Alzheimer’s disease impacts entire families. As you watch your mom’s cognitive decline, it’s going to impact you emotionally. There are people who admit caring for a parent with Alzheimer’s strained their relationships, ended friendships, and left them feeling mentally and physically drained. Don’t let this happen to you. Alzheimer’s care is an essential service when your mom has Alzheimer’s disease. Here are four things that happen when you hire caregivers who specialize in dementia care.
Help With Feeding and Toileting Are Covered
In the middle and late stages of Alzheimer’s, your mom’s motor skills diminish. She will not be able to use a spoon, fork, or knife. Finger foods are essential at first, but she’ll eventually move to softer foods. Someone needs to feed her these foods and nutritional shakes that she’ll drink through a straw.
Your mom will also have difficulty using the bathroom. She needs help sitting onto the seat, cleaning up after, and may even need a bedpan as her mobility diminishes. Caregivers trained in dementia care are helpful for these care needs.
Your Mom’s Personal Care Is Addressed
Your mom doesn’t appreciate you trying to help her with showers and dressing. She definitely doesn’t want your help with oral care. It’s often less stressful for her and you if a trained caregiver is handling grooming and hygiene needs.
Put yourself in your mom’s shoes. If you had to rely on your child to help you wash your body or brush your teeth, would you enjoy it or would you feel embarrassed? That’s how she’s feeling.
She Has Supervision and Redirection
Hours of your day are spent stopping your mom from doing things she shouldn’t. You’re always redirecting her from trying to get outside after dark. She will eat a full meal and want another one just minutes later. She makes a cup of tea, pours it down the sink five minutes later saying it’s old, and makes another.
You can have a caregiver handling the redirection. Stop letting it stress you and have a caregiver take over.
You Get to Take Breaks
It is so important to take breaks before you start burning out. Take a day off at least once a week. If you’re balancing a job and your mom’s care, make sure you have a couple of evenings to go out alone, with friends, or with your partner or spouse.
Regular caregivers may not understand the challenges that come with caring for a person with dementia. That’s why you want to ask specifically for someone trained in Alzheimer’s care.
How do you make the arrangements? Talk to your mom’s memory care specialist to better understand the approximate stage she’s at. Assess what she can and cannot do independently. Once you have this list, call a specialist in Alzheimer’s care to discuss services and prices.
If you or an aging loved one are considering Alzheimer’s care in Brookline, MA, please contact the caring staff at PlatinumCare+ today. Call (617) 237-0867
PlatinumCare+ was born out of the desire and passion to provide the very best home health care possible in Brookline, Dover, Newton, Needham, Watertown, Weston, Cambridge, Lincoln, Sudbury, Belmont, Boston MA and surrounding areas.
All with decades of experience, Tim in IT Operations, Support, and Management, Brenda in Client Relations, Healthcare Services & Sales Management, and Anne in Healthcare as a Nurse Practitioner combined their skills to form what is now PlatinumCare +.
As immigrants to the US, all came from backgrounds where Healthcare for aging parents was a responsibility of the immediate family and the entire community. Aging, sick, or terminal community members were cared for physically, emotionally, and financially by family, friends, including strangers! This community approach, Healthcare with a difference, delivered with the utmost love, care, sacrifice, and passion, forms the basis of how PlatinumCare + grounds itself.
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