Relationships are Important
Being a Care partner to a person Living with Dementia is hard and most people don’t have any idea how hard until they themselves are caring for a person living with **brain change. It can be a constant guessing game in figuring out what keeps the person living with dementia comfortable and content. It’s understandable that you are frustrated, tired and at your wits end sometimes.
Your relationship with your loved one is valuable and one that can easily suffer when this disease strikes. Becoming confident in recognizing the brain changes your loved one may experience could ease this burden.
As a Care partner we have so many duties to complete it is easy to get caught up in our Agenda and forget we are caring for a person. A person that is having brain change is a person with emotions and feelings. Sometime those “feelings” come across as angry, agitated, frustrated, anxious and lashing out when we are trying to help them. This type of behavior can be scary and confusing, as a Care partner you want to help but everything you do is just making it worse. Learning about what could be causing this behavior could be the one thing you do to change things.
There is a better way to address unwanted behaviors than medication. We can pause, step back, look at the situation again and try something different. That something “different” could provide positive results for everyone involved.
Are you going to be that Care partner? Are you willing to invest in your relationship?
Take a month and become a “friend” to the person you are caring for. During this time it’s important to let your agenda go. If possible, don’t plan any appointments for the pLwd this month. You will want to focus on just being “present” with them in some activity you can do together. It can be watching a movie, working on a puzzle (this can be on going until completion), taking a walk, baking something simple, looking at photo albums, talking about their up bringing (let them lead with what they remember) and let the conversation flow from there. It will be important NOT to say “do you remember”, because they probably don’t. This takes a conscious effort on your part so be alert to how you are responding to them. Sometimes it can be as simple as smiling at them and nodding in understanding that will make them feel heard and respected. When you repeat what they say to you it makes them feel heard (this is true for anyone really). For example: Mom says “I grew up on a farm and liked the garden”. You would respond with “on the farm you liked to work in the garden?”. This can open a whole new conversation about what she would plant in her garden, how did she enrich the soil, how did she deal with weeds, etc. Can you see how this would also help with repeated statements? The more you know about the Person, the more opportunities you have for different conversations and relationship building.
Please leave a comment below with an experience in this situation if you wish to share. You may also leave a specific question I will do my best to answer and look to the community as well. Thank you in advance! Stay well!
**dementia has 100’s of causes and each one has a particular way it affects the brain. It is important to receive a proper diagnosis of the primary cause of dementia. Dementia is NOT a diagnosis.
