Caring for someone with dementia can be an immensely rewarding experience, in spite of the challenges. Seniors At Home is committed to helping care partners navigate this journey with confidence.
Dementia impacts every individual differently, and understanding these variations and tailoring your approach to care is key to providing the best possible support. To help set you up for success, here is some general advice from two of Seniors At Home’s expert dementia specialists: Andrea Korsunsky, Director Center for Dementia Care and Care Management, and Dr. Catherine Madison, Staff Neurologist.
Tips for Effective Communication
Communication is at the heart of caregiving. Consider employing these communication approaches with people living with dementia:
- Join Their Reality: With changes in the brain from their illness, a person living with dementia often experiences a reality different from ours. Avoid correcting or contradicting them. Instead, adapt to their perspective and show empathy.
- Simplify Conversations: Use short, clear sentences and simple yes/no type answers when appropriate. Avoid discussing complicated scenarios, as this can be overwhelming. And when language becomes challenging, engage other senses to foster connection, such as touch, music, and scents.
- Nonverbal Communication Matters: Pay attention to your body language. Simple actions like maintaining eye contact, sitting at eye level, and speaking at a comfortable pace build trust.
Responding to Emotional Distress
Caregiving requires patience, especially when someone feels frustrated, angry, or upset. Here are suggestions for responding when a person living with dementia is:
- Frustrated by Their Limitations: It’s understandable that someone who struggles with tasks like dressing and eating can feel very frustrated. To address this, actions can speak louder than words. Seek out ways to provide tangible support, such as providing easy-to-manage finger foods at mealtime and transitioning to clothing that easily slips on and off.
- Experiencing Hallucinations: Assess whether the hallucination is distressing. If it is not, feel free to engage with them about what they are seeing and feeling. Validate their experience rather than dismissing their perceptions.
- Becoming Angry: First, avoid saying phrases such as “Calm down.” Generally, validating someone’s emotions is the best way to de-escalate—an example might be promising to look into their concern, even if it makes no sense to you. Sometimes, stepping away briefly to attend to a made-up task, and returning in 15 – 20 minutes, allows the dilemma in their brain to pass.
General Advice
- Encourage Independence: Allow people living with dementia to participate as much as possible in their regular daily activities. It’s vital not to take away their sense of independence. Find ways to minimize possible risk without taking over too much. As Maria Montessori said: “Everything you do for me, you take from me.” Honoring people’s independence can instill feelings of purpose, autonomy and dignity within them.
- Avoid Making Assumptions About Someone’s Abilities: If someone appears to not be looking at you or hearing what you’re saying, don’t assume for example that they may be hard of hearing and begin speaking louder. Engage respectfully to identify what is behind what you’re noticing—it may not be what you think.
- Individualize Care: People not only have individual likes and dislikes, but they experience dementia differently and have different types of dementia. Some may experience visual hallucinations, while others may lose their formerly sound judgement. Tailor your care to the unique individual.
- Avoid Pressure on Memory: Phrases such as “Don’t you remember?”, even when delivered gently, can cause distress when someone cannot remember.
Caregivers play an extraordinary role. With their support, individuals living with dementia can thrive with dignity, purpose, and joy.