby to a lady and I kept going. We present them during a baby shower. I presented her, her baby, she's cuddling on it, and I went over and there was a gentleman who had been non-responsive.

He kept looking at the baby, so I presented him a baby. Now, I'd already been warned about his wife because she was not there. She did not have any issues. He did. They told me, Ms. Hazel does not like your program. She didn't want her husband to have a doll. Then they told me, Ms. Hazel's here. Okay. Then they came and told me, Ms. Hazel wants to talk to you. I said, oh, goodie. I went over and Ms. Hazel was sitting there and she was crying. Her husband was sitting with his back to us. Well, she told me everything that was wrong with my program and three things she didn't like about me. Then she turned her husband around. He's been unresponsive completely for six months. He's dipping his cookie in his juice and he's feeding his baby. I like to think when she saw that she was seeing her husband, her young husband doing that while she was finishing supper, he was feeding the children.

A couple of minutes later, a gentleman came over to me, probably retired military because he still had a high and tight, and for those of you who don't know that, that's the military haircut. And he hugs me very quickly and he said, my wife is singing a lullaby to her baby. And I'm like, this is great. And I'm talking about me. He stops me. He says, you don't understand. My wife hasn't spoken in a year, and she was singing, Jesus loves me, not Word salad. Jesus loves me to her baby. That had been less than five minutes. There is not a medication on the face of the earth that acts that quickly, but these babies do. When I do presentations, and Eric, you've heard me, I'll ask people at the end, have you ever touched a miracle? And a lot of people say, yes, when my baby was born, a lot say no. And I'll hand them, baby Brita Ann, who's named after my mother. I'll hand them baby breed to Ann. I'll say, now you have because this is a miracle worker and this is what the Grand Baby Project is all about.

Eric Blake: Can you share just what kind of response have you gotten from the different facilities, from the different organizations that you guys have done presentations for, done baby showers. I love that term. What kind of feedback have you received from these different facilities?

Mary Greer: They absolutely love it because in a community, you can have, let's just say you have 20 residents. Well, we have probably four pages of activities that can be done with the residents and with the babies. Now, what this does is you can take one caregiver and put all 20 of those folks at a long table and they can all be doing activities with the babies. It takes the average dementia patient. Now, all of our babies have on SW their diapers and they're all dressed in newborn baby clothes. It takes the average dementia patient, 20 plus minutes, up to 40 minutes to undress, change the diaper, put on a new diaper and redress the baby. One caregiver can be watching all 20 people at the same time. Now you've got maybe three other caregivers on staff. They're checking on Mr. Jones, who has not come out of his room.

They're taking Ms. Smith back to her room, they're running to see where the snacks are. So it is literally putting time back in their days. And I love communities do not get me wrong, but communities are traditionally understaffed because they may have a full staff and three people call in that morning. So that allows them to take care of everyone beautifully, keep everyone safe, and give personal attention to the people who need it. So communities absolutely love the Grand Baby Project. And we have, of course, we're worldwide now. We've sent babies to Belgium, we've sent babies to Africa. We've sent babies to South and Central America. So we are worldwide, but we're are nationwide now. Just signed on some new communities over on the East Coast up through the wheat belt here in Texas and in the desert Southwest, bringing on a new community group. So it is spreading like wildfire, and it also is spreading with the individual because what I try to concentrate on and where I try to bring our message is once again, I'm going to say I love communities, but communities are very, very expensive, especially a memory care unit that can run well over $10,000 a month.

The average family does not have that money. And unfortunately not a lot of people have long-term care insurance. They're taking care of their loved ones at home. And a dementia patient is a great big toddler, a very crafty one at that if you run to the bathroom, by the time you get out, they've drunk a half a bottle of Windex and they're out the yard because there's not a lock that will keep them in the house. I had one gentleman that was in a locked unit, he'd been an engineer and he listened to the caregivers code in and out. He simply duplicated that pattern of sounds and let himself out of the building. So they are big crafty toddlers, but we go into the homes and the homes get support. They're still going to get a list of activities that they can do with their family member or whomever they're taken care of so that they can have that few minutes to throw a chicken in the oven or a roast in the crockpot, heavens, run to the bathroom, make some sandwiches where they're not literally having to stand over that person.

I call it a 40 hour a day job, and it is a 40 hour a day job. And sadly, on the flip side of what I do with the caregiving, we see caregivers dying before the person that they're caring for because they just wear out and they lay down and go to sleep and they don't wake up. But it's very well received, and it's a program that can be done as easily with men as women, women, they're nurturing, they're padding and bouncing and everything. The men, they go into grandpa mode, they're playing Patty tape and they're bouncing. They're having a big old time, the same as your grandfather did with you. It is no different. It is literally no different.

Eric Blake: That was really the amazing thing I wanted to ask that question is because it goes beyond just the one-on-one, obviously the impact that it has on the individual, but like you said, the fact that it actually improves care across the board, especially in some of these facilities, in these communities, like you said, where it gives the caregivers time to treat or be with other patients, and it's just an amazing story. What do you feel like if you had to come up with a future vision, what do you feel like? What's the vision of the Grand Baby Project oversee the next three to five years? Where are we going here?

Mary Greer: We're improving lives. One cuddle at a time.

Eric Blake: Love that.

Mary Greer: And it is our objective to put a baby in the arms of every person, not just in the United States. Every person in the world that needs a baby, that is our vision. That's our hope. That is our promise to Mama Ruby, that everybody that needs a baby is going to get a baby and we'll make it happen. I'm going out on a limb here. I buy a lot of babies and they go a lot of places because it's that important to me that when people, I mean, not a lot of people, I mean Eric, you do finance. A lot of people are living not even paycheck to paycheck. And if somebody contacts me and now these babies are not expensive, they are $77 each, they're amazing babies, very well made. It's definitely worth the money. But if somebody contacts me and says, I need a baby for my mom, but I don't have that much money.

Well, Eric, you know me. I'm a soft touch. You know where I'm going to be that afternoon up there at the Frisco going postal, sending them a baby because it's that important to me. Now my family is all gone. And fortunately, we did not have to deal with any memory issues. But as I said in the last meeting that you and I were in, you go into a group of people and I will just guarantee you every person in that group some way somehow will be touched by cognitive issues. It might not be their family. It might be the man that lives next door. It might be somebody they used to work with, but everybody is, if they're going to have issues, and this helps, it doesn't cure. Nothing is going to cure. Nothing's going to bring Mama back. It's the longest goodbye. But you can make new memories. You can make good new memories, and you don't have to remember them drugged up laying in a bed.

You don't have to do that. You can go and help them take care of their baby. But no, it is our desire and it is our goal, and we are going to make it happen that everybody that needs this baby, I don't care if you live in Salard, which is an island near the North Pole, if they need a baby, I'm going to send it up there. If they'll send me the address, I don't care where you are. If you live in the Amazon jungle and you need a baby, we are going to make sure you get one. So that's our goal is improving lives one cuddle at a time.

Eric Blake: That's awesome. I want to make sure that we get a chance to the course to share all the website and all that kind of fun stuff. But as far as people who may want to get involved in the mission, whether it's volunteering or they want to donate, whatever the interest is, what are some of the options that people have to be involved?

Mary Greer: Well, we're always looking for sponsors. You can go on our website. Now, of course, we are a nonprofit, but go onto our website and Eric will have that information on the podcast info, go take a look. We have three sponsorship levels and you can do a sponsorship. Now with a sponsorship, you also get lots of call outs on our social media. We are very, very active because we want to promote our partners, so we make sure that credit goes to where credit is due and you will get a baby. In fact, you can get up to three babies with a platinum sponsorship, but we're always asking for sponsors here in North Texas. If you want to be a part of volunteering, you can contact me. Eric will have my information there. You can go onto our Facebook page, and once again, Eric's going to have the information.

You can go onto our Facebook page and you can actually watch these babies in action at baby showers across all of Texas. And we may have some other baby shower video by now, but you can see these babies in action, and we do boys and girls, they don't have any little parts, but we dress them. Girls have bows, boys have hats. We have Caucasian, African-American, Indian, Asian, Hispanic, and biracial. So we can pretty much match a baby to everyone that wants and needs a baby. And that's one of the things that we specifically do is get the information from the communities. How many boys do you need? I mean, girls, do you need, because we want the people to feel and to have a comfort of the baby that they knew and loved.

Eric Blake: And as Mary said, we will definitely have all the links to the social media sites, but just if you would just throw out the website and make sure we have the website for everybody if they would like to go and check that out.

Mary Greer: The Grand Baby project.org and our Facebook page is the Grand Baby Project.

Eric Blake: Perfect. We definitely, again, we will share all this information for those who are interested, whether you just want to learn more about the Grand Baby Project or you want to get involved in their mission to improve the life of someone you know that is suffering from dementia or Alzheimer's, yes, please reach out to married or visit their website and their social media. And again, we will share all of their information in the show notes at www.thesimplyretirementpodcast.com/ 38. As always, please like, follow and share the show. We will see you again on the next episode of the Simply Retirement Podcast.

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