My mother has severe dementia which has been progressing for years. Initially it started in the classic fashion of forgetting how to get from point A to point B. Locations she had been traversing for decades. As it got worse it got to the point where she needed 7x24 hour care that couldn’t be done in home. She has now been there for years and her memory continues to get worse. She is now at the point that she doesn’t know my name, and only occasionally can recall that she had children at all. Dementia is a terrible thing to live through as it is hard on the person with it and hard on the family members around them.
Here are a few tips I have learned through reading, working with the memory care counselor’s guidance, and from my own practice of visitation over the past 8 years.
- Don’t continually correct your loved one when they have already told you the same information during that visit. Eventually you are going to wish they could tell it to you again when they become less communicative.
- Don’t criticize their memory skills. Example “Mom, don’t you remember X, I told you that 5 times already today”. They can’t try harder to remember. They are trying as hard as they can and it’s exhausting to them, and you are only going to get more frustrated.
- Do steer or lead the…
