Elderly With Behavioral Needs One on One With Staff but Family Won't Listen

alzheimer's disease & dementia

Alzheimer's and Dementia Intendance: Help for Family Caregivers

Caring for someone with Alzheimer's disease or dementia? This guide volition help you cope with the challenges at each stage, find the support you need, and reap the rewards of caregiving.

The Alzheimer'southward and dementia care journey

Caring for someone with Alzheimer's disease or another type of dementia tin can be a long, stressful, and intensely emotional journeying. But you're not alone. In the United states, in that location are more than 16 million people caring for someone with dementia, and many millions more around the world. As in that location is currently no cure for Alzheimer's or dementia, it is ofttimes your caregiving and support that makes the biggest difference to your loved ane'south quality of life. That is a remarkable gift.

However, caregiving can also get all-consuming. As your loved one'southward cognitive, physical, and functional abilities gradually diminish over time, it's easy to go overwhelmed, disheartened, and fail your ain health and well-being. The burden of caregiving can put yous at increased risk for pregnant wellness issues and many dementia caregivers experience depression, loftier levels of stress, or even exhaustion. And virtually all Alzheimer's or dementia caregivers at some time experience sadness, anxiety, loneliness, and exhaustion. Seeking aid and back up along the way is not a luxury; it'south a necessity.

Just every bit each individual with Alzheimer'southward disease or dementia progresses differently, so also can the caregiving experience vary widely from person to person. All the same, there are strategies that can assist you as a caregiver and assist make your caregiving journeying equally rewarding equally it is challenging.

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The challenges and rewards of Alzheimer's intendance

Caring for a person with Alzheimer'southward disease or dementia can oftentimes seem to be a series of grief experiences as you watch your loved i's memories disappear and skills erode. The person with dementia will change and behave in different, sometimes disturbing or upsetting ways. For both caregivers and their patients, these changes can produce an emotional wallop of defoliation, frustration, and sadness.

As the illness advances through the different stages, your loved one's needs increment, your caregiving and financial responsibilities become more than challenging, and the fatigue, stress, and isolation can become overwhelming. At the same time, the ability of your loved one to prove appreciation for all your hard work just diminishes. Caregiving can literally seem like a thankless task.

[Read: Family Caregiving]

For many, though, a caregiver's journey includes not only huge challenges, but besides many rich, life-affirming rewards.

Caregiving is a pure expression of dearest. Caring for a person with Alzheimer's or dementia connects you on a deeper level. If you were already close, it can bring you lot closer. If you lot weren't close earlier, information technology tin help you lot resolve differences, find forgiveness, and build new, warmer memories with your family fellow member.

Information technology changes your perspective on life. The deed of caregiving tin help you capeesh your own life more than. Many people find that their priorities modify afterwards. The piddling, day-to-twenty-four hours worries that once seemed and then important seem to fade away and they're able to focus on the things that are actually meaningful in life.

Provides purpose. Caring for someone with Alzheimer's or dementia makes yous feel needed and valued. It can besides add construction and meaning to your life. Each mean solar day yous're making a huge difference in someone'southward life, fifty-fifty if they're no longer able to acknowledge it or express their gratitude.

Adds a sense of accomplishment. Learning new skills and coping techniques can heave your confidence and overcoming new challenges can amend your trouble-solving skills. Attention support groups can also broaden your social network and help you lot form new, rewarding relationships.

Caregiving can teach younger family unit members the importance of caring, pity, and acceptance. Caregiving for someone with dementia is such a selfless human activity. Despite the stress, demands, and heartache, it tin bring out the best in the states to serve as role models for our children.

Caregiving in the early stages of Alzheimer's or dementia

In the early on stages of Alzheimer'south disease or another type of dementia, your loved one may not need much caregiving assistance. Rather, your part initially may be to assistance them come up to terms with their diagnosis, plan for the futurity, and stay as active, salubrious, and engaged as possible.

Accept the diagnosis. Accepting a dementia diagnosis tin can exist merely equally hard for family unit members every bit information technology for the patient. Allow yourself and your loved one time to process the news, transition to the new state of affairs, and grieve your losses. But don't let deprival prevent yous from seeking early intervention.

[Read: Coping with an Alzheimer'south or Dementia Diagnosis]

Deal with conflicting emotions. Feelings of anger, frustration, atheism, grief, denial, and fearfulness are common in the early on stages of Alzheimer'due south or dementia—for both the patient and you, the caregiver. Allow your loved 1 express what they're feeling and encourage them to continue pursuing activities that add meaning and purpose to their life. To deal with your own fears, doubts, and sadness, find others you can confide in.

Make apply of bachelor resources. There are a wealth of community and online resource to aid you lot provide effective care on this journey. Start past finding the Alzheimer's Association in your country (meet links below). These organizations offering practical back up, helplines, advice, and training for caregivers and their families. They can also put you in touch with local support groups.

Learn all you can nigh your loved one's dementia. While anybody'southward experiences of Alzheimer's or dementia are different, the more you lot larn about the condition and how it'due south likely to progress, the improve you'll be able to fix for future challenges, reduce your frustration, and foster reasonable expectations. There are besides books, workshops, and online training resource that can teach caregiving skills.

Prepare for the road ahead. With your support, your loved i may exist able to maintain their independence and live lonely in the early on stages of dementia. However, their cerebral and concrete regression means they will ultimately require around-the-clock assist. Putting plans for their future housing and intendance in place now tin can help reduce stress in the time to come, enable your loved one to be involved in the controlling process, and ensure their legal, fiscal, and healthcare wishes are respected.

Preserving your loved one's independence

Have steps to boring the progression of symptoms. While treatments are bachelor for some symptoms, lifestyle changes can also be effective weapons in slowing down the disease'southward progression. Exercising, eating and sleeping well, managing stress, and staying mentally and socially active are among the steps that can improve brain health and tedious the process of deterioration. Making healthy lifestyle changes alongside your loved one can also help protect your own health and counter the stress of caregiving.

[Read: Preventing Alzheimer'southward Disease and Dementia—or Slowing its Progress]

Help with short-term memory loss. In the early stages, your loved i may demand prompts or reminders to help them recall appointments, recollect words or names, continue track of medications, or manage bills and coin, for example. To assist your loved 1 maintain their independence, instead of simply taking over every task yourself, try to work together as a partnership. Let your loved one betoken when they want help remembering a word, for example, or agree to check their calculations earlier paying bills. Encourage them to use a notebook or smartphone to create reminders to continue on mitt.

Caregiving in the middle stages of Alzheimer's or dementia

As your loved 1's Alzheimer's disease or dementia symptoms progress, they'll require more and more intendance—and y'all'll demand more and more support equally their caregiver. Your loved one will gradually experience more extensive retentiveness loss, may go lost in familiar settings, no longer be able to drive, and fail to recognize friends and family. Their confusion and rambling speech can brand communicating more of a challenge and they may experience disturbing mood and behavior changes along with sleep problems.

You'll need to accept on more responsibilities as your loved i loses independence, provide more than assistance with the activities of daily living, and discover means of coping with each new challenge. Balancing these tasks with your other responsibilities requires attention, planning, and lots of support.

Inquire for assist. You cannot practice it all alone. Information technology's of import to reach out to other family unit members, friends, or volunteer organizations to help with the daily burden of caregiving. Schedule frequent breaks throughout the day to pursue your hobbies and interests and stay on top of your own health needs. This is not being neglectful or disloyal to your loved one. Caregivers who have regular time away non only provide improve care, they also observe more satisfaction in their caretaking roles.

Join a support grouping. Yous'll be able to acquire from the experiences of others who have faced the aforementioned challenges. Connecting with others who know get-go-hand what y'all're going through can as well assistance reduce feelings of isolation, fear, and hopelessness.

Sources of caregiver support

In-habitation assist ranges from a few hours a week of caregiving assistance to live-in help, depending on your needs and what you can afford. You can also rent help for basic tasks like housekeeping, shopping, or other errands to gratis you lot up to provide more than focused intendance for your loved one.

Adult solar day care offers activities and socialization opportunities for your loved one and the chance for you to continue working or attend to other needs. Look for developed day care programs that specialize in dementia care.

Respite care gives you a cake of time as a caregiver to rest, travel, or attend to other things. Enlist friends and family who live most you to run errands, bring a hot meal, or watch the patient and so y'all tin can take a well-deserved break. Volunteers or paid help can too provide in-home respite services. Or you can explore out-of-home respite programs such as adult mean solar day care centers and nursing homes.

Make time for reflection

At each new stage of dementia, you take to change your expectations near what your loved one is capable of. By accepting each new reality and taking fourth dimension to reflect on these changes, y'all tin better cope with the emotional loss and find greater satisfaction in your caregiving part.

Keep a daily journal to record and reflect on your experiences. Past writing down your thoughts, yous can mourn losses, celebrate successes, and challenge negative thought patterns that affect your mood and outlook.

Count your blessings. It may sound counterintuitive in the midst of such challenges, simply keeping a daily gratitude list can assistance chase away the blues. It can also assistance y'all focus on what your loved one is all the same capable of, rather than the abilities they've lost.

Value what is possible. In the middle stages of dementia, your loved one yet has many abilities. Structure activities to invite their participation on whatever level is possible. Past valuing what your loved one is able to requite, you lot tin find pleasance and satisfaction on fifty-fifty the toughest days.

[Read: Surviving Tough Times by Edifice Resilience]

Improve your emotional awareness. Remaining engaged, focused, and calm in the midst of such tremendous responsibleness can claiming even the virtually capable caregivers. By developing your emotional awareness skills, withal, you can relieve stress, experience positive emotions, and bring new peace and clarity to your caretaking role.

Develop helpful daily routines

Having full general daily routines and activities can provide a sense of consistency for an Alzheimer's or dementia patient and aid ease the demands of caregiving. Of form, as your loved ane's ability to handle tasks deteriorates, you lot'll need to update and revise these routines.

Keep a sense of construction and familiarity. Try to keep consistent daily times for activities such every bit waking up, mealtimes, dressing, receiving visitors, and bedtime. Keeping these things at the same fourth dimension and place tin can help orientate the person with dementia. Use cues to establish the dissimilar times of day—opening the curtains in the morning, for instance, or playing soothing music at night to indicate bedtime.

Involve your loved i in daily activities as much as they're able. For example, they may not be able to tie their shoes, but may be able to put clothes in the hamper. Clipping plants in the grand may non be safe, only they may be able to weed, plant, or water.

Vary activities to stimulate different senses—sight, smell, hearing, and touch—and movement. For example, you tin can try singing songs, telling stories, dancing, walking, or tactile activities such as painting, gardening, or playing with pets.

Spend time outdoors. Going for a drive, visiting a park, or taking a brusk walk can be very therapeutic. Fifty-fifty but sitting outside can be relaxing.

Observe group activities designed specifically for those with Alzheimer's or dementia. Senior centers, community centers, or adult twenty-four hours care programs often host these types of activities.

Plan visitors and social events at times when your loved i can best handle them. Excessive action or stimulation at the wrong time of day may be also much to handle. Offer communication tips if visitors seem uncertain or suggest they bring memorabilia your loved one may similar, such equally favorite books or music.

Cope with changes in communication

As your loved 1's Alzheimer's or dementia progresses, you'll discover changes in how they communicate. They may have trouble finding words, substitute i word for another, repeat the same things over and over, or become easily confused. Increased mitt gestures, losing their railroad train of thought, and even inappropriate outbursts are all mutual likewise.

Even if your loved one has trouble maintaining a chat—or less interest in starting 1—it's of import to encourage social interaction. Making them feel safe rather than stressed will make communication easier, so try to manage your own frustration levels.

Be patient. If your loved 1 has difficulty recalling a word, for example, allow them fourth dimension. Getting anxious or impatient will simply inhibit their call back. Gently supply the word or tell the person that you can come back to information technology after.

Be aware of your body linguistic communication. Your loved one responds to your facial expression, tone of vocalism, and nonverbal cues as much as the words yous cull. Make eye contact, stay calm, and keep a relaxed, open posture.

Speak slowly and clearly. Give one direction or ask one question at a time, apply short sentences, and give your loved one more time to procedure what'south being said. Find a simpler way to say the same thing if it wasn't understood the first time.

Avoid questions that challenge short-term retentiveness, such as "Do y'all retrieve what nosotros did concluding night?" The answer will probable exist "no," which tin can be humiliating for someone with Alzheimer's or dementia.

Maintain respect. Don't use patronizing language, "baby talk", or sarcasm. It can cause injure or confusion.

Have a curt break if you experience your fuse getting short. Attempt using quick stress relief to calm down and regain your residuum.

Practise'south and Don'ts for Talking to Someone with Dementia
Practise . . .
Tell your loved 1 who you are if there appears to exist whatsoever dubiety.
Listen attentively. Avoid distractions such as the Television or your cell phone and focus your attending on your loved i.
Use distraction or fib if telling the whole truth will upset the person. For example, to answer the question, "Where is my mother?" it may be better to say, "She'south not hither right at present," instead of "She died 20 years ago."
Use repetition as much equally necessary. Exist prepared to say the aforementioned things over and over as the person tin't recall them for more than a few minutes at a time.
DON'T . . .
Say things like: "Do you remember?" "Try to remember!" "Did you forget?" "How could you not know that?!"
Signal out the person's memory difficulty. Avert remarks such as "I just told you that." Instead, merely echo information technology once again and again.
Talk in front end of the person as if they weren't present. Always include them in any conversation when they are physically nowadays.
Employ lots of pronouns such as "there, that, him, it." Employ nouns instead. For instance, instead of "Sit there," say: "Sit in the bluish chair."

Coping with changes in behavior and personality

As well as changes in advice during the middle stages of dementia, troubling behavior and personality changes tin also occur. These behaviors include aggressiveness, wandering, hallucinations, and eating or sleeping difficulties that can be sad to witness and make your part as caregiver even more hard.

Often, these behavioral issues are triggered or exacerbated past your loved ane's inability to deal with stress, their frustrated attempts to communicate, or their environment. Past making some simple changes, you can help ease your loved one's stress and improve their well-being, along with your own caregiving experience.

[Read: Alzheimer's and Dementia Behavior Management]

Caregiving in the late stages of Alzheimer's or dementia

As Alzheimer's or another dementia reaches the late stages, your loved 1 will likely require 24-hour care. They may exist unable to walk or handle whatever personal intendance, have difficulty eating, exist vulnerable to infections, and no longer able to express their needs. Problems with incontinence, mood, hallucinations, and delirium are also very common.

In your part equally caregiver, you'll probable be combining these new challenges with managing painful feelings of grief and loss and making hard end-of-life decisions. You may even exist experiencing relief that your loved one's long struggle is drawing to an end, or guilt that you've somehow failed as a caregiver. As at the other stages of your caregiving journey, it's important to requite yourself fourth dimension to adjust, grieve your losses, and gain acceptance.

[Read: Late Stage and End-of-Life Care]

Since the caregiving demands are then extensive in the afterwards stages, it may no longer be possible for you lot to provide the necessary intendance for your loved one alone. If the patient needs full support for routine activities such as bathing, dressing, or turning, yous may not be strong enough to handle them on your own. Or y'all may feel that you're unable to ease their pain or make them as comfortable you'd similar. In such cases, you lot may want to consider moving them to a care facility such equally a nursing home, where they can receive loftier levels of both custodial and medical care.

Another option is hospice and palliative care. While some facilities provide hospice care onsite, it'due south more than ordinarily provided in the patient'south own home. This allows your loved one to spend their final months in a familiar surround surrounded by family and friends, while you have the support of hospice staff to ensure your loved one enjoys the best quality of care until the end.

Connecting in the late stages of care

Regardless of the late-stage care options y'all choose, you can find a sense of advantage in your caregiving role by making time each day to really connect with your loved one. Fifty-fifty though they tin can no longer verbally limited love or appreciation, a late-phase Alzheimer's or dementia patient can however connect through their senses.

Avoid all distractions and focus fully on your loved one. Make eye contact (if that's possible), hold their hand or stroke their cheek, and talk in a calm, reassuring tone of voice. As well every bit talking, you can also appeal to their senses by rubbing scented lotion into their skin, playing their favorite music, reading a meaningful book or poem to them, or viewing old photos together.

When you connect in this way, y'all'll experience a process that boosts mood, reduces stress, and supports physical and emotional well-being—for both y'all and your loved one.

Don't fail your own needs

By always focusing so diligently on your loved ane'due south needs throughout the progression of their dementia, it'southward piece of cake to fall into the trap of neglecting your own welfare. If you're not getting the physical and emotional support you demand, you won't be able to provide the best level of intendance, and y'all're more than likely to go overwhelmed and endure exhaustion.

Programme for your own care. Visit your medico for regular checkups and pay attention to the signs and symptoms of excessive stress. It'due south easy to abandon the people and activities you love when you're mired in caregiving, but yous chance your health and peace of mind by doing and then. Accept fourth dimension away from caregiving to maintain friendships, social contacts, and professional networks, and pursue the hobbies and interests that bring you joy.

[Read: Stress Management]

Talk to someone. Talk to a trusted friend, family member, clergy member, or therapist, about what y'all're going through. The simple deed of talking face-to-face with someone who cares can be extremely cathartic—and a bang-up stress reliever.

Stay active. Regular practice not but keeps you fit, information technology releases endorphins that tin really heave your mood. Aim for at to the lowest degree 30 minutes of exercise on virtually days. If you tin can't get away for that long at once, interruption the time up into 10-minute sessions throughout the 24-hour interval.

Practice a relaxation technique. Caregiving for a loved one with dementia tin be 1 of the most stressful tasks y'all'll undertake in life. To gainsay this stress and boost your mood and energy levels, you need to actuate your trunk'south natural relaxation response. As well as exercising and connecting face up-to-face up with others, endeavor relaxation techniques such as deep breathing, meditation, or yoga.

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Source: https://www.helpguide.org/articles/alzheimers-dementia-aging/tips-for-alzheimers-caregivers.htm

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