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

Welcome everyone to the truth lies and

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. Louis Swart. He is a

business coach to coaches and the founder of Iron Bridge, a

human AI powered VA company helping coaches escape burnout

and build self running businesses with 35 plus years of

experience in business, Louie has built and sold multiple

companies. He's led 450 plus 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, Louie 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 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, Louie. 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 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 we go through this, we go through life, and

then we realize that, you know, it's, 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

realized 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 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 multi million 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 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 for a lot of

different reasons, you know, guilt or time or whatever the

reason is, it 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. 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 a it's not unique to being caregivers. 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 so we grew

up with it. We grew 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 firmly believe that there's

some things that are high value and something sort of 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 a there's the Eisenhower matrix. And Eisenhower matrix is

very simple chart. You basically just draw a line, and you go,

important, not important. So you draw a line, and then you go,

urgent, not urgent. You draw a second line, so now you've got

four squares, and on 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 plug

in a couple real life examples into what you're

saying. Because I know from you know, the 1000s 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 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, mum's sick, and I'm just getting burnt

out, and I'm, I'm so exhausted, and I'm just, you know, and we

wear that as a badge of honor. We wear that as is, 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 doing. So I would like you to, let's say,

call mum once a week. I need you to call mom and talk to her for

half an hour and give them an assignment, and then you can

follow up if that assignment is happening, you know, or 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, 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 shouldn't be doing, and so they

just kind of don't help. They don't help. You know, there was,

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. 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, and she's

got it under control. And so it is part of delegation is working

out that 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. 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, we lose a lot of the history.

You know, I was, I was with my mum today, and my, 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, 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. 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 is coming now, and it's, it's, it's

freely available every single person's phone. You can just

download chat GPT, 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, and 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 actually tell them, actually tell them

those stories, you know. And I think once we can get all those

stories together, we can kind of really get an essence of the

person, 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, it looks exactly like me, talks like me, but it's an

AI version of me. 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 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, 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 calendar, you know, because if we're

looking after a parent, we've obviously still got other things

in our life, you know, we still taking kids to school, and we're

doing all these other things, and we can actually put that

into, you know, something like Gemini, you know, one of the

Google, one of the Google AI versions, and say, This is my

calendar I'm caring for. You know, 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 will 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, that 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, you know, this incredible

coach in our pocket, which can help us to not only deal with

the questions 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. And so, you know, the main sort of things

that I would say is, number one, 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 just absolutely loving it, and

you, you're really benefiting emotionally from working, you

know, helping the person, that's great. But if you building up

some sort of negative resistance to it, and you're starting to

feel burnt out from it, then you need to ask yourself, is there

something else that's driving you? And we call it 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 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, or having, whatever that is. And so

we need to look at, we need to look at when we're helping

people, do we have anything like that is, are there any negative

programs running like that in our brain? 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. To organize our life,

organize our schedule, give us ideas. But, for example, the

collecting a history on your parent that is progressing

through the stages of dementia. And you know, eventually

they're, you know, they're, 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. How can

people get in touch with you or find out more about you and all

the wonderful ideas that you have in that head to help family

members and caregivers 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 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, I can definitely

share them. I am, you know, it's just Louie Swat, s, W, A, R T,

and you know, they can find me on Facebook or Instagram or, you

know, LinkedIn. We always went.

Site. 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

that people might be writing it down, okay, the

website is called Iron Bridge. I, R, o, n, b, r, I, j.com, dot,

a, U, but we've got a project that we're going to that we're

working on right now, and it will be ready in the next couple

of days, and it's where we can actually, I can actually work

with somebody for 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 chat. GPT 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 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, you know, like it took forever to 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 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, but

they could also pass those stories on to the, 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 to 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 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 true. 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, 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 them a call. Doesn't cost anything to give them a call.

Absolutely is there, what's the best way for them if they want

to 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, you know, book in a

20 minute or a 30 minute virtual coffee with me, and let us have

a coffee and see how, how I can help you. You know, 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

this. 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 six 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 diversion of yours, 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 got it for another little while. So, yeah, thank you so

much.

We'll need that desperately. So once again,

thank you so much for taking the time to share this amazing

information with. US, and anything else you want to say

before we wrap the episode up today.

Look, I think the main thing is just enjoy those

moments. You know, you know that that look on someone in your

parents eyes, when they when they look at you and acknowledge

you, because when they 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, you know. And try and get as

much, try and get as much benefit. What 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 is trumping people around you 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, you know, off 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 and 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 path

and my path crossed, and we were able to bring him to you today.

So anyway, I'll be back next week with another new episode of

The Choose lies and 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.