Free Alzheimer’s seminar for healthcare professionals

A free dementia-care seminar is happening in Fremont on Tuesday, May 5, and it’s aimed at two groups at once — healthcare workers and family caregivers. The event is called “Stronger Together: Navigating Dementia Care as a Community,” and it’s being organized by the Fremont Area Alzheimer’s Collaborative at St. Patrick Catholic Church Parish Office, 422 E. 4th St., from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. That matters because dementia care usually gets split into silos. Clinicians get one kind of training. Families get a different kind of support — if they can find it at all. This seminar is trying to close that gap by putting both tracks under one roof, with speakers, a panel discussion, and a vendor fair built around local dementia resources. ### Who is this actually for? It’s not just a general community talk. One track is specifically for healthcare workers, and another is designed for family caregivers. So the pitch here is practical, not abstract — people who treat dementia, and people who live with its day-to-day demands, are both being brought into the same conversation. ### What do healthcare professionals get? The clearest draw for clinicians is that the healthcare worker session lists 1.5 CEUs available. That turns the event from a nice local seminar into something more useful for nurses and other licensed professionals who need continuing education and want training tied directly to dementia care. ### Who’s speaking? One featured speaker is Lakelyn Eichenberger, Ph.D., a gerontologist and caregiving advocate with Home Instead. Her background is squarely in aging and dementia caregiving — she started in direct elder care, earned a Ph.D. in gerontology from the University of Nebraska Omaha, and now spends much of her time educating professionals, families, and communities about aging challenges and caregiver support. That speaker choice tells you a lot about the event’s angle. This is less about flashy research updates and more about the messy real-world part of dementia care — caregiver strain, care planning, support systems, and what communities can do when families are overwhelmed. ### Why hold it in person? Because dementia care is intensely local. Families need to know which home-care providers, respite options, support groups, and service organizations actually exist nearby. The event includes local vendors and dementia-focused businesses, which means attendees are not just hearing ideas — they’re meeting the people and organizations they may need next month. ### Why does the “community” framing matter? Basically, dementia care breaks people when every burden lands on one household or one clinic. A community model spreads some of that load. It helps clinicians connect patients to real support. It helps caregivers learn what questions to ask earlier. And it makes the disease feel less isolating, which is often half the battle. That framing is built right into the event name — “Stronger Together.” ### Is this unusual? Not entirely — there are plenty of Alzheimer’s and dementia trainings online. But a free, local, in-person event that combines caregiver support, professional education, CEUs, vendors, and discussion in one day is more specific than the usual webinar model. That’s what gives this one its weight in Fremont. ### The bottom line This seminar is a local attempt to make dementia care more connected and more usable. For healthcare professionals, the immediate value is training and CEUs. For families, it’s support and local contacts. For Fremont, it’s a reminder that Alzheimer’s care works better when it stops being one person’s private crisis and starts being a shared community job.