HOLIDAY PREPARATIONS:

[alice]

Holiday Hints ..Please see follow up post below this post..thanks..12/19/2016..alice





HOLIDAY PREPARATIONS:

Tips to help caregivers & people with dementia when visiting family, friends & neighbors during the holiday season.



Holidays can be meaningful, enriching times for both the person with Alzheimer’s disease and his or her family. Maintaining or adapting family rituals and traditions helps all family members feel a sense of belonging and family identity. For a person with Alzheimer’s, this link with a familiar past is reassuring. The tips below can help you and the person with Alzheimer’s visit and reconnect with family, friends, and neighbors during holidays.

Finding the Right Balance
Many caregivers have mixed feelings about holidays. They may have happy memories of the past, but they also may worry about the extra demands that holidays make on their time and energy.

Here are some ways to balance doing many holiday-related activities while taking care of your own needs and those of the person with Alzheimer’s disease:
1.Celebrate holidays that are important to you. Include the person with Alzheimer’s as much as possible.
2.Set your own limits, and be clear about them with others. You do not have to live up to the expectations of friends or relatives. Your situation is different now.
3.Involve the person with Alzheimer’s in simple holiday preparations, or have him or her observe your preparations. Observing you will familiarize him or her with the upcoming festivities. Participating with you may give the person the pleasure of helping and the fun of anticipating and reminiscing.
4.Encourage friends and family to visit even if it’s difficult. Limit the number of visitors at any one time, or have a few people visit quietly with the person in a separate room.
5.Prepare quiet distractions to use, such as a family photo album, if the person with Alzheimer’s becomes upset or overstimulated.
6.Try to avoid situations that may confuse or frustrate the person with Alzheimer’s, such as crowds, changes in routine, and strange places. Also try to stay away from noise, loud conversations, loud music, lighting that is too bright or too dark, and having too much rich food or drink (especially alcohol).
7.Find time for holiday activities you like to do. If you receive invitations to celebrations that the person with Alzheimer’s cannot attend, go yourself. Ask a friend or family member to spend time with the person while you’re out.

Preparing Guests
Explain to guests that the person with Alzheimer’s disease does not always remember what is expected and acceptable. Give examples of unusual behaviors that may take place such as incontinence, eating food with fingers, wandering, or hallucinations.
1.If this is the first visit since the person with Alzheimer’s became severely impaired, tell guests that the visit may be painful. The memory-impaired person may not remember guests’ names or relationships but can still enjoy their company.
2.Explain that memory loss is the result of the disease and is not intentional.
3.Stress that the meaningfulness of the moment together matters more than what the person remembers.

Preparing the Person with Alzheimer’s
Here are some tips to help the person with Alzheimer’s disease get ready for visitors:
1.Begin showing a photo of the guest to the person a week before arrival. Each day, explain who the visitor is while showing the photo.
2.Arrange a phone call for the person with Alzheimer’s and the visitor. The call gives the visitor an idea of what to expect and gives the person with Alzheimer’s an opportunity to become familiar with the visitor.
3.Keep the memory-impaired person’s routine as close to normal as possible.
4.During the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, guard against fatigue and find time for adequate rest.

SOURCE: The Alzheimer’s Disease Education and Referral (ADEAR) Center, a service of the National Institute on Aging, part of the National Institutes of Health.

[alice]

The above might work perhaps in the first two stages but it really is not realistic to think if you show a picture of the soon to be visitor that your loved one will remember that person when they see them, et,et. Just try and be calm and simple..don't expect your loved one to be comfortable and social they now have limited thinking. It may be best for your loved one after a short time to go with someone they are comfortable with to their room and listen to music..talk quietly or just rest. To a loved one with any dementia sadly Christmas is more likely just another day of struggle. Comfort, solace and caring HUGS is really a gift of love to them at Christmas time or anytime.

"Preparing the Person with Alzheimer's" could not have possibly been written by someone who was a care giver to a loved one. Please consider most of it a bad idea. My best to you and your loved one today and tomorrow..try to find some joy and hold it close so it will help you walk through your tomorrows together...

A peaceful Christmas..may love be felt..alice

[ashleyjohn]

You can also provide them gifts on special occasions.

From Alice...Everyone is different but most loved ones with Alzheimer's after stage one or two will not understand "a special occasion."
My husband would have never understood this and opening a gift would have only frustrated him. You will know your loved one better then anyone else if you spend time with them as much as possible. Each day brings different task for them to try and understand. Be kind to your loved one and simplify everything and don't introduce something new that will most likely cause confusion. Try and continue life as it was and drop those things that you can see is causing confusion and/or anger. As one care giver often shared their thinker is broken. I would say find what brings some joy and allow them to feel that joy..HUGS, "I love you", "I understand","I am here for you", "Its OKay", lots of smiles and laughter, "Its a pretty day", "listen to the birds singing". more HUGS!. Coloring is something a LO can still enjoy. Use children's coloring books..praise any mark on that paper!! Looking at pictures of nature, home life, sports et things they might have enjoyed at one time. Use simple children's books or magazines. Folding a basket of wash cloths or small towels..what ever is accomplished offer praise! Offering to play catch with a large soft ball or roll it..just try if it doesn't work change the direction to something more calming
perhaps a walk in the park or pushed in a wheel chair. . Calm music and movies..avoid TV and loud commercials. Stay calm and when you get a smile then that is your joy for another day! Bless..your doing amazing things! Two good words to remember "simplify" and "redirect". alice

[lapata]

I love june 5 holidays because you don't need to prepare. You just take stuff you need (food, drinks and friends lol) and go to have fun. And what do you need else to have great time, right? I think it's perfect.

[ashleyjohn]

This will prove really helpful to a lot of caregivers.