Living with dementia or Alzheimer’s is exceedingly difficult because it is a degenerative disease that gets worse over time and impacts your thinking and emotional abilities. People struggle to do even the simple everyday tasks like bathing, dressing, and grooming. Luckily, there are some ways you can improve the quality of life even with dementia. Read tips for patients and caregivers to manage dementia in this article. Reach out today to learn more about how we can help you enhance your golden years.
Tips for Patients
When it comes to dementia, your life will never be the same. However, several lifestyle tips can help you manage your overall health:
For physical health, making changes in your diet and adopting a healthy lifestyle can help. It includes:
- Get regular checkups to assess your health status as you age.
- Build a routine for diet and exercise.
- Have a care team that understands your physical needs and helps you track or respond to any changes that occur.
- Listen to your body, take a rest when tired, and be mindful of things that stress you out.
- Avoid or limit your alcohol intake to the lowest.
- Don’t make any changes to your medications or dosage unless prescribed by the doctor.
For emotional and psychological health, strong relationships, and an active social network play a key role because when you get diagnosed and start living with dementia, they offer a comfortable space where you feel normal. They truly understand what you’re going through, and offer support, lower the impact of stigma, and improve your life quality. You might hesitate at first in engaging in social activity, but this is the best way to live a normal life. Find similar pursuits and move past your hesitation to create a good social network. For that, you can also join social engagement programs near you.
Besides that, these tips can help with your emotional and psychological health, including:
- Don’t stop your emotions because there is no right or wrong way to feel.
- Learn how others live with this disease to overcome stigma and live a better life.
- Consider meeting a trusted friend or advisor.
- Join a support group.
- Maintain your close relationships because they can offer support when you feel overwhelmed by emotions and provide validation that everything is all right.
- Build a social network with others to ensure you have support when needed.
Tips for Caregivers for Managing Dementia in Daily Life
People with Alzheimer’s and dementia often struggle with simple everyday tasks like bathing, grooming, and dressing. It is very upsetting to the person who needs help with these personal activities and knows this can only get worse for their condition over time. However, as a caregiver, you can help them with these activities with a few tips in mind, including:
- Try to make a routine for everyday activities like bathing, dressing, and eating at the same time each day.
- Create a to-do list, appointments, and events in a notebook or calendar with the patient.
- Plan activities for them to enjoy and relax at the same time each day.
- Make a system or reminder to help them take medication regularly on time.
- When dressing or bathing, allow them to do as much as they can.
- Buy loose-fitting, comfortable, easy-to-use clothing like clothes with elastic waistbands, fabric fasteners, or large zippers, so that they don’t need to struggle with buttons, buckles, or shoelaces.
- Use a sturdy shower chair to support them when they are unsteady to prevent falls. You can buy shower chairs from drug stores and medical supply stores.
- Be gentle and respectful towards them, tell them what you’re going to do, and guide them step by step while helping them bathe or get dressed.
- Serve their meals in a consistent, familiar place to give them enough time to eat.
Tips for Caregivers for Handling Troubling Behavior
For caregivers, handling troubling behavior is one of the hardest challenges when taking care of a loved one with dementia. Here are some tips that can help you handle this challenge:
- To handle them, you need to use creativity, flexibility, patience, and compassion. You need to avoid taking things personally and maintain your sense of humor.
- Remember, you can’t change the person because this brain disorder can change their personality. So, you can’t control or change their behavior, but what you can do is try to accommodate the behavior by making necessary changes to support their health. For example, if the patient wants to sleep on the floor, place a mattress on the floor so that they can sleep comfortably.
- Consult with the doctor first because behavioral changes may occur due to an underlying medical reason, perhaps the patient is in pain or experiencing adverse side effects from medications. In some cases, some medications or treatments can cause incontinence or hallucinations, which can get better by making a change that causes the problem.
- Changed behavior might have a purpose because people with dementia don’t tell what they want or need. Instead, they do something to get your attention and want you to understand what they need. If that is the case, try to accommodate them.
- Sometimes, their behavior can be triggered by an underlying reason. Maybe someone said something to them or made a change in their physical environment that they don’t So, look for the patterns that disrupt their behavior and use a different approach to fix the situation.
- Remember that what works today may not work tomorrow. Multiple factors can contribute to troubling behaviors and the natural progression of the disease process. Your solutions that work well today may need to be modified for tomorrow or may no longer work at all. So, the key to managing difficult behavior is to stay creative and flexible to make strategies to address the given issue.
- Try to get support from others because you can’t handle everything alone and need time for yourself. Try to find a local agency for the aging near you to find support groups, organizations, and services that help you and your loved one.
Managing dementia in daily life is quite challenging because it impacts a person’s thinking, emotions, and physical health, and the worst part, it gets worse as time passes. However, using the above-mentioned tips for patients and caregivers to manage dementia can help you improve your quality of life and lead a better life.
Need help with dementia? Visit us in Brooklyn to get professional medical help. Call us to book your appointment now!!!! If you want to know more about adult day care services, the professionals at HouseCalls Home Care offer excellent resources for learning more about how to care for your aging loved ones. Reach out today to learn more about how we can help you enhance your golden years. Feel free to call HouseCalls Home Care at 718-922-9200 if you or a loved one requires compassionate and competent in-home care services. Our goal is to assist you in locating the best support for your needs. You can also send an email to us at info@housecallshc.org for more information.
