A Loving Approach to Dementia Care by Laura Wayman

Author:Laura Wayman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: 2017-06-20T16:00:00+00:00

Lessons Learned

Unfortunately, as individuals struggle to cope with dementia, paranoia like Edna’s is not uncommon. People with dementia may have misperceptions or hallucinations about family members, old friends, and strangers. In most cases, this is just a phase that eventually subsides, but there is no way to predict how long these symptoms will last. The severity of the symptoms can depend on the type of dementia.

The resulting behaviors are especially related to a loss of control. As people with dementia come to rely on others for assistance, they may feel as if the caregivers are taking over their lives or even robbing them. And as the dementia progresses, they often lose the ability to recognize that they themselves might be to blame for missing items. For example, they might store some valuables away to protect the items from theft and then forget where they hid them. It would then seem to them that the misplaced items must have been stolen, and they will often accuse the people closest to them of stealing the items.

If a person with dementia still lives in his or her own home, the most likely target of the accusations will be the family or professional in-home caregiver—or possibly a housekeeper or landscaper. In a care facility, such as an assisted living or memory care community, the main target generally will be the care staff, other residents, or even visitors. You may hear statements such as these:

• “A man came here and he took my jewelry.”

• “That woman stole my scarves, but she says she didn’t take them.”

Instead of reacting to these behaviors, coping with and managing them is the key to making the person feel safe and supported. Imagine what it would be like if you suspected you were being followed home by a strange car one evening, thought you had been receiving odd or threatening phone calls, or believed you saw someone hiding outside your bedroom window. Now imagine that you shared your fears with your family and friends, and that even though you were genuinely scared, they calmly dismissed your anxiety as foolishness. How would this make you feel?

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