Senior Care in Bellville OH
Being a family caregiver for seniors requiring any form of care or assistance is a challenge, but coping with the progressive challenges of Alzheimer’s disease or another form of dementia puts even further demands on your senior care plan. When facing the memory loss and cognitive processing challenges that come with dementia it is important to design your care plan around both managing these issues as they arise and helping your parents maintain as much independence as possible. This means continuously stimulating their minds, encouraging self-care, and offering respectful, dignified care throughout the progression of the disease.
One of the ways you can accomplish these goals is by helping your elderly parents make daily decisions. Though it may seem easier and is often much faster for you to just make basic decisions for them, doing so can make your parents feel overwhelmed, resentful, and depressed, and even hasten the progression of cognitive symptoms because of the lack of mental stimulation. Making daily decisions is a simple way to exert independence and keep their minds active in a way that you or their senior health care services provider can still manage their needs and keep them safe and secure.
Try these ways to encourage your elderly parents with dementia to exercise their minds and maintain as much of their autonomy as possible through daily decision-making:
• Clothing options. What you wear on a daily basis is a strong indicator of your personality, sense of self, and individuality. Many seniors with dementia start forgetting to change their clothes on a daily basis, choose seasonally inappropriate clothing, or put their clothing on in the wrong order. In fact, wearing soiled clothing or not wearing appropriate clothing is often one of the first signs of early dementia that family members notice. Encourage your parents to change their clothing and wear appropriate outfits while still giving them decision-making power by selecting two complete outfits and letting them choose between them. Limiting the options to two prevents the choice from being overwhelming
• Picking favorites. Routine and predictability are important for seniors with dementia, particularly those in the moderate to advanced stages of the disease, but this does not mean you should always follow the same patterns. Give your parents a choice while still keeping their favorites accessible by presenting two options for things such as mealtime. For example, if your father has a favorite coffee mug, present him with that one and another in the morning and ask if he wants his usual cup or the other one. Even if he always chooses his favorite, this lets him think about the mug and make a choice for himself
• Take your time. If you are like most caregivers, time is something that is always at a premium in your senior care plan. Avoid the temptation to rush your seniors through their decisions, however. Remember that the cognitive processing issues associated with dementia make it more difficult to work through problems and come to conclusions, so a decision you see as only taking a few seconds to make could require a minute or more for your parents. Give them plenty of time to work through their decision, nudging them gently only after a minute or more has passed
• Praise decisions. Even if your seniors make a decision that seems strange or inappropriate to you, praise them and let the decision stand if at all possible. By disparaging their decision or going against it, you discourage your seniors and make them feel powerless, anxious, and upset. This may take some humor and flexibility, but be willing to go along with what your parents want as much as possible. If your mother wants to drink her tea out of a gravy boat when it is just the two of you in the home or asks to wear two different colored socks if you are not planning on going out that day, there is no harm in allowing it. Praise her and tell her that she made an interesting choice, that the colors are fun together, or that you never would have thought of something so creative. Let yourself laugh about these moments and remember that as long as your seniors are healthy and safe, your senior care plan is successful.
If you are considering hiring senior care services near Bellville, Ohio, call the caring staff at Central Star Home Health at (419) 610-2161. Providing services for families in Mansfield, Lexington, Ashland, Bellville, Crestline, Galion, Loudonville, Mt. Gilead, Shelby, Wooster and the surrounding areas.
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