How to Manage Behaviour Changes in Patients With Alzheimer’s and Dementia

Alzheimer’s is a heinous disease that kills brain cells. It decreases the capacity of various mental processes in the patient over time. The patients with Alzheimer’s or Dementia exhibit noticeable behavior changes. These diseases are not only a burden on the patient but also the family. It is admirable to want to take care of a patient in the family. For the Colorado residents, it is better to seek out professional Alzheimer’s care in Denver.

If you wish to learn about these changes and cope with them, keep reading this brief compendium of knowledge.

Noticeable Personality and Behavioral Changes in the Patient

In patients with Alzheimer’s or Dementia, you may notice increasingly erratic behavior. They will:

Get distressed or apprehensive easily
Get enraged over trivial matters
Lose interest in everyday issues of life
Act depressed
Become paranoid by hiding things or believing others are hiding something from them
Take offense to real or imagined slights
Wander away from home with no explanation of how they got there
Pace a lot in a confined space
Exhibit unusual sexual behavior
Misinterpret words or situations and fly off the handle
Physically hit someone
Forget names, faces, places, and more.

The patients will likely stop caring about their appearance. They may stop bathing and insist that changing clothes every day is a useless activity.

Additional Factors that may Affect Behavior

Some factors may influence the behavior of a patient with Alzheimer’s or Dementia, in addition to their primary illness.

These heinous diseases have no known cure. They degrade the brain cells and naturally encourage negative emotions. The patients become more susceptible to bouts of fear, stress, confusion, and anxiety.
Secondary attributes, like pain, new drugs, lack of sleep, paranoia, etc., may also contribute to shifting behavioral changes.
Secondary health concerns, like infection, hunger, constipation, visual or auditory disorder, etc., may also increase erraticism and unpredictability.

External factors, like loud noise, crying children, wet floors, mirrors, may also negatively influence behavioral changes.

How to Deal With the Behavioural Changes

The terrible diseases that degrade brain cells have no known cure. The caregivers may only learn to cope with the erratic patients and their unpredictable behavior. Follow the valuable bits of advice given below for a guideline;

Simplicity is the key when dealing with patients. Ask, say, or do one thing at a time. Try to simplify the thought process for the patient.
Establish a daily routine early on, so the patient may expect certain things.
Make reassurances in soothing tones that the patient is not alone and you are there to help.
Please do not dismiss the patients’ feelings, even when you know, they are erratic. Ask why they are worried or apprehensive. Let them unload their emotional baggage.
Do not argue or try to reason, especially when the patient is in a fit.
Do not show anger or frustration. Leave the vicinity for a while if you need to calm down.
Use humor when you can. Make the patients laugh.
Make sure the patients eat and drink in enough quantities.
Distract the patient with an interesting TV program, a song, etc.
Ask the patients assistance in small things, like setting the table, to make them feel wanted.

Keep in contact with the doctor and ask for advice. Many effective medications are available that may help manage or even restore erratic behavioral changes.

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Ashutosh Jha

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