Beth Mastel-Smith’s goal is to ensure Baker County residents who have dementia can live independently for as long as feasible and with the highest quality of life possible.

This is, she concedes, a daunting challenge.

Mastel-Smith, an associate professor in the School of Nursing at the University of Texas at Tyler, moved from Houston to Baker City in February 2022.

While living in Texas she learned about, and became involved in promoting, the concept of the “dementia friendly community.”

After moving to Baker City she started swimming regularly at Sam-O Swim Center.

During her conversations with other swimmers, the issue of dementia came up, and Mastel-Smith said she was encouraged that there was interest locally in helping people with dementia and their families, friends and caregivers.

That led her to set up an “action team” of local residents to meet with service groups such as the Baker Rotary Club and Baker Lions Club, as well as local pastors, to discuss the dementia friendly community concept.

Team members include Ann Marie Roberts, a care partner; Mari Krohn and Joe Hayes of Community Connection; Mark Bogart, a retired teacher and school administrator; LuAnn Cook, a nurse practitioner at St. Luke’s Eastern Oregon Medical Associates in Baker City; Linda Hudson; Kimberli Anderson; Jean Simpson, a former care partner; Baker County Sheriff Travis Ash; and Gabe Maldonado, the sheriff’s office’s community service deputy.

Mastel-Smith said she has “learned a lot” during meetings with local residents and groups, including the prevalence of common misconceptions about dementia.

For instance, she said the notion that dementia is an inevitable part of aging — that people are sometimes confused solely because they are elderly — isn’t always true.

Some health conditions can cause dementia-like symptoms, she said, ones which can be treated with medications and are thus reversible.

This is quite different from Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia and one for which there is no cure.

Mastel-Smith said she’s also learned from law enforcement about cases of people with dementia being victims of financial abuse.

The dementia friendly community concept is well-suited for Baker County because the “risk factors in this county are higher than average,” she said.

Baker County’s population is older, on average, than for Oregon or the nation as a whole.

As of the 2020 Census, 26.9% of Baker County’s 16,800 residents were 65 or older, compared with 18.6% of Oregonians.

Based on that statistic, Baker is the ninth-oldest among Oregon’s 36 counties.

Wheeler County, which is also Oregon’s least populous county with about 1,500 residents, has highest percentage of people 65 or older, at 36.7%.

The other counties with a higher percentage than Baker are, in order: Curry, 35.5%; Grant, 31.4%; Lincoln, 31%; Wallowa, 29.6%; Gilliam, 28.9%; Tillamook and Coos, both 27.4%.

The first step in establishing a dementia friendly community involves some of the tasks the action team has already set for itself, Mastel-Smith said — raising awareness about dementia and assessing the local needs.

A future goal is to address those needs.

That can include a variety of steps, Mastel-Smith said.

One crucial challenge is making sure the caregivers for people with dementia — most often relatives, and frequently a spouse or an adult child — have the support they need, Mastel-Smith said. Serving as a caregiver can be demanding, and burnout is common.

The presence of a competent caregiver can help people with dementia remain in their homes.

“Caregivers are crucial,” Mastel-Smith said.

She pointed out that some people diagnosed with dementia can live alone without needing a caregiver, potentially for many years or even a couple decades.

“There is a wide range of situations,” she said.

Other aspects of the dementia friendly community concept aren’t quite so obvious.

For instance, Mastel-Smith said the program includes working with retail businesses, such as pharmacies and grocery stories, to help employees recognize the effects of dementia so they can help customers who have symptoms.

Even a small difference in an employee’s approach — being sympathetic and helpful rather than annoyed or confrontational, for example — can have a significant effect on how the customer with dementia responds and is affected, Mastel-Smith said.

The Baker County effort is in its early stages, she emphasized. It’s not clear, for instance, whether the local group will create a separate nonprofit, or be associated with an existing organization such as Community Connection of Baker County.

The movement started in September 2015 after the White House Conference on Aging, according to Dementia Friendly America (DFA) website, dfamerica.org.

The concept is based on Minnesota’s statewide initiative, ACT on Alzheimer’s. DFA launched in 2015 with pilot communities in Denver, Prince George’s County, Maryland, Santa Clara County, California, Tempe, Arizona, and the state of West Virginia.

From the DFA website:

A dementia friendly community is a village, town, city or county that is informed, safe and respectful of individuals with the disease, their families and caregivers and provides supportive options that foster quality of life. Joining DFA means a community is engaging in a process to become more dementia friendly.

To help communities work towards becoming dementia friendly, DFA offers technical assistance, including a community toolkit, sector specific guidance and best practices synthesized from across the world.

The DFA website includes a list of criteria for dementia friendly communities, including the need to have people with dementia and their caregivers involved in the project.

Other useful information about dementia is available at:

• Alzheimer’s Association https://www.alz.org/

• Alzheimer’s International https://www.alzint.org/