Caring for a Loved One With Alzheimer’s or Dementia

Alzheimer’s or dementia can be devastating for the family and friends of a patient, and not everyone gets a platform on which to share their experiences. Watching your loved one in the grip of dementia or Alzheimer’s can be painful. These are quite common aging signs where the patient losses cognitive abilities. Many families waste a lot of time worrying over getting help from professional caregivers due to fear or guilt. However, you are not abandoning your parents or other elderly family members; you are helping them.

When you have a busy life, it is nearly impossible to stay beside your loved one round-the-clock, but Senior Care Referral Service can help you find dementia care in Oklahoma City that will make sure your family member gets love, care and proper medication. The first step is to educate yourself and maintain a rational but compassionate attitude. There may be surprising challenges in front of you, and dealing with them can be difficult. Before you begin your search for professional dementia care in Oklahoma City, read the following tips and points.

1.   Dementia is not only memory loss, which is only a symptom. Other symptoms of the disease depend on the area of the brain that is affected. Dementia is considered a neurological declination, and at the last stage, a patient becomes unable to perform daily activities and fails to recognize others and communicate.

2.  As a caregiver, your first task should be staying calm and mindful. Give your best efforts to foster your loved one and help them recall good memories, but do not ever use force. Dementia only gets worse with time, and there is no known cure, so your efforts should be toward slowing the growth of the disease.

3. The journey of caregiving will start with compassion and love. These are basic to any relationship, but when you are caring for someone with dementia, your compassion and love should be especially evident. If you find them at unfamiliar places or unaware of their whereabouts, be gentle with them.

4. Establish a predictable schedule for your loved one, including events like a doctor’s appointment or bathing time. Before scheduling something, take notice of when the person is more agreeable, and then accordingly set up a routine.

5. Explain and ask them to keep things in the right place. Explaining regular things the way they did when you were a kid will help them understand better.

6. Remove every potential threat or keep those items in a safe place. Be it a knife, matchboxes, etc., keep everything out of reach.

7. Accept the help of technology. You can install a camera and connect it to your phone and set the mobile monitoring system with GPS location track. This will help you look after your loved one better.

8. Last is the hospital. At times, you may find it difficult to cope with the disease, and your parent or other family member should be taken to the hospital. Places offering dementia care in Oklahoma City provide help in such emergency cases and can also help you hire a nurse.

9. A person with mid to late dementia or Alzheimer’s can show different signs of behavioral problems, including sudden anger, sadness  and confusion, and all these can lead to violent actions. So, if you find your loved one in such state, you should handle the situation calmly and effectively.