How AI Can Help Reduce Alzheimer’s Caregiver Burnout with Louis Swart

Are you caring for a loved one with dementia? You don't have to figure this out all on your own. Welcome to Truth, Lies Alzheimer's, the show that helps you reimagine a new relationship with your loved one, a relationship a little more free of stress and anxiety. Join host Lisa Skinner and her 30+ years of experience as she guides you on a new path to a better relationship with those you care for. Here's Lisa.

Welcome everyone to the Truth, Lies Alzheimer's Show. I'm Lisa Skinner, your host, and today I have a very special guest, so I'm going to just go ahead and introduce him to everybody. His name is Mr. Louie Swart. He is a business coach to coaches and the founder of IronBridge, a human AI-powered VA company helping coaches escape burnout and build self-running businesses. With 35+ years of experience in business, Louie has built and sold multiple companies. He's led 450+ staff and has trained coaches worldwide to delegate smarter, elevate faster, and accelerate their growth. I know what you must be thinking: What does this possibly have to do with Alzheimer's disease and dementia? Well, that's precisely what I was thinking too when he and I first started chatting about this. But because he and I actually met in a mastermind workshop, and at that time we had a chance to kind of share our notes and our expertise with one another. And to my surprise, Louis mentioned to me that what he specializes in can actually be applied to caregivers and family members to make their role in this dementia world much easier and much less stressful. Well, that caught my attention, so I invited him on, uh, today to give us some more information about how AI can actually help us in our dementia world. So please welcome my very special guest, Mr. Louis Swart, who's going to share with everybody everything that he shared with me. And I think you're going to find this quite exciting. So welcome to the show, Louis. I'm so happy to have you here. This is really exciting, and I can't wait to hear everything you have to tell us.

Thank you so much. I, I really, really appreciate it. And, you know, just before I begin, I just want to say the work that you're doing, the people that you're helping, such an incredibly valuable service. You know, it's just unbelievable because I think a lot of us don't actually appreciate what we've got until we don't have it. You know, that, that look in somebody's eye when they recognize you, and then one day they don't recognize you. And only at that point do you actually appreciate how much that look actually meant before, you know. And, um, we go through this, we go through life, and then we realize that, you know, it's, uh, it's a lot of those little things. It's those little things that you just kind of— I don't have time now, it's just something little. And then we realize that those were actually the biggest things in our lives. And so, you know, it's, it's how do we, how do we prepare for that, I suppose. And, and, and I mean, it's incredible that you are supporting people and helping them to be able to do that. So today I'd love to just talk a little bit about delegation. And I've been in business, you know, I've had several multimillion-dollar businesses. So I look at, I look at everything like a business opportunity. And so, you know, even with the delegation, it's working out what are high-value and low-value tasks that we can do.

Can I just sort of add one thing? Because it's totally applicable to what you're starting to say. This is one of the biggest challenges that caregivers and family members face. Is in the delegation aspect of their tasks, um, for a lot of different reasons, you know, guilt or time or whatever the reason is, finances. But one of the things that we always encourage is to find ways to delegate things to help take them off their plate, because being a caregiver, especially to somebody that has lost most of their cognitive functions is probably one of the most difficult tasks anybody can ever undertake. And so finding ways to— and it's probably one of the number one causes of caregiver burnout and people, you know, who care give to folks living with dementia. A high percentage of them end up getting a lot of chronic health issues just because of the stress they take on. So I just wanted to point that out, how this already is just such a good lead-in to the topic you're going to talk about, delegation, because we encourage everybody to try to do that, and, and it's a very difficult thing to accomplish in our world.

Absolutely, absolutely. And you know, it's not, it's not unique to being caregivers. Um, we all have the saying, you know, when we're a child, if you want something done right, you know, do it yourself. Okay. And, um, and so we grow up with it. We grow up with the fact that we have to do everything, and if somebody else does it, it won't be right. And so when it comes to us looking after people in our lives. Lots of times we feel like we have to do everything, and that's completely not true, you know. So I, I firmly believe that there's some things that are high value and some things that are low value. So there's some things that we can actually delegate, and there's some things that we definitely need to do ourselves. And so it's working out what are the, what are the things that we can delegate? What are those low value tasks? What is something that we could get somebody else to do that that wouldn't actually be as important. And, you know, there's the, there's the Eisenhower Matrix. And the Eisenhower Matrix is a very simple chart. You basically just draw a line and you go important, not important. So you draw a line and then you go, um, urgent, not urgent. You draw a second line. So now you've got 4 squares, and on the— in those squares you actually go, well, what's urgent and really important, and you definitely need to do that, whatever that is, you need to do it. And then what's, what's not urgent and also not important, because you can actually just delete that. You probably don't need to do that at all. But if you've got stuff that's urgent and it's not as important, those are the things that you can actually delegate. Those are the things that you can get somebody else to do. Now, if you're looking at it from a commercial, and I know that we're not looking at this from a, you know, purely commercial basis. But if we were looking at it from a commercial basis, we would literally start asking ourselves, is this something that I have to do, that only I can do? And if that is the case, then you would need to do it. But you'll find that a lot of the stuff that we do, we can actually get somebody else to do.

We're looking at a couple real-life examples into what you're saying, because I, I know from you know, the thousands of family members that I have worked with over the years, one of the biggest complaints is typically one of the family members, usually the adult daughter, one of the adult daughters, carries the, the brunt of the caregiving role. And a lot of times they have siblings, but they live other places. And one of the biggest comments I hear from the one that really is saddled with the majority of the responsibility is, "They basically have abandoned me and nobody offers to help or do anything." So here's a great example of things that can be delegated to siblings or other family members whether they live in the same area or not in the same area, if they're not, you know, really involved hands-on. But these things that you're talking about, Louie, that maybe are not quite as important on the Eisenhower scale could be delegated to other people, and it's not going to cost any money. And that's one of the challenges in our world is having to continue to pay multiple people to do things, and they run into that regularly. So here's a great example of things that— and I recommend that you talk about this and prepare ahead of time if this situation does touch your life, how everybody is going to commit to what role they're going to play in the care for mom or for dad or grandma or whomever. I love what you're saying.

I think a lot of times we don't actually ask for the help.

Yeah.

So a lot of us actually wear it almost as a badge of honor. You know, mom's sick and I'm just getting burnt out and I'm so exhausted and I'm just, you know, and we wear that as a badge of honor. We wear that as, you know, I'm doing all the work and, you know, I'm so hard done by. And, and I know that that does happen most times, but we've just got to be careful that we're not wearing that as a badge of honor. You know, we've got to be careful that we, that we, if we're not asking siblings for help, and by asking siblings for help, it's not like, hey, can you help me here? It's sitting down and saying, this is the long term, this is a long-term project that we're going to be doing, so I would like you to, let's say, call Mom. 'Once a week, I need you to call Mom and talk to her for half an hour,' um, and give them an assignment. And then you can follow up if that assignment is happening, you know. 'Oh, I need you to do,' you know, 'take her to the shops' or something. But actually give each one of them a specific project that they can, that they can take control of and be in charge of. Because otherwise, we just go Uh, you know, if you can help me, it would be nice. And they don't— not sure exactly what you're doing, and they're not sure what they should be doing. And so they just kind of don't help. They don't help. Um, you know, there was a, there was a terrible case in America where there was these apartment, apartment blocks, and there was a woman down at the bottom, and the woman actually got beaten to death by a man. And it was terrible. And when the police finally came out, they actually interviewed everybody and said, like, well, why didn't you call us? You know, why didn't you call us? This woman was screaming for help. And, you know, and everybody in the apartments all said, well, we thought that the neighbors must be calling. She was making such a— you know, she was in such distress, we thought that obviously everybody was calling and we didn't want to overload the system. And sometimes we do that in life. Sometimes we think everybody else has got it, you know, um, and lots of times that one sibling that's actually managing it is really appearing like really, really strong, even though they're getting burnt out. They're appearing so strong that the other siblings just go, well, we don't really need to help them, they've, they've kind of got this, she's got this, she's, she's managing it, she's got it under control. And so it is part of delegation is working out the Eisenhower Matrix, working out what are the things that you could actually get somebody else to do, and then actually asking them to do, you know, to actually pick up those, to pick up those components of what it is that they can do. Um, and you know, one of the things, one of the saddest things about the whole, you know, people starting to suffer dementia and, you know, losing some of their faculties, is really that we lose a lot of those stories. We lose a lot of the history. Um, you know, I was with my mom today, and my mom's 83 or something, and she told me a story about when she was a teenager, when she was 14, and she used to buy wool for 75 cents, and she used to knit little jumpers, and she used to sell them for 15 shillings to the neighbor, you know. Um, and those stories are just going to go unless we capture them somehow, you know. And, and, and we'd like to think that we can remember all of them, but this is where we can actually use AI. So, you know, AI has coming now, and it's, it's, it's freely available. Every single person's phone, you can just download ChatGPT, or you can download Grok or Gemini, or— and they're all free, they're all free. And what you can do is you can actually start asking it questions, you know, um, and you can say, hey, I'd like to know all about my mom's life, and what I would like you to do is I'd like you to ask her 10 questions about her childhood, 10 questions about growing up, 10 questions about when she was at school, and literally they can just talk to their phone. They don't have to type anything in. They can literally just get their phone, put it onto the voice mode, and literally it will say, tell me, tell me about a great time that you had at school. And they can actually relay the whole, you know, story to it. And AI is incredible in that it actually can remember those and you can then go back later or they can go back later and say, hey, tell me about when I was at school, and it will actually tell them, it will actually tell them those stories. Um, you know, and, and I think once we can get all those stories together, we can kind of really get an essence of the person. Um, you know, this— we can go the next level where we can actually create a, you know, I've got a copy of myself, an AI copy of myself, which has got my voice and it's got my video you know, looks exactly like me, talks like me, but it's an AI version of me. Um, and so, you know, people can talk to that even when I'm gone. They could still talk to that version of me. Okay, but somewhere between us using it for the stories, which I think is a really, really good, um, idea, and us actually making a full AI version of the person, you know, that's— these are some of the things that we can actually do now. Um, you know, on the other side, there's stuff that we can do using AI which is really simple. So we could actually, we could actually get our, um, our calendar, you know, because if we're looking after a parent, we've obviously still got other things in our life, you know. We're still taking kids to school and we're doing all these other things, and we can actually put that into, you know, um, something like Gemini, you know, one of the Google, one of the Google, um, AI versions, and say, this is my calendar, I'm caring for, you know, um, an aged parent, could you help me to actually give me better ways that I could manage my time? And it will actually arrange your calendar accordingly, which is incredible. You know, it will tell you this time, that time, it'll slot in things, it'll actually allow you to put all that type of stuff in. And we can go, you know, we could also go and say, you know, what are some, what are some activities that I could do with a person that's, that's suffering, you know? And it might be something simple. It might be, you know, playing a game of Scrabble or something that they, that they enjoy doing. And it can actually schedule that into your calendar together with all the other items. So the possibilities have never been as amazing as what they are now. With what we can actually do. You know, we've, we've now got this, we've got this, um, you know, this incredible coach in our pocket which can help us to not only deal with the questions, um, you know, that are going to come up, but also to help us to schedule how are we going to manage our time. Because, you know, that's the biggest thing. Hey, it does, it takes so much time. Um, and so, you know, the main sort of things that I would say is, number one, um, look at, you know, do you have any beliefs around the time that you're spending with the person? You know, if, if you, if you're just absolutely loving it and you, you're really benefiting emotionally from working, you know, helping the person, that's great. But if you're building up some sort of negative resistance to it and you're starting to feel burnt out from it, um, then you need to ask yourself, is there something else that's driving you? Um, and we call that secondary gain. So we have a thing where we call— we do stuff and we have what they call secondary gain. Now, how that works is we all know that one person that's sick a lot, okay? They're, they're, they're sick a lot, and if there's any flu, they've got it. If it's anything like that, they've got it. And it may be— I'm not saying it is, but it may be that their secondary gain is the fact that when I'm sick, I get attention from people. And so they, they actually get sick, but they've got a secondary reason why they actually, you know, are having whatever that is. And so we need to look at— we need to look at, um, when we're helping people Do we have anything like that?

Is—

are there any negative programs running like that in our brain? Um, you know, because that will lead to burnout because we're doing it for a reason other than the main reason that we should be doing it for.

So yeah, everything that you just shared with us is so beautifully aligned with what I teach, which is a person-centered approach to dementia care, and using AI. And this is absolutely brilliant. That's why it caught my attention, because I don't think I'm sophisticated enough with AI. I mean, I do use it, but to use it in this way to organize our life, organize our schedule, give us ideas, but For example, collecting a history on your parent that is progressing through the stages of dementia, and you know eventually they're, you know, they're just going to be completely lost and the world makes absolutely no sense to them. But you can have this information right at your fingertips now to use every single day, to use to redirect them or to stimulate conversations or to trigger memories by using AI to gather all this information. And you do it, you know, several times and then you have it all on record and you're going to have it right at your fingertips. To use as prompts and cues and things like that. So to me, this is brilliant. This is absolutely brilliant. And if you hadn't mentioned it to me that day that we were talking, I don't think it really would have occurred to me that AI could be used in such a valuable way in the caregiving world or the world that, you know, family members and all of us live in with loved ones who are living with Alzheimer's disease and dementia. And then I love, love, love your idea, your suggestion of using it as an organizational tool to— because one of the things that I've come to realize— and this is over decades-long period, and it's consistent. I've never wavered from this belief that most people, because they're totally unprepared for this— nobody signs up for this— they spend the majority of their time in a state of constant reaction, scrambling around, trying to figure out, oh my gosh, How do I respond to that false belief that she just shared with me? But it doesn't have to be that way. I mean, I have seen miracles happen in the caregiving world if you possess knowledge, skills, and the right tools, and this could be one of them. So I am so excited that you came on today to share this information with us. Um, how can people get in touch with you or find out more about you and all the, the wonderful ideas that you have in that head to help family members and caregivers, uh, live this— live in on this journey with the people they're caring for or their loved ones that will put them in a position where they are more prepared And as a result, will experience much more positive outcomes to what they're probably experiencing now in a state of constant stress and flux and strife. Because, you know, those of us who've been around for a while, we know with the strategies and the tools and the techniques that we have available now, it does not have to be that way. And this is just another tool that is now available to us to help us get back to what really matters in this whole situation, and that is to spend quality time with our loved ones.

Absolutely.

And create lasting memories. And those memories are not um, the ones that we want to create a legacy of our parents or the people that we are helping is not really going to be a storybook of constant stress. We want them to be memorable and joyful and happy memories so we still have something to hold on to even after they're gone. And I see this really being a valuable tool to help us make that happen. So you want to share your contact information with us before we wrap it up?

Look, I can definitely share them. It's just Louis Swart, S-W-A-R-T, and they can find me on Facebook or Instagram or LinkedIn. We all like—

What's your website again? We're going to put all this in the show notes so they will have access to it. But if you want to just verbally tell us now, then some people might be writing it down.

Okay, the website is called ironbridge, ironbridge.com.au. Um, but we've got a project that we're going to— that we're working on right now, and, and it will be ready in the next couple of days. Um, and it's where we can actually I can actually work with somebody for, um, I work with them for about an hour and a half, and I actually help them to set up all of these things. So I actually help them to set up a book that's called My Life, My Story, and it actually, you know, they can then take that and they literally just need a mobile phone and they can sit with their parent and ChatGPT will ask questions and their parent can answer the questions and they can actually start getting a life history and get all those beautiful stories, you know, all those beautiful stories of what they actually accomplished. Because, you know, I think for most of us, we live in a world now where there's so much technology. But, you know, the, the people that are in our lives that are slightly older, they've come from a time where there was no computer, there was no phone. You know, the phone used to be, you know, the The old phone used to be like, grrr, grrr, you know, like it took forever to ring somebody. You had to know all your friends' phone numbers. You know, they've come from that time and they've actually seen incredible things on the way through and they've got incredible stories. And how beautiful would it be to be able to pass those on to, you know, not only for ourselves to actually get access to those stories, because lots of times they will tell a story that we maybe haven't heard before. No, um, and, but they could also pass those stories on to their, you know, our children and our children's children and children's children. So, you know, that's something that, that I'm working on where I basically just work with you for an hour and I set it up and then you can literally sit with whoever and, and populate the whole book.

So very easy for those of you who are, have been thinking, well, I wouldn't even know how to get started with something like this. Now you have a resource to at least get you out of the gate. And I'm going to give you a real quick testimonial here, Louie. I've seen this, this man in action and the skills. He's a master. And I think it would be prudent for everybody to at least have a discovery call and see if he can help you with getting something like this at least in the works. He's very, very good at what he does, and I've seen that personally. I have experienced it personally. So he is, yeah, he's a master at what he does, and everybody has an opportunity to see that happen for them. So I encourage everybody to at least give him a call. It doesn't cost anything to give them a call.

Absolutely.

Is there— what's the best way for them if they want to schedule like a little 15-minute discovery call, consultation call? What's the best?

I have a virtual coffee link, and what we can do is just put a virtual coffee link in, and anybody can click on the link and basically just book in a 20-minute or a 30-minute virtual coffee with me. And let us have a coffee and see how I can help you. You know, maybe it's not going to cost you anything. I'll just give you some ideas of what you can actually do, because this is— I think the work that you're doing is absolutely incredible. And, you know, I know the suffering. I've seen the suffering. And the biggest problem with this is that it's not, you know, it's not like a short race. You know, a short race, you can just go like, okay, we're gonna— this is gonna take me 6 months and I'm gonna have this over. This is something that can go on for decades. And lots of people, they literally just get to that point where they just need a little bit of help, you know. And the work that you're doing is incredible to help them. And if we can support them with AI and the version of yours, um, you know, it's just that breath of fresh air. And sometimes we just need that breath of fresh air where we can just come up and go, okay, I can do this again. I've, I've got it for another little while. So yeah, thank you so much.

So many people need that desperately. So once again, thank you so much for taking the time to share this, um, just amazing information with us. And anything else you want to say before we, um, wrap the episode up today?

Look, I, no, I, I think the main thing is just enjoy those moments, you know. You know, that, that look in some— in your parents' eyes when they, when they look at you and acknowledge you, because when they're gone, you're not going to have that, you know. And unfortunately, you know, some of them lose that before we actually lose them. And so, you know, those are the things that we're going to miss, um, you know, and try and get as much— try and get as much benefit, you know, um, out of their life lessons, because they've got incredible life lessons and they've got incredibly valuable things to teach us. And, you know, just pace yourself, pace yourself, work out what you can delegate. And, you know, really, you're trying to bring people around you. Um, do the thing with the Eisenhower Matrix, you know, is this important, is it urgent, is it not important, is it not urgent? And then work out if you want to, if you want to do it, or if you have to do it, um, you know, or if you can just not actually worry about that part.

So Thank you again, Louie. So that'll do it for today's episode of the Truth, Lies Alzheimer's Show. I'm Lisa Skinner, your host. I hope this has been an inspirational event for everybody. I can honestly say it has been for me, and I feel very blessed that this gentleman's path and my path crossed and we were able to bring him to you today. So anyway, I'll be back back next week with another new episode of the Truth, Lies Alzheimer's Show. And in the meantime, I wish everybody will stay happy and healthy and take good care, and I'll see you again next week. Bye-bye.

Thank you for listening to Truth, Lies Alzheimer's. We hope you found something in today's episode that helps. We understand that caring Caring for a loved one with dementia can be the challenge of a lifetime, but you don't have to do it alone. If you're ready for exclusive access to even more great content and resources, head on over to Facebook and join Lisa Skinner's Minding Dementia support group. We're a community of like-minded caregivers, and we're here to help.