Guidelines On How To Offer Dementia Care At Home Miami-Dade County

| Wednesday, November 11, 2015
By Mattie Knight


Dementia is a disease that affects the living of an individual completely. It changes the life of an individual and makes them vulnerable to many things. People living with dementia tend to face excessive anxiety, depression, sadness and tend to withdraw from the outside world. This disease makes them reliant on the care of other people because the patients are unable to undertake the normal living activities by themselves. The disease also affects the family of the affected as they are left wondering what to do for their loved ones to make life easy for them. There are practices of Dementia care at home Miami-Dade County that you can use to help your relative.

For some patients with this disease, valuable help could come from a hired care-worker to come into their home and help them with tasks such as cleaning, cooking, dressing and shopping. Support can also be provided through assistance from local authority. This includes services such as Meals on Wheels, laundry cleaning and library services. The most common form of assistance for many relatives of the patient is seeking the help of a care home. Care homes are better because they host various patients and this can enable them to engage and interact.

One basic assisted support service that you can help your patient with is feeding and provision of meals. Dementia can affect a patient in such a way that they are unable to concentrate on having meals or even recognizing meals brought to them. They also loose coordination and may fail to use a fork, spoon or knife. They may also fail to chew and swallow food which is very dangerous to their health. It is your duty to research for ways and foods to use on the patient.

As the disease progresses, a patient coordination may drop to a point where even dressing becomes difficult. You can help them with dressing by ensuring they wear warm or cool clothes depending on the weather. When helping the patients to shop for new clothing, guide them to choose clothes that are easier to wear and manage.

Washing and bathing is also a support service that will be required by your patient. However, bathing a patient is always a difficult task considering that many adults receive bathing as a private task. It can be difficult for you as a caregiver too especially if this is your first time. Approach the task with an open mind and get the patient to trust you until they are comfortable with you washing them

Patients also need to be moved, lifted and made to sit. There are many circumstances when you will need to handle them physically such as when getting them out of bed, sitting them down and taking them for walks.

A patient may also face mobility problems and require a wheelchair. Buy them a wheelchair that is friendly to their use as well as yours. Such, for example, is a wheel chair that can be fold-able for easy carrying in your car.

Safety is also very crucial especially when dementia advances in a patient. Their judgment and quick reaction is impaired. They also happen to lose balance easily and therefore need safety mechanisms that can monitor their movement to avoid unsafe areas.




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