Caring for a loved one with dementia can be overwhelming and isolating. Never was that more true than during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Eileen Poiley understands that challenge well, having dedicated more than 35 years to educating caregivers at the USF Health Byrd Alzheimer’s Center. When the world stopped, she knew this important work could not.

Poiley launched the Alzheimer’s Caregivers Podcast in May 2021 to offer practical guidance to caregivers where and when they need it. As the show posts its 100^th episode this month, this resource has helped more than 7,000 unique listeners around the world with downloads from six continents.

Eileen Poiley.

“Some caregivers are at the end of their ropes, and they don’t know what to do,” Poiley said. “We help caregivers deal with the challenges from a non-medication perspective, as there are a lot of behaviors that medication can’t change.”

The podcast features 30-minute episodes on a wide range of topics affecting families dealing with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, including understanding short-term memory loss, managing the challenges of daily life, reducing safety risks, frequently asked questions and more.

Podcast producer Scott Huetteman, whose mother has Alzheimer’s disease, encouraged Eileen to create the podcast after hearing one of her presentations in person.

“There are a lot of ways to get information out, and the challenge with caregivers is that there is so much they need to know,” Huetteman said. “The podcast is a great way caregivers can listen to episodes any time of the day or night at their convenience.”

Poiley agrees that caregivers need a large volume of information, but that comprehensive books that cover a wide range of topics aren’t typically useful for caregivers. The podcast format allows them to pick the topic they need at the right moment.

Eileen Poiley.

One caregiver who has listened to all 100 episodes—several many times—said he was in a dire situation looking for help as he cared for his family member. She was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s five years before he reached out for support beyond medical care.

“I wish that I could reconstruct the morning I discovered the Institute,” said the caregiver, who asked to remain anonymous. “I had been looking through articles I had collected in a file over the previous five years, as her needs were getting well past what I could provide. Things were getting really emotionally intense for both of us.”

The Pinellas County caregiver became hopeful upon discovering the nearby virtual Alzheimer’s support programs at USF, along with the podcast series, through a Google search.

“It was like Eileen was here in the home, how she described what we were going through at the time,” said the caregiver. “She was spot on, and I could implement what I was learning and see almost immediate results.”

“My loved one and I are now both much calmer, in a better place, all because I listened to the podcasts. Eileen identified behaviors to watch for, explained them, and gave me strategies for how to respond and how to cope.”

Alzheimer’s disease is the 7^th leading cause of death in the United States, and one in three seniors dies with dementia.

To support Alzheimer’s caregiver education at USF Health, give online at usf.to/caregivers or contact Dan Minor at danielminor@usf.edu.

Story by Davina Gould, USF Foundation.

Haru Okuda, MD, wears many hats at USF Health—and now he can add podcaster to his list.

“It’s really wonderful to be able to bring in my interest and my day-to-day work using simulation to train teams and go outside what’s in textbooks to interview folks with practical real-world experience,” said Dr. Okuda, who is executive director of the USF Health Center for Advanced Medical Learning and Simulation and assistant vice president of the Office of Interprofessional Education and Practice.

“Healthcare Superteams” is a podcast featuring conversations with both healthcare and non-healthcare experts on how to incorporate seamless communications and high-functioning teamwork into healthcare to improve patient safety, patient and provider satisfaction and health outcomes and to reduce health costs.

Dr. Okuda started the podcast in October 2020 with the first season featuring people outside of healthcare discussing best practices that could be used in healthcare. Season two focuses on how diversity strengthens teams as well as some of the challenges faced when adding diversity to a team. Season three will start recording in early 2022 with a focus on mental health in teams.

The podcast, which is sponsored by Tampa General Hospital, is found on most podcast platforms. It’s currently available in more than 40 U.S. states and 30 countries.

Listen to the podcast: health.usf.edu/ipep/podcast

“How can we take the outstanding teaching of our local USF faculty to a wider audience?” This was the question asked by University of South Florida infectious disease faculty members Richard Oehler, MD, and John Sinnott, MD, now chair of the USF Health Department of Internal Medicine, asked in 2007. Their answer was USF Health’s ID Podcast series.

Now celebrating its 10th anniversary, the ID Podcast series has developed an expansive online audience, offering more than 200 podcasts with content covering the history of medicine, HIV and AIDS care, public health, tropical medicine, hospital acquired infections, STDs, and infections in immunocompromised patients.

Richard Oehler, MD, of the USF Health Division of Infectious Disease, helped establish the ID Podcast series.

The series started as a way to archive and share faculty presentations of the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine Infectious Diseases (ID) Division with USF infectious disease students, residents and staff.

“We didn’t initially think this was something that would eventually attract such a large national and international following,” said Dr. Oehler, MCOM Class of 1992 graduate, ID Division faculty member since 2002, and newly promoted professor of medicine.

The first podcast was posted on the website, IDPodcasts.net, June 29, 2007, and featured a tour of the medical wing of the London Museum of Science, which Dr. Oehler had recently visited.  He originally produced the podcast to share with his colleagues within the ID Division, but the website was so well received that Dr. Oehler began uploading more podcasts.

Over the years, compelling, interesting content from ID faculty and fellows and from guest contributors is what has attracted the many thousands of online listeners, Dr. Oehler said. “The quality of our teaching is why people listen. We show off USF’s outstanding teaching every day.”

One key to the success of the series has been its adaptation to emerging technology throughout the years.  Since 2007, a plethora of technological advances have changed the way consumers get information, including the streaming media sites YouTube, Khan academy, and TED online, as well as smartphones and tablet devices.

“This is how we were able to capitalize on expanding to a wider audience. When we created the universal streaming iPhone/iPad app in 2010, it was the first ever streaming media app for USF and the entire state university system,” he said.

The ID Podcast series can be accessed by visiting IDpodcast.net

The ID Podcasts YouTube channel along with related Facebook and Twitter social media accounts have been critical in reaching a wider online audience.  The YouTube channel now has more than 600,000 lifetime views and a subscriber base of more than 3,000 from 200 countries, Dr. Oehler said, making it as popular as established national online sites for physicians and other health care professionals, such as the American Medical Association and Medscape.com.

“We regularly hear that IDPodcasts is one of the main reasons why people come to our USF fellowship and training program in infectious disease,” said Dr. Oehler. “It’s very gratifying to hear and see the positive comments on our forums given the still-modest resources we have to produce it. I know it matters. Not just to USF students, house staff and faculty, but to a medical and non-medical audiences across the internet.”

Going forward, Dr. Oehler wants to expand the site’s international offerings.  He recently created a new channel, “ID Podcasts International.”  Two podcasts on the channel were contributed from professors at Universidad CES in Colombia, and another is a skin infections lecture recorded in Mandarin by Dr. Sinnott.

“We realize there are many individuals from other countries who are not native English speakers, but who want to listen to our content,” he said.

As the series enters its second decade, Dr. Oehler and Dr. Sinnott are confident that USF’s IDPodcasts will continue to impact even more people across the globe.