Ways Caregivers Help with Alzheimer's Memory Care

When it comes to dementia and Alzheimer’s memory care, both patients and caregivers face many challenges. Caregiving, under the circumstances, is a long and stressful journey. It is intensely emotional for all parties involved too.

But caregivers have a crucial role to play in caring for patients with Alzheimer’s and dementia. After all, they provide the Alzheimer’s memory care people need to deal with and manage their condition.

How Caregivers Help with Alzheimer’s Memory Care

Engage and Interact

In the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, caregivers can help slow down the progress by involving loved ones in brain-stimulating activities. These include board games, jigsaw puzzles, reading, and writing.

It would also help to take a patient for short walks, to play with pets, and to exercise or do any physical activities. Provided that a loved one can handle the demands, a caregiver should find ways to play, engage, and interact with a patient.

Enhance Caregiving Skills

As dementia progresses, the challenges a caregiver faces also changes. It is important to update your skills to cope and keep up with the demands of a loved one with Alzheimer’s or dementia.

Ask for Help

Even if you know exactly what you need to do, don’t hesitate to reach out to other family members, volunteer organizations, and friends to help lighten up the load. If you can free up time you spend doing mundane tasks, such as doing household chores or grocery shopping, you’ll have more quality time to spend with a patient.

Don’t feel like you’re being disloyal, neglectful, or shirking from your duties if you spend time away. Most caregivers who take a break, find more satisfaction in want they do.

Join a Support Group

What better way to update your skills than to learn from the experiences of other caregivers? Connecting with others who know exactly what you’re going through will eliminate feelings of fear, hopelessness, and isolation. You will also discover strategies of Alzheimer’s memory care that you may not know of but a loved one needs.

Take Advantage of Resources Available

Whether online or within your community, you will find a wealth of resources that can help you provide effective care and reinforce your efforts. Look up organizations that offer practical support for caregivers of patients with Alzheimer’s and other dementia.

Is there an Alzheimer’s association in your state? You can tap into it for advice and training as well.

Checkout helplines, directory of associations, and get in touch with local support groups.

Take Better Care of Yourself

Caring for someone with Alzheimer’s is stressful emotionally, physically, and mentally. If you don’t learn how to manage stress and take care of yourself, you will experience burnout that could impact the way you provide day-to-day care.

What do you think will happen to your patient if your health deteriorates or that you will feel exhausted, fatigued, and overwhelmed?

For effective Alzheimer’s memory care, a caregiver should take care of themselves too.

Look out for signs of burnout or stress, such as:

Exhaustion
Depression
Sleeplessness
Social withdrawal
Denial about dementia or Alzheimer’s disease
Lack of concentration
Anxiety about what’s to come

But the most glaring sign are health problems that will make you an ineffective caregiver.

Fallbrook Assisted Living is proud to offer its services to Fremont, NE, and surrounding areas and cities: Arlington, Cedar Bluffs, Ames Nickerson, Fontanelle, Arlington, Leshara, Colon, and Hooper