Memory and time-lapses It's possible that someone with dementia can slip into another time from their past, and become worried about events that are no longer happening. Or, they may become suspicious and fearful of people they don't recognise.
It is common to experience a fear of being alone in dementia.
Some of the more common triggers for dementia like a change in environment, having personal space invaded, or being emotionally overwhelmed may be easier to handle if you mentally practice your response before you react.
Keeping an active social life, regular exercise, and continuing activities the person enjoys, or finding new ones, can help to reduce behaviours that are out of character. Read more about activities for dementia. Other things that can help include: providing reassurance.
There are many different conceptualizations of coping strategies, but the five general types of coping strategies are problem-focused coping, emotion-focused coping, social support, religious coping, and meaning making.
Researchers have proposed three distinct types of coping styles: problem-focused coping, emotion-focused coping and avoidance coping [27, 29, 30].
Change in routine
People with dementia often rely on their routines as a source of comfort. A daily routine helps a person know what to expect. This means that a sudden disruption in routine may cause dementia symptoms to get worse. This is especially true if a person experiences stress.
Dementia is a general term for loss of memory, language, problem-solving and other thinking abilities that are severe enough to interfere with daily life.
Introduction: The five-word test (5WT) is a serial verbal memory test with semantic cuing. It is proposed to rapidly evaluate memory of aging people and has previously shown its sensitivity and its specificity in identifying patients with AD.
I'm going to discuss five of the most basic ones here: 1) Don't tell them they are wrong about something, 2) Don't argue with them, 3) Don't ask if they remember something, 4) Don't remind them that their spouse, parent or other loved one is dead, and 5) Don't bring up topics that may upset them.
Psychological symptoms and behavioral abnormalities are common and prominent characteristics of dementia. They include symptoms such as depression, anxiety psychosis, agitation, aggression, disinhibition, and sleep disturbances. Approximately 30% to 90% of patients with dementia suffer from such behavioral disorders.
Some people with dementia experience hallucinations, in which they see, hear, smell, taste or feel things that are not really there. However, sometimes the person may not be hallucinating but mistaking what they have seen for something else (for example, they may see a dark rug and think it is a hole in the ground).
Speak calmly. Listen to his or her concerns and frustrations. Try to show that you understand if the person is angry or fearful. Allow the person to keep as much control in his or her life as possible.
People with dementia think about the same things that any human thinks about — emotions, relationships, daily life, tasks to accomplish, and more. However, dementia can change how you interact with the world because of its physical, mental, and emotional effects.
The Mini-Cog test.
A third test, known as the Mini-Cog, takes 2 to 4 minutes to administer and involves asking patients to recall three words after drawing a picture of a clock. If a patient shows no difficulties recalling the words, it is inferred that he or she does not have dementia.
Alzheimer's disease – around eight to 10 years. Life expectancy is less if the person is diagnosed in their 80s or 90s. A few people with Alzheimer's live for longer, sometimes for 15 or even 20 years. Vascular dementia – around five years.
The five-minute cognitive test (FCT) was designed to capture deficits in five domains of cognitive abilities, including episodic memory, language fluency, time orientation, visuospatial function, and executive function.
other long-term health problems – dementia tends to progress more quickly if the person is living with other conditions, such as heart disease, diabetes or high blood pressure, particularly if these are not well-managed.
Low levels of certain nutrients. Not getting enough of certain vitamins or minerals in your diet can cause dementia symptoms. This includes not getting enough thiamin, also known as vitamin B-1, which is common in people with alcohol use disorder.
Engaging in mental or social activities may help to build up your brain's ability to cope with disease, relieve stress and improve your mood. This means doing these activities may help to delay, or even prevent, dementia from developing. Find activities you enjoy that challenge your brain, and do them regularly.
Expand your stress management toolkit by mastering these four strategies for coping with stress: avoid, alter, accept and adapt.
So the 4 Rs are Reject, Reframe, Relieve and Refresh. Reject: The first thing we can do when trying to reduce and manage stress is to try to eliminate stressors. You can start by making a list of the 10 things that are currently stressing you out and then seeing how you can get rid of as many as you can.
This technique asks you to find five things you can see, four things you can touch, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste. Using this with someone who feels anxious will help to calm them down and reduce their feelings of anxiety.