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Senior Care: How Can You Be There for Someone with Dementia

Senior Care: Do you know someone who has dementia?

Have you chosen to be their family caregiver? If so, there are many tasks that you may need to do to help them keep living in their home. In addition, your elderly loved ones will need you to be there for them in various ways. Keep reading here to find out how you and senior care providers can help the person in your life who has dementia.

Pay Attention to Their Safety

You and home care providers will need to pay attention to your elderly loved one’s safety. Unfortunately, there are many elderly people with dementia who get burnt. Some of them get burnt on a stove, get locked out of their house, fall downstairs, or have other injuries. You can work with senior home care providers to create a safety plan for your elderly loved one. The plan should consist of the following:

Who will take care of your loved one each day

How long you or the senior care providers will stay with your loved one
Making sure there are stairlifts, stove covers, and other safety measures put into place in your loved one’s home
These are just some ways you can help to keep your elderly loved one safe if they have dementia.

Avoiding Stress

There are many people who have dementia that have high-stress levels. As their brain starts changing and they lose cognitive functions, they are somewhat aware of what is going on. When the disease progresses, even more, your elderly loved one may not even know how to communicate with you or their elder care providers. The uncertainty, confusion, and other issues can lead to a lot of stress. It is important that you help lower their stress as much as you can. This might include improving your own communication skills, learning more about dementia, or hiring senior home care providers to provide more care for your loved one.

Positivity Helps

Just because your elderly loved one has dementia, that doesn’t mean you need to take care of everything. In the earlier stages of dementia, your elderly loved one may only need help with a couple of tasks. You can ask them if you can help or offer to help and see if they accept. It is important that you don’t just go to their home and take over everything. That might worsen their condition as they will lose all independence. If you can keep a positive mindset and only help with the things your loved one needs help with, that can keep their spirits up for longer.

Senior Care: Conclusion

These are some ways that you can be there for your elderly loved one if they have dementia. Now that you know about these tips, you can keep your elderly loved one’s spirits up. You and senior care providers can also work better together with your loved one by following these tips.