Dementia is the loss of cognitive functioning: thinking, remembering, reasoning, and behavioral changes. These impairments interfere with a person’s daily life, his or her ability to function, and his or her ability to communicate.
Caring for a person with dementia at home, or in a facility, can be a difficult task that presents many challenges.
General Principles to Remember:
* One of the greatest human needs is to be understood
* People with dementia retain the capacity to feel emotion
* Communication skills deteriorate progressively in dementing illness
* When a person no longer has the ability to function “rationally”, they may no longer be able to change his or her behavior
* Family, friends, and other caregivers must adapt their behaviors, and the environment, to meet the needs of the person with dementia
Challenges in Caring For Individual With Dementia
* Changes in communication
* Expression:
* Trouble finding the right word when speaking
* Problems understanding what words mean
* Loss of train-of-thought when talking
* Using familiar words repeatedly
* Inventing new words
* Difficulty organizing words
* Using curse words
* Speaking less often
* Relying on nonverbal gestures more
* Frustration if communication isn’t working
* Being very sensitive to touch and to the tone and loudness of voices
* Understanding:
* Difficulty comprehending instructions
* Following multi-step instructions
* Remembering instructions/conversations
* May be able to read words but not make sense of them
* Trouble remembering the steps in common activities, such as cooking a meal,
* paying bills, getting dressed, or doing laundry...