In the early stage of dementia, it’s common for seniors and their loved ones to experience a sense of denial. After all, the senior is just forgetful sometimes; isn’t that just a normal part of growing older? Yet once diagnosed, it’s important to develop and implement a plan for care as soon as possible in order to ensure a smooth transition to the additional care needs to come as the disease progresses.
Dementia, such as Alzheimer’s disease, typically causes only mild impairment in the early stage, which can last for several years. The senior often functions independently for the most part, with symptoms that may not even be noticeable to family members. Common challenges in early-stage dementia include:
- Struggling to remember names of newly-introduced people
- Forgetting something that was just read
- Misplacing objects
- Thinking of the right word to describe an object
- Difficulty with organizing, planning, and focusing
Since the senior may still be driving, working, volunteering, and engaged in social activities, considering home care services may seem unnecessary. Yet this is actually the ideal time to introduce a caregiver for minor assistance and support, allowing for a bond of trust and companionship. In the later stages of dementia, when more care is needed, it’s common for seniors to feel suspicious and distrustful of people they don’t know or recognize, and having a connection with the caregiver now can ease the transition to more care later.
A SYNERGY HomeCare caregiver can begin with minimal services, such as housekeeping, running errands like grocery shopping, and preparing meals, or simply providing companionship for conversations, fun activities and outings together. These services can then easily and seamlessly be expanded in time to include help with personal care needs like bathing/showering, getting dressed, restroom and incontinence assistance, etc.
Safety is also a major concern as dementia progresses, and our skilled caregivers are able to proactively address any potential problems, such as preventing fraud and scam artists from calling and gathering credit card and other personal information from seniors, ensuring medications are taken exactly as prescribed, eliminating fall risks, and assessing the senior and his/her home environment on every visit to confirm overall wellbeing.
This continuum of care approach eases anxiety, and provides family members with peace of mind in knowing they have a trusted, dependable, and familiar care provider on hand to partner with in ensuring the senior is safe and comfortable throughout the course of the disease.
We’re proud to have earned the reputation as one of the leading caregiver agencies in Chicago, IL and the surrounding areas, and are here for you with as much or as little assistance as needed. Our caregivers are fully trained and experienced in the compassionate, creative dementia care that allows family members time to meet their own self-care needs, while offering seniors just the right level of support to foster independence, in the comfort of home.
Contact us to learn more about our dementia care solutions at (773) 868-3183, and to request a free in-home consultation to let us know how we can help.
