Dementia is an incurable condition that affects the patient’s ability to remember or to carry out daily normal tasks. Over some time, dementia tends to get worse. Many people move into care homes as their condition worsens. However, this doesn’t mean that people with dementia cannot lead an active and fulfilling life at care homes. If you are running a care home, then you can use several handy aids to help those with dementia or other long-term conditions to live safely and as independently as possible.
Here are a few aids that can help you improve the care provided for people living with dementia at your care home:
- Clocks: A dementia-friendly clock that clearly shows the time of day as the morning, afternoon, evening or night can help the residents and their caregivers stick to a routine. You can also set alarms to remind the patients to go for a walk or eat their meal.
- Picture phones: Staying connected with family and friends is important, especially for those who have dementia. With the early onset of dementia, the patients tend to forget phone numbers and may need assistance calling people. However, with a picture phone, the user only has to push the person’s picture to call them. There are dial-less and memory picture phones. A dial-less phone allows the resident only to receive calls from the loved ones. Memory picture phones come with the feature of only calling numbers that have been fed into it so that the resident doesn’t end up calling random numbers.
- Noticeboard: Putting up a noticeboard or a big calendar can be useful to remember things. A noticeboard with a daily plan written on it can help caregivers follow a set routine which can be a tad difficult with patients with dementia. As a caregiver, you list the activities like bathing, brushing, etc, on board. Wipe clean the board as when the activities are done.
- Colorful dinnerware: People with advanced dementia find it difficult to eat from dinnerware that has intricate designs. They often end up spilling food and out of frustration, they end up eating less or skipping meals. However, using high-contrast tableware can help people to distinguish plates and glasses from other tableware. This ensures that they eat and drink properly.
Caring for patients with dementia can sometimes be challenging. One of the areas where caregivers often struggle while dealing with patients with dementia is medication. It is not practical for patients with dementia to remember to take medicines. From dealing with erratic behavior to sometimes answering the same question time and again, working in a stressful situation can result in lapses like medication errors. Using eMAR, electronic medication administration records, to administer medicines at your care home can offer much-needed peace of mind to caregivers. eMAR can help you administer the right medicine at the right time to the right patients. If you are running a care home in the UK that still uses paper-based MAR sheets, then visit https://www.electronicmar.co.uk/care-homes/dementia-care/ to know how eMAR can help care for people with dementia in a better way.
