Transitions from one life stage to another are always complicated. As teenagers become adults, their parents maintain a delicate balance between continued supervision and granting increasing responsibility. The process is rarely smooth. It goes in fits and starts, with spectacular failures interspersed with glowing successes. And it’s the same with the appearance of dementia.
How to tell if someone has dementia or Alzheimer’s
The transition from being a fully capable elder to someone experiencing dementia is very stressful. It’s not a smooth ride for elders or their families. Dementia begins imperceptibly, at first looking like nothing more than the unreliable memory of normal aging. When family members visit for a weekend, they often don’t realize the true degree of confusion their loved one is coping with. It’s hard to know whether the house is dirty because of low energy, changing preferences, fading eyesight, or a lost understanding of basic hygiene.
Watch our video class, “Is it Dementia or Normal Aging?” taken from our DAWN HomeCare Online Dementia Course for Families to learn more about the differences between normal aging and dementia or Alzheimer’s.
Stay at least four days
Most people experiencing dementia can mask their deeper problems when family visit for only a day or two. If you really want to know how well a parent or loved one is functioning in the home, stay at least four days. On the fourth day, coping skills will begin to falter and you’ll see the actual level of performance. Understand that people in the earlier stages of dementia can rise to the occasion and function at a much higher level when faced with the risk of a visit to the doctor or a forced move. This postpones accurate diagnoses and puts safety at risk.
Worse, people experiencing dementia are often not aware of their growing cognitive impairments. Usually, our clients are aware that they have memory problems, but remain convinced that their decision-making abilities and judgment are just fine. As caregivers, we find ways to keep them safe, even though they think we are meddling unnecessarily.
Balancing safety with autonomy
This is one of the most difficult tasks families and dementia caregivers face: balancing safety needs with their loved ones’ desire to make their own choices. Becoming impaired by dementia does not take away the desire to live life in a way that feels fulfilling. It only takes away the ability to do so.
Keeping a person with dementia at home may be safer than moving them into an assisted living facility
It’s tempting to think that moving a confused parent into an assisted living facility or memory care unit will solve all safety problems, but it won’t. Moving a loved one with dementia merely exchanges one set of problems for another. If you consider the dangers inherent in housing a large number of cognitively impaired people in a building with constant staff turnover, you’ll realize that keeping someone with dementia at home with personalized care is safer. It’s not possible to keep everyone at home, but in a private home it is easier to control the environment and ensure safety, with proper supervision and support.
When people can continue to live at home in familiar surroundings, muscle memory and automatic thinking scripts (the mindlessness tools) help them carry on with basic functions, like finding a snack in the kitchen or getting to the bathroom in the night. They will function at a higher level for longer. And, being at home with caregivers who ensure continued involvement in favorite activities will preserve quality of life and a sense of self-hood longer than participating in group activities aimed at the average senior’s needs.
Dignity lies in autonomy, in being able to make decisions and shape our lives the way we wish. When people begin to experience dementia, they do not lose themselves. They lose themselves only if we take away their dignity and fail to recognize the skills and preferences that continue, despite dementia.
[Originally published on January 23, 2017]
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