A Senior with Dementia Can Still Manage to Remain Home with Proper Care

When your elderly father was first diagnosed with dementia, you may not have known how to deal with the emotions. You might have gone through the various stages of grief. He might have gone through those, too. While home care might not have been a topic you wanted to discuss with him at first, it could be a great way to support him through the years ahead.

When you first heard that he was diagnosed with some form of dementia, you may have envisioned all the worst-case scenarios at once. You thought about how he might not recognize you at some point in the future. Or perhaps how this once strong man, a superman in your younger years, was suddenly looking so frail and vulnerable.

Those are difficult things to deal with, but as you work through your emotions, you eventually reach a point of understanding. You understand that some type of support and care will be necessary in the future.

Maybe your mother is planning to support him with your help.

Living relatively close to your parents, this might seem like a no-brainer, like something you are supposed to do. You can certainly help however you can, but if you don’t have any experience supporting somebody with dementia, what might be missed in those coming years?

In truth, a lot can be missed. In fact, many families who have an aging parent or grandparent diagnosed with Alzheimer’s or other types of dementia make too many mistakes.

Some of those mistakes, many, in fact, can seem minor. They might not have any lasting impact. Some of them, though, could be incredible missed opportunities that provide more comfort, assurance, quality of life, and safety for the senior in the future.

Is it okay that your elderly mother, perhaps in her 70s or 80s herself, is going to take care of him? It might be to some degree, but he needs more than that. Maybe not right now, but in the coming months and years he will.

The sooner you look to home care, the sooner he becomes comfortable with that caregiver.

If you wait a few years until the symptoms of this dementia become much more potent, and then you hire somebody to come in and support him, he won’t have any understanding of who this person is.

There won’t be any kind of comfort level at a subconscious or semi conscious level. Even though he may not recognize this home care aide sometimes, the longer he has worked with somebody and gotten to know them, the more comfortable he may feel.

Hiring home care now can give your father the time he needs to develop some type of relationship with that aide as he moves through the different stages of dementia. And, that aide can provide your mother the kind of relief she will need to not get burned out, overwhelmed, or put herself in harm’s way unwittingly.

This is going to be a difficult road to travel, but with home care, a person with dementia can certainly remain safe at home.