10 tips for responding to dementia anger

welcome back pure blazer in today's video I'm gonna talk about how you can help prevent your loved ones frustration or anger or distress from getting worse and I'm gonna go over specific tips you can use to help calm your loved one in these situations if you have ever tried to calm your loved one down from any situation just to find that your loved one got worse or more frustrated and you yourself got frustrated and this video is for you as always I want to welcome anybody who's watching for the first time this is care Blazers TV the place where we talk about everything dementia I'm doctor Natalie I'm a board-certified Gerald psychologist and my whole goal is to support the dementia caregiver in their journey if you haven't already hit that red subscribe button and be sure to download your own care blazer Survival Guide below this video and all you care is are supported me on patreon thank you so much now sometimes I can feel like your loved one with dementia becomes upset or frustrated or angry or violent completely out of the blue with no clear trigger or something to tip you off on what it was that made them so upset or made them in so much distress this can be pretty frustrating for you because if you knew what it was you would just go ahead and try to take care of that situation and try to prevent it from happening again to make things more difficult a lot of times the person with dementia is not able to communicate what exactly it is that's making them so upset or if they are able to communicate it they're communicating something that is not possible for you to fix or take away like for example they might be seeing something they might be having hallucinations of something that that's not really there or they might be having delusions really strong beliefs that they believe to be true even though they're not like the neighbor stealing things or somebody coming into the house and changing all the light bulbs right these are things that when you try to respond to them in a rational way like you would for most people it just backfires on you and it turns out it makes your loved one get more angry and it just makes the whole situation worse so even though it's impossible to avoid your loved one with dementia from having anger outbursts all together from having difficult situations where they become in distress what we can do our goal is to make those situations as short as possible to be able to respond in a way that puts your loved one at ease and does not end up driving yourself crazy in the process that's the goal have you ever found yourself in the situation where you try to respond to your loved one who's in distress only to make things worse that your loved one gets more angry and you yourself get quite frustrated it's actually quite common and I'm gonna go over specific tips right now that I want you to keep in mind the next time you find yourself in a situation where you're trying to calm down your loved one these tips will hopefully make it so that your loved one will calm down quicker and that your the situation will not get worse here we go tip number 1 do not raise your voice number 2 be mindful to not approach your loved one too quickly or fast when you try to respond to them number 3 don't have your hands out in front of you as you approach them remember even though in your mind you know you're trying to help them you have to look at it through your loved ones eyes when situations are happening that are making your loved one upset angry frustrated it's often because they're scared they don't understand what's going on or they believe something to be going on that isn't actually happening as a basic example if your loved one with dementia might be so confused they don't remember you or they might have a negative attitude towards you you're responding to them by walking quickly toward them with their hands out is going to make matters worse and scare them they don't understand in their mind that you're trying to help so be mindful about your approach number four do not argue don't do it number five when you try to talk to them get down on their level sit by them or kneel down by them so that it's less threatening number six approach them from their dominant side people tend to focus more and do better when you approach them from the side that's dominant number seven use as few words as possible remember it's hard for people with dementia to process a lot of information and it gets especially worse if they're upset so use as few words as possible to try to communicate with them don't overwhelm them with a lot of words or full sentences and talking really quickly number eight restate what they're saying in a calm comforting way if your loved one is saying that there's a scary man outside of the door then you would say something like there's a man outside of the door that's not good let me take care of that you're safe here come with me and let's get settled then you can offer them a snack a drink or do whatever you can while you go take care of the problem do your best to redirect your loved one into something that they would enjoy and distract them from the situation that was making them upset now in some cases you may not be able to understand what it is that's upsetting your loved one so here's where tip number nine comes in play detective you want to try to rule out common reasons for their distress pain hunger toileting needs these are common reasons why people with dementia sometimes get upset now don't ask them in a rapid-fire type of manner you want to ask them slowly and calmly and go through some of these questions until you either find out what it is that they want or need or until you successfully redirected them I want to take a moment real quick to tell you about a video I watched at work recently it was a person with dementia who was living in a nursing home and the person with dementia was walking around screaming where's my mom I need to find my mom instead of the worker saying your mom is dead or your mom's not here the worker said let me help you find her take let's walk to your room and the worker and the person with dementia walk to the room the worker saw some photos around the room and the worker said do you have a photo of your mom so we can see what she looks like of course the person did he had a family photo in his room they took some time looking at it in the worker started pointing out other things in the picture while those are some very pretty flowers look at that background and started engaging the person with dementia and a really lovely discussion and you can automatically see the person with dementia start to settle down a little bit the worker didn't try to use a rational response and that the mother is not around didn't try to just say calm down the worker got the person in a conversation then the worker asked what is it that you enjoyed doing with your mom and that person with dementia responded I liked playing the piano with her well then the worker said oh why don't we go down to the music room I would love to hear you play the piano and then before you know it the worker and the person with dementia were walking out of the room with a person with dementia completely calm and no longer walking around in distress asking for his mom now again this is a simple example in your situation is obviously going to be different but I want you to be creative and open your mind that your loved one with dementia might be requesting a certain thing or saying a certain thing that doesn't quite make sense or doesn't have a really good answer that they want to hear it doesn't mean you need to provide them with that specific answer it means you can engage them in a conversation and whenever you see that window of opportunity to help redirect it or help shift the conversation take it I really want to challenge you to start opening your ears for those little opportunities for redirection just like the worker did in the video that I watched alright tip number 10 give positive encouragement and feedback throughout the situation with your loved one for example you could think your loved one for walking with you or you can think your loved one for holding your hand or tell them that it was really nice of them to share something tell them how great they look in their shirt whatever you need to do just find some ways to sprinkle in some kind and encouraging words throughout the situation remember you don't necessarily have to respond directly in a way that answers your loved ones questions but you want to respond in a calm gentle kind way and your loved one with dementia is going to react to the way that you are responding to them they're gonna pick up on your nonverbals they're gonna pick up on your facial expressions if you're looking at them like I don't know what you want what is it what can I do how can I help you that's pretty scary for your loved one with dementia even though you're trying to help them in their mind you're you're doing something that's really upsetting to them they see you as being really upset and it's gonna continue to escalate the situation and make matters worse remember when your loved one is showing signs of distress anger frustration they're having a hard time they're scared they might not be understanding what's going on or their understanding of the world around them is very much different than your understanding so you have to join their world you have to try to see their situation through their eyes I promise you in these situations when your loved ones really really upset they're not doing it to try to make your situation worse or to try to give you a hard time they're literally having a really hard time and they often don't understand that you're actually trying to help them when you fall into the typical approaches of how you would help other people so I want to encourage you to take a good look at those 10 tips and start to try to implement them and sprinkle them in whenever you are trying to calm your loved one with dementia down care Glaser I hope that these tips were helpful to you now remember you can't control or totally prevent your loved one with dementia from getting scared or having distress or from getting angry from time to time it's gonna happen it's part of the disease however what you can control is the way that you respond to those situations and there is a way of responding that can either make things worse or that can help calm things down quicker and that's the whole goal so I hope that these tips can help you in that goal I'd really like to know which of these tips you found to be the most helpful or which tips you plan to try to use right off the bat go ahead and leave a comment below let me know what you think I will catch you over on the Facebook community group and I will be back here next week with another video all right Cara Blaser keep up the good work and caring for your loved one with dementia bye [Music]

Channel: Dementia Careblazers

Views: 129,850

Rating: 4.9379177 out of 5

Keywords: natali edmonds, careblazers, dementia careblazers, difficult dementia behaviors, how to calm someone with dementia, what to do if someone with dementia is angry, how to manage dementia behaviors, how to reduce anger in dementia

Id: OuCSkaXX7pQ

Length: 12min 2sec (722 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 12 2018