Living Alone with Dementia
Each individual living with dementia is distinctive and so is the circumstance he is living in. Some of them are part of their family or may be living with one family member however few are who live alone with such disease. And reason for living alone could be person’s personal decision or may be a situation alone. Be whatever the reason for it, its challenging for their loved ones to leave person with dementia living alone.
Let’s assume a person has been diagnosed for dementia which does not mean by any way that he is going won’t be capable of managing himself alone. Rather than underestimating them one must help people with such disease to live on their own in known surroundings which is actually a sensible aim. However, it always makes family members tense thinking of their loved ones living alone.
Now the help you need to give such people entirely depends on their current situation. They would need assistance if they:
Do not remember to take a meal or medicines.
Are not changing their clothes or taking bath on regular basis.
Tend to forget about the potential critical situations like fire.
Don’t know whom should they let in the house and who don’t.
Are having fake suspicions about the people living around the house causing difficulty for neighbors and police.
Have forgotten to give food to their pets.
]]>
Out of the listed circumstances, few of them can be easily handled. For example, if the person tends to forget his meals, you can arrange a meal for him through phone at his door steps and then either make a call to that person or have anyone meet him personally to remind to have his meal. While sometimes, situation may not be that easy and you might compromise on person’s security, at these times you need to think of more logical way to handle it in a wise way.
Where to begin from
There are dementia’s institutions where they have experts who can suggest you the best possible workout for people with such disease are finding hard to love alone. They can provide you with suitable solution as per your needs and also help in arranging or may be referring to right communities for them.
How a care taker can help in such situations.
Acknowledge that there is a risk.
There is always a risk in dementia person living on their own. But this factor should be judged by the person with disease alone. The family member’s must keep a regular check including professional assistance to see if they are still able to manage things on their own.
Family’s participation
There could be more family member’s wishing to participate in taking care of their loved ones in long term. They must sit and held meetings and decide at early stages who is going to cater which needs of affected member and who can provide what type of help in future.
Giving them their independence
Now this could be rails running towards their bathroom, toilet. They should have access to easily readable wall clocks including calendar with large fonts. An alarm clock which they think is easy to operate and reminders for their medicines and meals.
Handling financial decision
As the dementia evolve by the time, their ability in making legal or finance decision decreases. You must help them with such decisions though still making them part of those decisions.
Keeping other people informed
Author is an expert technical writer for senior citizen websites who specializes in senior citizen article writing. For more information on senior citizens, please Senior Living