What is Dementia Care?
Dementia makes life more challenging and is a difficult journey to endevour for anyone involved. Our small team here at Aplus are here to support not just the client, but the family and anyone involved. We like to build an understanding of the client and provide a bespoke service to fulfil their lives.
Enriching Our Clients Lives
Our small team pride themselves on enriching their clients’ lives, delivering dementia care with compassion and dignity. We understand how hard it can be to support someone through their dementia journey alone. Our staff are therefore here to not only provide excellent dementia care but to help our clients’ relatives when it comes to understanding dementia. Aplus pride themselves on seeing a person beyond their journey, finding those details about their life history which make them truly individual. We believe in enriching lives by providing meaningful support for people with dementia. We will signpost you to organisations such as the Alzheimer’s Society and local Day care Centre. By really understanding our clients, our carers can provide support where they can live at home and feel safe. People living with dementia can often experience changes in their appetite and eating habits. With this in mind, the carers will be adaptive to their nutritional needs.
How Will We Support them?
We will limit distractions this can help reduce confusion and frustration by create a calm environment. The calmer the sensory input, the more you can reduce confusion and frustration. Promoting independence will add to the feeling of connectedness and help reduce frustration from feeling useless. How we support them in doing will depend entirely on their desires and personality. This may include helping with setting the table. Finding ways for them to help will let them feel good about themselves. Getting plates that don’t break can support this. They may want to help fold the laundry. Letting go of any desire for perfection can help this.. It is crucial to get creative rather than defaulting to “no you can’t do that anymore”. Work together to figure out what adjustments can make this possible. Doing for ourselves and others is core to dignity. For as long as your loved one is interested in participating in these little parts of life, everything you can do to support them will make life happier. One of the common challenges in dementia care is to remember to simplify things. Speak in simple sentences and give simple instructions. Speak clearly and at a volume your loved one can hear. Remember that the easier speech is to understand, the easier it is to follow. Speak to your loved one as if he or she understands and always give them the benefit of the doubt.
Empathy With Dementia Care
Dementia can make change more challenging. The more you can establish routines throughout day-to-day life, the more you both will know what to expect, and the smoother your days will run. To the extent possible, eat at the same time throughout the day and establish familiar bedtime routines. This will provide stability for your loved one. Treat your loved one with love, dignity, and joy. Words may not match true feelings as expressive language changes. Try to read your loved one’s actions as well as their words to understand what they are feeling. Make space for all of the feelings, theirs, and yours. The same goes for you. Caring for someone living with dementia is an emotional and spiritual journey. Be gentle with yourself and tend kindly to your own feelings and process.
