Dementia Behaviors

A daily routine and dementia care go hand in hand, benefiting patients and caregivers alike. The repetition involved in adhering to lifelong routines can help keep seniors oriented, preventing distraction, anxiety and frustration.

Creative storytelling can help seniors when they start to lose their memory due to dementia. By giving seniors with dementia the opportunity to write new narratives, creative storytelling may help give back a bit of what the disease steals from them.

Dementia care expert Teepa Snow discusses how family caregivers can respond to four repetitive communication cycles that are common among seniors with dementia.

How do you deal with the stigma attached to dementia? When a loved one with dementia "acts out" in public, it can draw a great deal of unwanted attention. Dementia caregivers need to make care the priority and try not worry about what others think.

Changes in cognition can cause dementia patients to see dead relatives or ask about them as if they’re still alive, creating a delicate situation.

Chemical restraints are no longer the norm in nursing homes, but stories of overmedication of the elderly persist. Drugs may be necessary to improve a resident’s quality of life, but close monitoring is the only way to tell if a facility is overdoing it.

It's heartbreaking to hear a loved one say, “I want to go home,” regardless of whether they’re already in their own house or now living in a senior living facility. How can family caregivers help calm and comfort them without giving them false hope?

We may love our parents because they are family, but that doesn't necessarily mean we like them as people. When caregiving responsibilities fall to you, how do you take care of parents who you don't like?

Dementia caregivers must frequently choose between correcting their loved ones or validating their distorted perceptions of reality. A family caregiver shares the unique approach she used to interact with her elderly father.

Reiki is a holistic therapy that can complement any conventional medical treatments a senior is already receiving. Using touch, Reiki practitioners transfer restorative energy to their patients to aid in physical and mental healing.

When a senior develops dementia, behavioral changes like verbal outbursts and aggression often come as a shock to family members. Explore tips and advice for coping with excessive cursing.

Is an elderly loved one becoming increasingly moody? Tense? Using profanity? Exhibiting more bizarre behavior? These symptoms could be signs of Alzheimer's disease.

Memory loss is the typical trait associated with Alzheimer's disease, but new research aimed at detecting the disease in its earliest stages points to some unconventional indicators.