Dementia - Managing Anxiety At Home
Does your loved one with dementia experience increased anxiousness in the afternoon tempting you to consider anti anxiety medications? Is your loved one testing your patience with their excessive need to find someone or something from their distant past? Is this anxiety causing you anxiety and leaving you wondering how you are going to make it through another day? If so, you will find the following 3 tips to be extremely helpful. Continue reading for clever activities that can occupy idle hands and a busy mind.
For people suffering from dementia, increased anxiety is an accepted symptom. Many become so filled with anxiety during the late afternoon and early evening hours that there is actually a term for this condition: Sundowners. Why this occurs is unknown, however, many believe that this time of day has always been a transitional point for all of us. We are transitioning from work to home, housekeeping to preparing for our children's arrival home from school, the brightness of day fades to shades of evening, etc. Considering a person with dementia is more likely to have their long term memory most intact, it makes sense that they might experience anxiety when anticipated events of the day are not materializing. Why aren't the children getting off the bus? What am I supposed to making for dinner? If I don't get out to the barn, who's going to start chores? If this is their current place and time, you can imagine the excessive anxiety that results when they realize they might be shirking their daily responsibilities. Are they letting someone down? Following are helpful tips to help make it through this challenging time of day. Perhaps even eliminating the need for anti anxiety medication for your loved one.
3 Tips for managing dementia related anxiety at home:
1. Simplify your evening tasks so you have more time to devote to your loved one. Plan simple dinners that are quick and easy to prepare, and that can withstand an interruption in preparation. Soup and sandwiches are a simple solution, as are foods that can easily be reheated or eaten cold, such as chicken made earlier in the day and potato salad. Plan to complete your household tasks that take your watchful eye away from your loved earlier in the day. Late afternoon becomes a time to spend wonderful quality time together reminiscing.
2. Enter your loved one's world. Avoid the constant need to correct your loved one, or to orient them to place and time. Instead go to the place and time they are referencing. This allows for more successful redirection to a less restless place. For instance, if your mother is looking for her daughter to come from school, ask her about her daughter. Ask what her daughter liked to eat after school. Tell her you like that too, and invite her to come to the kitchen with you to prepare an after school snack. Express an interest and bring them through their worries to a more comfortable place. Don't attempt to tell your mom that you are her daughter, you're 45 and you haven't taken the bus in years. Although it may be hard for you to accept that you cannot reorient your loved one, you will be amazed at the stress that melts away when you simply enter their world and make it all ok. We all need validation.
3. Involve your loved one in household tasks. Create easy to do activities just for them so you can do things together and everyone feels useful. When people are purposefully occupied, its amazing how settled they become. People always feel more satisfied and complete when they have a job to do. Everyone wants to be a productive member of the family, particularly one who has been the caregiver, and that is what they best recall.
Implement these 3 tips and you will see a difference in anxiety levels. It can be very difficult for us to let go of wanting our loved to have a healthy mind, and accept where they are. It has been proven that when we let go of our own expectations and enter their world, things become much less complicated. This approach will often reduce or eliminate the need for anti anxiety medications.
Try these clever activity suggestions to keep people busy and feeling useful: Always have a laundry basket full of all different pairs of socks that need to be matched and folded. If this is too complicated make all the socks the same. You can also use towels and wash clothes. When the load has been folded and put back in the basket, take it into another room and undo all the work. Bring it out again for another round, or save it for the next day and move onto another activity. Bring out a tool box that needs to be organized, or nuts and bolts that need to be sorted and organized. Try a tackle box that needs to be organized, and fishing line that needs to be spun. Scans of yarn that need to be rolled are excellent. Bring out a button box that needs sorting, or simply ask for all of the blue buttons to be set aside. These are all tasks that can be done right in front of you while you also accomplish your tasks.
Sue Bettenhausen is the Director of Silver Connections of Wisconsin. Silver Connections of Wisconsin provides FREE information and referral on housing and care options for seniors. Visit our website at http://asilverconnection.com/
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sue_Bettenhausen
For people suffering from dementia, increased anxiety is an accepted symptom. Many become so filled with anxiety during the late afternoon and early evening hours that there is actually a term for this condition: Sundowners. Why this occurs is unknown, however, many believe that this time of day has always been a transitional point for all of us. We are transitioning from work to home, housekeeping to preparing for our children's arrival home from school, the brightness of day fades to shades of evening, etc. Considering a person with dementia is more likely to have their long term memory most intact, it makes sense that they might experience anxiety when anticipated events of the day are not materializing. Why aren't the children getting off the bus? What am I supposed to making for dinner? If I don't get out to the barn, who's going to start chores? If this is their current place and time, you can imagine the excessive anxiety that results when they realize they might be shirking their daily responsibilities. Are they letting someone down? Following are helpful tips to help make it through this challenging time of day. Perhaps even eliminating the need for anti anxiety medication for your loved one.
3 Tips for managing dementia related anxiety at home:
1. Simplify your evening tasks so you have more time to devote to your loved one. Plan simple dinners that are quick and easy to prepare, and that can withstand an interruption in preparation. Soup and sandwiches are a simple solution, as are foods that can easily be reheated or eaten cold, such as chicken made earlier in the day and potato salad. Plan to complete your household tasks that take your watchful eye away from your loved earlier in the day. Late afternoon becomes a time to spend wonderful quality time together reminiscing.
2. Enter your loved one's world. Avoid the constant need to correct your loved one, or to orient them to place and time. Instead go to the place and time they are referencing. This allows for more successful redirection to a less restless place. For instance, if your mother is looking for her daughter to come from school, ask her about her daughter. Ask what her daughter liked to eat after school. Tell her you like that too, and invite her to come to the kitchen with you to prepare an after school snack. Express an interest and bring them through their worries to a more comfortable place. Don't attempt to tell your mom that you are her daughter, you're 45 and you haven't taken the bus in years. Although it may be hard for you to accept that you cannot reorient your loved one, you will be amazed at the stress that melts away when you simply enter their world and make it all ok. We all need validation.
3. Involve your loved one in household tasks. Create easy to do activities just for them so you can do things together and everyone feels useful. When people are purposefully occupied, its amazing how settled they become. People always feel more satisfied and complete when they have a job to do. Everyone wants to be a productive member of the family, particularly one who has been the caregiver, and that is what they best recall.
Implement these 3 tips and you will see a difference in anxiety levels. It can be very difficult for us to let go of wanting our loved to have a healthy mind, and accept where they are. It has been proven that when we let go of our own expectations and enter their world, things become much less complicated. This approach will often reduce or eliminate the need for anti anxiety medications.
Try these clever activity suggestions to keep people busy and feeling useful: Always have a laundry basket full of all different pairs of socks that need to be matched and folded. If this is too complicated make all the socks the same. You can also use towels and wash clothes. When the load has been folded and put back in the basket, take it into another room and undo all the work. Bring it out again for another round, or save it for the next day and move onto another activity. Bring out a tool box that needs to be organized, or nuts and bolts that need to be sorted and organized. Try a tackle box that needs to be organized, and fishing line that needs to be spun. Scans of yarn that need to be rolled are excellent. Bring out a button box that needs sorting, or simply ask for all of the blue buttons to be set aside. These are all tasks that can be done right in front of you while you also accomplish your tasks.
Sue Bettenhausen is the Director of Silver Connections of Wisconsin. Silver Connections of Wisconsin provides FREE information and referral on housing and care options for seniors. Visit our website at http://asilverconnection.com/
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sue_Bettenhausen