Alzheimer’s & Dementia Care

Provide the Best Dementia Care by Creating a Calming Environment Agitation is amongst the more challenging effects of dementia, and can be extremely hard for family members to handle. The key is in taking steps to deal with agitation before it is felt and conveyed by the senior, which involves keeping track of what has initiated these feelings in the past, and establishing a home environment where those triggers are eliminated or reduced. These guidelines from our Windsor-Essex dementia care team can help:   Designate a place of retreat. When life begins to…

Caring for elders can overwhelm us Nicole Johnson, a memory therapy coach, works with a patient at Amy’s Helping Hands   For caregivers, worrying about an aging relative is stressful enough. Taking care of two loved ones kicks up that stress level rise significantly. This is the daily reality for Denise and her sister who are responsible for the care of two aging relatives. For them, caregiving took a difficult turn when both relatives needed additional help over a few days. With one having hip surgery and the other being transferred…

What to Do When a Senior with Dementia Refuses to Change Clothes Caring for someone with Alzheimer’s disease or another form of dementia requires creativity, patience, and empathy, being able to step outside of your individual reasoning and logic and understand just why a specific behavior is occurring, and then to learn just how to effectively manage it. That’s certainly the situation with a loved one who refuses to change clothes, regardless of how dirty or unkempt an outfit has become. There are numerous reasons why an older adult with dementia may insist…

Create Your All-Star Care Team in 5 Steps What family caregivers often need most is sound advice, regular respite and an extra set of hands. Friends may scatter when one becomes the primary caregiver for a spouse or parent, and not everyone has siblings or other family members they can depend on to share the load. A carefully selected care team is a necessary complement to a loved one’s detailed care plan. Step 1: Draft a list of prospective team members Write down the name of each family member, friend or neighbor with whom you regularly…

Creating a Legacy for Your Parent A common regret of adult children who have lost their parents is the wish that they had asked and understood more about their own family history. This is particularly true for family caregivers, whose focus on the present is necessitated by the practical concerns of getting through the day. Making time to learn more about the past seems like a luxury for many caregivers. But taking that time may be beneficial to those we love and care for and provide an important opportunity to redefine and enhance…

The Difficult Emotions Every Family Caregiver Battles – and How to Let Them Go If you are feeling a bit discouraged in your role as caregiver, take heart; you’re in good company. Providing care help for a loved one is perhaps the most complex role we can hold: highly rewarding on the one hand, while simultaneously frustrating and ever-evolving, frequently resulting in feelings of doubt about whether we are up to the challenge and providing the most effective care.  It’s why a number of family caregivers struggle with some or all of these types of feelings:  Guilt: It…

7 Tips to Better Manage Dementia and Incontinence Dementia care calls for both empathy and creativity to deal with an assortment of complex behaviors and effects, and that’s particularly true with regards to incontinence, something that is extremely common in Alzheimer’s as well as other types of dementia. These tried-and-true approaches are generally successful in decreasing the effect of incontinence and preventing an escalation of emotions in someone you love with dementia. Choose your words carefully. Instead of talking about incontinence…

Home Care During the Pandemic: Keeping Seniors Safe For the past several months, family caregivers have had to manage seemingly monumental challenges in connection with the care of the seniors they love. With COVID-19’s specific dangers to the elderly and those with underlying health conditions, such as COPD, diabetes, heart problems, and others which are common in the elderly, families have struggled with keeping seniors safe and knowing how to best protect their older loved ones. To that end, some families made the very difficult choice to pause…