Your physician can help you evaluate your options, though planning for long-term care should be discussed well before it becomes necessary. These strategies have worked for many families, often delaying institutionalization. Talk with your physician about strategies that may help you. Such strategies help the patient retain mental and physical abilities and help with daily activities of hygiene, dressing, grooming, and eating.
The techniques use incentives, verbal and physical prompting, and physical guidance.
The well-known benefits of exercise apply to the person with dementia as well. Simple stretches, scheduled walking, or peddling a stationary bicycle all can help prolong mobility, decrease agitation, and improve sleep in the mild to moderately diseased patient. Monitoring incontinence, scheduling bathroom time, and providing reminders are techniques that can help caregivers manage incontinence at home.
Other strategies for enhancing nighttime sleep include maintaining a darkened environment at night, providing an early evening warm bath, and limiting daytime napping.
White noise—continuous, monotonous, soft background noise—has been shown to modestly decrease verbal agitation in some patients. In addition to white noise generators, recordings of ocean waves, flowing streams, or other nature sounds may be soothing for the patient.
When The Doctor Says, Alzheimer's
Music therapy may also help by stirring memories and emotions. Dimming lights at mealtime may decrease mealtime agitation and increase food consumption. Pictures may provide more effective cues for direction than words. Providing a supportive environment.
- Books on dementia and care;
- Dementia and Alzheimer's: What Are the Differences?;
- Dels Pirates [Sequel to Gbaenas Pirates] (Siren Publishing Menage Amour)?
- Sweeter Than Honey: Call Of The Kodiak (Bear Shifters Book 1).
- Caring for the Alzheimers Disease Patient.
Your physician can help you identify environmental triggers for example, lights that are too bright or uncomfortable room or water temperatures that may cause behavioral problems and work to eliminate them. Counseling can help patients in mild states of dementia reduce anger, anxiety, fear, suspiciousness, frustration, and depression.
A mental health professional can provide advice and encouragement and help the patient interpret his or her feelings. By receiving encouragement and support from peers, patients can draw upon their long-term memory to recall and share events from their past. Reminiscence therapy often is conducted in group settings but can be used on an individual basis. A person with moderate to severe dementia may find comfort in simulated conversations with a close friend or family member when the individual cannot be there in person.
A simple audio or video tape recording of the individual recounting past events, with pauses to allow the patient to respond, provides temporary companionship and allows caregivers to attend to other things. Petting or watching small pets can improve the mood and behavior of dementia patients. Pets can be introduced in both group and individual counseling sessions.
Recreational therapies include exercises, group activities, and simple games. Tailored to the stage of the disease, these can be excellent stimulation for the patient and can help control problem behaviors. Art therapies include drawing, collage, coloring, sculpture, dance, and listening to music. These activities provide a creative outlet for the patient to express emotions without talking. Other benefits include mood improvement, sensory and intellectual stimulation, decreased agitation, and improved motor skills.
As a result of the demanding and emotional work, caregivers tend to suffer clinical depression and anxiety more often than the general population. A substantial percentage of caregivers—as many as fifty percent—experience depressive symptoms severe enough to call for treatment.
As a caregiver of someone with dementia, you should be aware of the signs of depression and talk to your doctor if you have symptoms. Providing the best possible care for your family member requires that you remain healthy and strong. The following symptoms in caregivers may indicate depression:. The spouses of Alzheimer disease patients often suffer the most and benefit significantly from long-term social support.
Samenvatting
When social support fails to reduce the depression, antidepressant medication may be helpful. In fact, treating even mild depression can make a remarkable difference for both you and your patient. Depression associated with or brought on by caregiving is not necessarily eliminated or reduced when a patient dies. For support after the death of a loved one, you and your family may want to talk with your physician or seek bereavement counseling.
Caregivers who are prepared, knowledgeable, supported, and in good psychological and physical health ultimately provide the best care. You can take the following steps to prepare for the challenges of caring for a dementia patient. Geriatric psychiatrists, medical doctors with special training in the mental health of older adults, treat both older adults and their caregivers.
Geriatric psychiatrists can provide:. Geriatricians can be helpful when there is a mixture of complex medical and behavioral issues, when complex drug regimens need evaluating, and in the assessment of long-term care needs. Clinical psychologists and advance practice psychiatric nurses APNs can provide therapy for caregivers, and social workers can offer counseling and link patients and family members to community resources.
Activity and physical therapists provide guidance on appropriate levels of physical and group activity for patients. Researchers are also investigating methods to better support caregivers to help ease the burden of caring for patients with dementia. Effective communication among all will help provide the best care for the patient. Be alert to the stress of caregiving and talk to your physician when stress becomes too much. The emotional stress of caregiving can cause isolation, anxiety, increased physical illness, and depression. Counseling and behavioral interventions for both patients and caregivers can improve your quality of life and quality of care.
Resources and Support for Families, Caregivers and Physicians. McLean, VA Phone: National Mental Health Association N. Mittelman, Cynthia Epstein, and Alicia Pierzchala. American Medical Association Press, This brochure was developed and published by the: The Foundation focuses on public education targeted to the health care consumer and family caregiver about mental illness prevention and treatment and mental health promotion. The Foundation develops programs to enhance communication and foster broad collaboration among the geriatric mental health research community and mental health care providers on behalf of the general public.
The American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry The American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry AAGP is a professional organization of 2, geriatric psychiatrists and other mental health professionals dedicated to improving the mental health and well-being of older people. AAGP enhances the knowledge base and standards of practice in geriatric psychiatry through education and research and advocates for meeting the mental health needs of older Americans.
For information on geriatric psychiatrists in your area, visit www. This publication is part of a series of brochures designed to educate consumers about the mental health of the elderly. For additional consumer brochures, visit www. Ask the physician to: Use simple everyday language and avoid medical jargon. Present the information in small parts. Use examples and analogies. Provide take-home reading or audio-visual material. List other possible sources of information. The patient, you, and other family members should: Repeat what the doctor says to ensure that you understand the information.
Take notes if that helps you retain the information. Ask questions when you do not understand what was said.
Alzheimer’s FAQs
Contact the doctor later with follow-up questions. You and your family should be aware of, and watch for, symptoms such as: Denial can also reappear as false hopes that treatment will cure the patient. Information about the disease can help families understand what is happening, and what to expect.
Over-involvement Attempts to compensate for the illness and its impairments. There are also formatting and editing issues. The book could have been better and more usable with clearer structuring and better editing. Paperback is available at Amazon. The book is also available as a Kindle eBook. This slender, modestly-priced Bengali book explains day-to-day dementia care to caregivers.
Coverage is good, but the book does not have any illustrations. This small book, with a modestly priced paperback, briefly covers dementia and its symptoms and types, diagnosis, medication overview, impact of dementia, caregiving, caregiver stress, daily routine, challenges, etc. Available from Varishta at this page Opens in new window. This page modestly priced paperback covers dementia and related care topics in reasonable detail in a way very useful to caregivers to understand the situation as well as cope with it.
Topics cover ageing, dementia and how it differs from ageing , types of dementia, stages of dementia, various care topics like communication, helping with ADLs, exercise, activities, coping with various types of difficult behaviours, maintaining dignity while helping, quality of life, caregiver stress, self-care, etc. Also, many other topics that can help. This book addresses various topics of geriatric care and also has several helpful sketches to show how to do some important care activities. It also includes explanations of the ageing process and related challenges, including a description of dementia, its symptoms, stages, etc.
Available through ILC, Pune. Approximately pages long, the book is divided into three parts.
Alzheimer's FAQs Archives - Help For Alzheimers Families
Part B, The Way Out , shares the lessons and introspection of the author as his understanding improves and he refines his approach for supporting Kanu. The book openly describes the experiences, doubts, mistakes, tough decisions, successes, failures, etc. The writing is simple, clean, and honest, making a book an easy and gripping read.
The Mission Continues Brig Retd. This first-person account by Brig Retd Bhattacharjya, 84 years old, who looked after his wife Sukla, then 72 years old. The book has several chapters detailed his experiences. The late-stage care chapters, especially, are extremely valuable in our Indian context where late-stage dementia is handled at home and often requires multiple interactions with health care professionals and hospitals. The book also contains several chapters about the earlier years of dementia, both the personal side and the social side.
Caregivers looking after persons in earlier stages can skip the late-stage dementia part in their first read and return to these parts later. It has many honestly-narrated, touching anecdotes that show various sides of the father—in some he remembers and talks about the past, in some he shows mild confusion, in some where he deteriorates further.
The writing style is personal, and includes personal musings, regrets, and insight. For more detailed reviews of the books from India, as well as for some more books from India, see this blog entry: Information and stories on dementia and care: Books from India Opens in new window. The books listed in various sections below are not created specially for India, and assume a different cultural context and level of support systems. Another useful article is: In my opinion, this is a must-read book, and covers an impressive range of topics. This book is also available as a Kindle eBook.
Read the book or sample right away on your laptop, tablet, or Kindle by checking it 6th ed at Amazon. When a Family Member Has Dementia: Another great, absolute must that will give you very clear ideas on what to expect from a dementia patient and how to handle them.
- The Man Who Cursed The Rain.
- Productspecificaties;
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- Memoir of the Life and Public Services of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, F.R.S., &C. &C., Particularly in the Government of Java, 1811-1816, Bencoolen ... and Selections From His Correspondence. V. 2;
The book focuses on changes a caregiver can make to be more supportive and also enjoy more activities with the patient, to be more resilient while coping with the difficulties of dementia care. The focus here is improving quality of life by using the tools explained, nurturing oneself, and being open to creativity and enjoyment. For the paperback version, see Amazon. Read the book or sample right away on your laptop, tablet, or Kindle by checking it at Amazon. The title says it all—a good starting point to get the basic understanding of what is involved in caregiving for elderly persons.
Includes topics like adapting homes for patients and preventing falls. The Comfort of Home: A practical guide for caregiving, well-written and worth having a look at. Discusses how to prepare for caregiving. Describes how to support persons who need help, including bedridden persons.