Caregivers and Dementia

Caregivers and Dementia

Caring for early stage dementia

Decline of ability is relatively mild in this stage. While patients can still do most of their activities, and function independently, they become more forgetful and begin to lose their ability to plan and to make decisions. They can see there is something wrong, and it can overwhelm them and make them lose initiative. Fortunately, medication is often helpful in reducing the impact of the memory loss.

How the patient copes with this phase depends partly on how well they and the society around them understand and accept dementia. In countries where awareness on dementia is high, people use this early dementia period to get in touch with their families and convey what they will want later, and to make arrangements for the future to the extent they can.  Unfortunately, in India, it is not common to get diagnosed at this stage and awareness and acceptability of dementia is poor. Elders cover up their mistakes and memory loss scared they will be labeled as stupid or mad, and the children may not point out any problems assuming it to be old age, or fearing they will be shouted down as being disrespectful. As a result, we lose this window of opportunity to set a good foundation for future care. Hopefully as awareness increases, more patients will get diagnosed early and can be looked after better because of early diagnosis (Korth, 2001).

Caregiver focus in early stages is to encourage the patient to remain independent and continue to do the tasks they need to do. To make the tasks simple and do-able, caregivers can observe how the patients do the tasks, note where the patients have difficulty, and make small changes in the house so that patients can remain independent.

 Caregivers need to stay alert about risks. While patients should be encouraged to take care of their activities and their personal hygiene, caregivers have to remain alert and help when needed. Mistakes will happen. Despite all the patient may try, the abilities will decline, and the caregiver will need to step in when that happens. Caregivers must be particularly alert for neglect in personal hygiene, for missed meals and medications, and accidents.

Caregivers can plan and start equipping themselves for caregiving. They have time to plan for later stages, which require more intense care. Planning could include (Gina, 2012):

take decisions about home and work to handle care for mid-stage dementia, and initiate changes where appropriate

understanding enough about the patient's medical state

understanding about other areas of the patient's life that will need to be supported/ taken over, such as financial and tax decisions

setting up systems for handling investments and tax and finances, such as switching over to joint (either/ or) accounts, getting power of attorney, etc.

getting the patient under the care of a doctor who will be able to advise all through the following years, when the patient will not be able to communicate or even know what the problem is

understanding more of the patient's past, and of likes and ...