8 Tips for Coping with Elderly Parents and Advanced Dementia

Oct 8, 2011
Karen Thomas

Coping with Dementia and Alzheimer's - basykes

A parent's physical decline or loss of memory due to dementia or Alzheimer's can cause anxiety, depression or just a niggling feeling of malaise inside.

A great way for coping with the stress of a parent’s declining health due to dementia is to acknowledge the anxiety, depression, or the general feeling of unease felt. Then you can decide how best to manage these feelings and live through them as they arise.

Realizing that a parent can no longer look after themselves alone, or that they no longer know who you are, can cause stress of varying degrees. Nevertheless, the challenge is to persist with acknowledging those moments of anxiety first, and then designing and implementing a plan when you feel anxiety or stress levels increase. All of us do better when we have put some thought into how to respond to circumstances that are upsetting.

Coping skills needed for the stress of watching an elderly parent with advancing dementia may work with one person but not necessarily the next. Some of the signs of stress are listed below. Using the suggested tips to manage concerns or anxieties about an elderly parent with dementia may also help.

Feeling Stressed about an Elderly Parent Suffering from Dementia

An elderly parent’s deteriorating dementia may prompt an adult child to experience anxiety or stress and feel any of the following:

Worried and distressed that the parent's personality and abilities are slowly disappearing
Helpless at being unable to ‘fix’ them and prevent the dementia from advancing
Guilty for not taking better care of them in the past and now
Lost and confused about what the future holds
To blame for an elderly parent’s own distress.

Any or all of these feelings can contribute to anxieties each time news that the health of an elderly parent due to dementia or Alzheimer's has diminished further.

Tips to Manage Anxiety Prompted by a Parent’s Advancing Dementia

Here are some suggestions to help manage concerns or anxieties about an elderly parent with advanced dementia. They take time and thought to implement, but are well worth the effort:

Ask for regular updates from nurses and carers about a parent’s declining health. Digest any changes in behavior, speech, or ability, and modify expectations; help them feel good about themselves.
Keep feelings of guilt at bay. Guilt prevents a person from acknowledging the impact of dementia on the sufferer and accepting the new emerging person.
Visit when you can for their sake. Dementia suffers may be able to recall events less with time, but they continue to respond to human contact and warm touch.
Visit when you can for your sake to see the deterioration first hand. Acknowledge and accept that their ability to manage even simple tasks is declining, and that their mind, body, and language skills are gradually deteriorating.
Ask them to talk about their childhood. Listen without judging or correcting facts. Good memories bring moments of happiness for both elderly parent and adult child.
Invite them to engage in the activity of the day, eg. Watch the Australian Tennis Open on the TV together; listen to orchestral music or sing along with the ‘golden oldies’ on disk; share a meal; or punch a balloon to each other.
Live in the moment. Breath. Laugh. Relax. Take the opportunity to slow down to their pace. Encourage them to interact but be aware of when they are tiring.
Share your feelings with a family member, a friend, or a professional. A problem shared is a problem halved.

One of the best tips for managing your anxiety due to an elderly parent’s dementia is to acknowledge that you may be grieving the loss of your parent as you once knew them. Find ways to feel these feelings of stress, anxiety, depression or malaise mindfully to get through them, and to accept the condition no matter how difficult this is.