DAPHNE, Ala. — The Area Agency on Aging and the City of Daphne — which last week announced their joint effort to provide two free, six-week training sessions for adult caregivers during April — have extended the pre-registration deadline to March 31.

The classes — to help caregivers cope with a lifestyle devoted to their patients — will be held over six Thursdays: April 10 to May 15 and May 29 to July 3, according to Gwen Gay, regional coordinator for Alabama CARES, an eldercare advocacy initiative affiliated with the Mobile-based agency and the Alabama Department of Senior Services. The training sessions will be held at the Daphne Senior Center.

If enough caregivers of Alzheimer’s and dementia patients sign up for the program — which includes education on dementia, a cognitive debilitating disease; caregiver health, communication with patients and managing hostile behavior — it may spark interest in a more established adult day care program, Gay said.

“What we were wanting to do was find out the number of people that would be interested in some out-of-home care, either for them to work or for them to use, like, a day-respite kind of situation,” she said. “We wanted to demonstrate a need and hopefully work with the City of Daphne … to establish a one-day-a-week adult day care situation.”

A weekly program initially would be free to caregivers, but the service could eventually charge approximately $24 per patient per day, Gay said. The fee would cover breakfast, lunch, a snack and activities such as field trips and visits with therapy dogs.

If enough caregivers pre-register for the Daphne Senior Center’s April sessions — underwritten by a $24,000 grant from the U.S. Administration on Aging and the Alabama Department of Senior Services — the agency could court the state and private contractors with partnership proposals that would assist with costs of a weekly program, Gay said.

The agency — which serves Baldwin, Mobile and Escambia counties — offers similar programs in Mobile, but she said Baldwin County could use state-assisted eldercare.

“The majority of our referrals and funding goes to Mobile County,” Gay said. “We want to be able to offer services in Baldwin County and we haven’t been able to do that because we just don’t have the money to do that.

“With the information that we receive during the (April) training … we would be able to build on that with some grant proposals, with further partnerships with Daphne, with Baldwin County and with our agency.”

Caregivers who attend next month’s sessions could inform Dementia Education and Training Act educators — many, staffers of the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Dr. Richard Powers — about their hardships; the agency could then use the information to target programs that are needed in the area, Gay said.

Weekly adult day care — which, at this stage, is more of a dream; no formal plans have been made — would cater to caregivers of Alzheimer’s and dementia patients, as well as the “frail elderly,” she said.

Bunnie Sutton McDaniel, executive director of the Alzheimer’s Foundation of the South, who is scheduled to help with next month’s training, said caregivers could use the help.

She should know. Her mother, who died in 1984, had Alzheimer’s for 17 years — 14 under her husband’s care, before he burned out — and McDaniel helped in the final years. Daphne’s training sessions will feature not only education for caregivers, but also adult day care and a licensed sitter service for in-home patients, which means that local custodians, for at least 12 Thursdays, can take a load off and prevent similar exhaustion.

“Because it’s a twenty-four hour, seven-day-a-week job, many of these patients do not sleep at all; they wander all night, they require constant care,” McDaniel said. “It’s like taking care of a toddler, except they are adult-sized.

Alzheimer’s is a progressive, irreversible neurological disorder. Most people who have it are older than 65, but the disease can strike in the 40s and 50s. Symptoms include gradual memory loss, impairment of judgment, disorientation, personality change, difficulty in learning and loss of language skills; no cure is known. Because the disease lasts eight or more years, Baldwin caregivers who attend the Daphne classes can receive valuable information on how to cope with the situation, McDaniel said.

“I think for one thing it will help to create more awareness and to help the families know what resources are available … ” she said.

For instance, the Alzheimer’s Foundation of the South offers three monthly support groups in Baldwin County; the schedule is as follows.

•First Wednesday, 10:30 a.m. at Thomas Outpatient Center in Daphne

•Second Tuesday, 1 p.m. at Homestead Village in Fairhope

•First Thursday, 1 p.m. at South Baldwin Regional Medical Center in Foley

Also, The Area Agency on Aging offers an annual $1,200 stipend that helps with costs of bathing and grooming in-home patients. The service is available to qualifying applicants.

The April training sessions, the agency’s financial aid and the hoped-for adult day care program can be mutually beneficial to custodian and patient, McDaniel said.

“Having a safe, nurturing environment … to leave your loved one in makes you feel comfortable about going to work, taking care of some business, or just taking some time out. Just having a little bit of relief can make all the difference in the world,” she said.

“Their loved one can have an outlet to socialize with other people; see, hear or do other kinds of activities,” she added. “Because if a person’s just stuck in the house all the time, even if they have a caregiver, they stagnate.

“Everyone needs to be stimulated, and not be just cloistered.”

For more information on Daphne’s training sessions, call Gwen Gay at (251) 433-6541, ext. 409, or at 1-800-AGE-LINE.

For information on other programs, see eldercare.gov, a support services locator run by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.