Hospice care services for seniors who have dementia could be exactly the tool that families need in order to offer effective and compassionate care to the people they love. When people with dementia near the end of their lives, the challenges they’ve faced along the way can feel even more complicated and difficult to manage.
Assisting with Communication Difficulties
Often family caregivers find it difficult to communicate with seniors who have dementia. As the disease progresses, people who have dementia may have trouble speaking or understanding the people around them. This makes it extremely difficult for them to communicate to caregivers what they need and whether something has changed. Hospice caregivers are able to assist family members in understanding what their seniors need based on experience dealing with similar situations.
Managing and Understanding Behavioral Changes
Behavioral changes are a big factor for many people who have dementia. As the disease progresses, those changes often become more pronounced. It’s difficult for family caregivers sometimes to understand what might be behind some of these behaviors. Usually, there is a trigger for what is happening, such as pain, fear, discomfort, or some other basic need being unmet. Hospice care professionals can help seniors and family members to understand what is happening and to prevent some of those situations from becoming a factor.
Hospice Care can Assist in Navigating End-of-Life Decisions
It’s so important to plan ahead with end-of-life decisions, but that is not always possible. Ideally, seniors are able to express their desires before dementia progresses too far. But if that isn’t the case, hospice can help with navigating some of those end-of-life decisions as they arise. Some of those decisions might involve treatments the senior might need, decisions about comfort care and symptom management, and other options for care.
Building a Support Network and Focusing on Comfort
Having a support network is crucial for family members who are caring for dementia patients at the end of their lives. This type of care is emotionally and physically demanding, requiring a great deal of energy and time. If caregivers have a support network that allows them to take respite time and address their own needs, it’s much easier to offer the help that their senior needs. Hospice care providers can help family caregivers to build the support network that they need.
Because there is still no cure for dementia, patients with dementia who are not battling other health issues may make the move to purely palliative options for care. Within hospice care, that means managing symptoms and focusing on comfort for the individual involved. More aggressive curative treatments aren’t helpful and may even make the situation worse. For dementia patients who are battling other health issues, big decisions around when those curative treatments are no longer useful may need to be made.
Hospice care for seniors with dementia offers a way for family members to understand and to offer the right help to the person that they love. Addressing challenges as they arise and doing whatever they can do to help with patient comfort can go a long way toward helping the end stages of dementia much easier for patients and family members to bear.
If you or an aging loved one is considering Hospice Care Services in Stockton NJ please contact the caring staff at Expert Home Care today at (732) 937-5320.
Providing Live-In Home Care in New Jersey, Since 1985
We have been providing Home Health Care to New Jersey families since 1985, and have grown to become one of the largest licensed providers of Live-In Home Care in the upper New Jersey area. Our many years of New Jersey home care experience has produced a company that over 8,000 clients have come to rely on confidently, for help.
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