Early on in Alzheimer's and related dementias, people experience changes in thinking, remembering, and reasoning in a way that affects daily life and activities. Eventually, people with these diseases will need more help with simple, everyday tasks. This may include bathing, grooming, and dressing.
Television viewing and dementia
Over 12 years, on average, 3,507 participants (2.4%) were diagnosed with dementia. Importantly, after controlling for participant physical activity: time spent watching television increased the risk of dementia. time spent using the computer decreased the risk of dementia.
Brain Games for Dementia
Games and apps focused on strengthening and exercising these cognitive skills can be a great source of mental activity for someone with dementia. Examples of brain games and activities include: Play cards and board games. Solve daily crosswords and jigsaw puzzles.
Playing music, having objects to touch and interact with, and hand massage can all help people with dementia in the later stages. Playlist for Life is a music and dementia charity. It promotes how music with personal meaning can help people with dementia. You can find and listen to existing playlists, or make your own.
Don't correct, contradict, blame or insist. Reminders are rarely kind. They tell a person how disabled they are – over and over again. People living with dementia say and do normal things for someone with memory impairment.
For people with Alzheimer's disease or other forms of dementia, watching TV can help keep their brain active, which can stimulate positive memories, improve mood, and even increase socialization. However, the choice of program can be dependent upon the stage of dementia.
Eating a balanced diet, exercising the mind and body regularly, having regular contact with others, and not drinking or smoking — these six “healthy lifestyle factors” were associated with better cognitive outcomes in older adults, in a large Chinese study conducted over a decade and published in the BMJ on Wednesday.
Dementia expert Teepa Snow teaches that the most important thing to understand about meaningful activities is that a person with dementia needs more than just entertainment. Activities like watching TV or having too many visitors may cause overstimulation and result in fatigue or agitation.
Introduction: The five-word test (5WT) is a serial verbal memory test with semantic cuing. It is proposed to rapidly evaluate memory of aging people and has previously shown its sensitivity and its specificity in identifying patients with AD.
Dementia is a general term for loss of memory, language, problem-solving and other thinking abilities that are severe enough to interfere with daily life.
How does a person experience hallucinations? Some people with dementia will have hallucinations in different senses – for example: auditory hallucinations – hearing things that aren't there, like voices or footsteps. olfactory hallucinations – smelling things that aren't there, such as smoke or perfume.
Also, many people with dementia can mistake TV shows for reality. This can bring about fear and misconception. Turning the TV off at this time would be ideal. Therapeutic reasoning™ may also be needed to return them to ease.
Reflections can be troubling
Check mirrors and cover or remove them if they're likely to cause confusion in the person with dementia. They may be distressed if they don't recognise themselves. Similarly, it can help to close the curtains in the evening so they can't see their reflection in the window glass.
Simple tasks like folding laundry and solving puzzles can provide feelings of accomplishment and self-worth. When choosing activities for seniors with dementia, consider their abilities. Activities for seniors in any stage of dementia should ideally be simple, enjoyable, and familiar to reduce frustration and anxiety.
For most people, a full bath or shower two or three times a week is enough. Between full baths, a sponge bath to clean the face, hands, feet, underarms, and genitals is all you need to do every day. Also: Washing the person's hair in the sink with a hose attachment may be easier than doing it in the shower or bathtub.
Because dementia gradually affects cognitive function, regularly staying busy with different activities can help to keep a patient's mind active and slow the decline of their condition.
At home, a patient's support system is more inherent, and they are more likely to be able to participate in their own care. By being treated at home, people living with dementia remain familiar with the details of their surroundings such as the floor plan, furniture and bedrooms.
I'm going to discuss five of the most basic ones here: 1) Don't tell them they are wrong about something, 2) Don't argue with them, 3) Don't ask if they remember something, 4) Don't remind them that their spouse, parent or other loved one is dead, and 5) Don't bring up topics that may upset them.
Some of the more common triggers for dementia like a change in environment, having personal space invaded, or being emotionally overwhelmed may be easier to handle if you mentally practice your response before you react.
∎high blood pressure ∎increasingly stiff and blocked arteries (known as 'atherosclerosis') ∎high blood cholesterol levels ∎being overweight and physically unfit ∎type 2 diabetes. These factors start to have an effect during a person's mid-life (aged 40–65), increasing their risk of developing dementia later in life.