Adjust Your Holiday Expectations For Seniors with Dementia

Adjust Your Holiday Expectations For Seniors with Dementia

The Alzheimer’s Organization put together some recommendations to help family members adjust their activities to better help those with dementia and their caregivers during the holiday season.

If Mom always hosted the family gatherings, but now is the main caregiver for Dad who has dementia, it is time for you to step up and do more.

Don’t expect a person with Dementia to travel.  Those in the very early stages can handle travel well, but as the disease progresses the familiarity of home is comforting and travel can bring on anxiety.  If your family has always eaten out for the holiday, maybe this year you need to re-think what you do.

Here is a fact sheet from the Alzheimers organization to help you plan for this and future holidays with your loved ones.

You may discover when spending time with your loved ones over the holiday that it is time to look into a living place that will offer more security and assistance with the tasks of daily living.  Or you may discover that the healthy-care giving parent needs a break.  Kiva Assisted Living facilities offer a variety of levels of care including secure memory care, day care and respite care.   Respite care can help provide a safe, active and caring environment while the care-giver takes a break.

Adjust Your Holiday Expectations For Seniors with Dementia

And when it is time to move a loved one with dementia, remember to bring a bit of “home” to the new location to make that feel like home.  We encourage family members to bring familiar items with their loved one when moving them into their new home at Kiva Assisted.  The transitions will be smoother and you may be surprised at how the activity and social interaction at Kiva will benefit your loved one in a very short time.

Many new residents report that if they had known how enjoyable it would be they would have made the move to Kiva sooner.