Tips for Caregivers: Caring for Elderly Parents with Alzheimer’s Disease

Handling a person with dementia caused by onset Alzheimer’s disease or finding out that a loved one has Alzheimer’s disease can be stressful, challenging and frightening. Alzheimer disease is a progressive neurological disorder, affecting long and short-term memory, thinking skills, and human behavior. AD patients will forget how to perform basic daily tasks, but they also forget familiar people and places. Caring for a person with AD can become frustrating at times, but it is also extremely important because Alzheimer’s patients cannot usually care for themselves. Because our aging loved ones typically have such a hard time recognizing their surroundings, especially new ones, it is often recommended that patients stay living at home as long as possible rather than moving to a nursing home or assisted living facility.

Benefits of hiring your own Caregiver for elderly patients with Alzheimer’s

The benefit of hiring a caregiver directly is that you can select the person you like the best, has the appropriate dementia training, and who is the best fit for your family. Hiring someone directly is usually cheaper than hiring through an agency, and it is typically orders of magnitude less expensive than placing them in a nursing home.

The Internet makes it very easy to find an appropriately skilled caregiver near you. Using a fully integrated online service to hire a caregiver for your loved one is a new way to be matched with the best skilled caregivers, who are reliable, have a well-matched temperament, are verified, and affordable. Keep Safe Care Direct makes hiring a caregiver simple and easy, allowing you to maintain control of your care needs or the care needs of a loved one.

Alzheimer’s Geriatric Patient Caregiver Tips

As a caregiver, it is vital to learn as much as possible about Alzheimer’s disease and what to expect from an elderly patient with Alzheimer’s, including taking as much training on AD and dementia as is available.
When possible, caregivers should learn about the elderly patient’s history and family. Surrounding the patient with items that remind them of their past or photographs or their loved ones may be beneficial to the patient.
A caregiver should not feel guilty if the patient is upset or confused. Always keep in mind that many behaviors associated with patient are due to the disease. Try to focus on their positive moments and good memories. Keeping a positive attitude will make helping the patient work through difficult times easier.
Engage the patient with games and books. Place more focus on having fun with the games rather than the patient’s illness. Entertain patients with interesting books to promote active listening.
Choose lively TV shows with simple story backgrounds to keep the patient occupied.
Play familiar music that the dementia patience likes to listen to. It has been shown that music is one of that memory functions to deteriorate with dementia.

About Keep Safe Care Direct
Keep Safe Care Direct is the only company that helps families and individuals find, curate, and manage affordable non-medical in-home care, while solving the chronic problems of caregiver truancy and turnover through the web application, KeepSafeCareDirect.com. The Company’s platform uses the power of the internet to recruit and manage caregivers nationwide so you can hire, manage, schedule and pay for you care from the comfort of your computer. Our solution lowers stress in hiring a caregiver and saves families tens of thousands of dollars per year in care costs so you can get more care and better outcomes. For more information go to keepsafecaredirect.com.