7 Coping Tips for Christmas with ageing parents or parents with dementia
Announcement posted by Reconnect PR 22 Nov 2016
You realise your parents are not getting any younger and are starting to show symptoms of dementia.
You haven’t seen your parents for over 6 months. You’ve been busy – you live in another state. Work is crazy, the kids have been having problems at school, you’ve been trying to sell the house… Something’s not quite right. The tree is askew and the decorations are misplaced. Mum’s cooking doesn’t taste quite the same – she forgot the sugar in the Christmas cake and didn’t peel the potatoes. Dad can’t seem to recall whether he has actually made a home-brew this year, and his Christmas T-shirt is on back to front. The thoughtful gifts are, well, just not that thoughtful. A couple of the grandchildren don’t seem to have any gifts at all.
Or perhaps you currently care for a parent living with dementia and are dreading the festive season as a time when you will be confronted by memories of previous Christmases, before the devastating diagnosis of dementia hit your family.
Tamar Krebs, CEO and founder of Group Homes Australia has some great advice for making the most of this festive season.
Not everyone who is living with dementia has family around to help care for them. Suicide rates peak at this time of year as it can be an incredibly lonely and isolating experience if you are not surrounded by friends and family. If you know someone who is living with dementia who will be alone this Christmas, please reach out to them and include them in your celebrations.
About Group Homes Australia:
Group Homes Australia offers a unique model of care for people living with dementia. Residents live in real, warm and friendly, homes with a maximum of 10 residents per house. Residents are cared for by a team of homemakers and resident nurses. With an average staff to resident ratio of 1 to 3 and a wide variety of glowing testimonials from the likes of Ita Buttrose, Kate Swaffer and numerous resident families, Group Homes Australia offers an unparalleled quality of care, which leaves you free to relax and enjoy the festive season, knowing you couldn’t have chosen a better place for your friend or relative to enjoy the festive season. Respite care is available for only $295 a day, but there is very limited availability. Group Homes Australia can be contacted on 1300 015 406. www.grouphomes.com.au
You haven’t seen your parents for over 6 months. You’ve been busy – you live in another state. Work is crazy, the kids have been having problems at school, you’ve been trying to sell the house… Something’s not quite right. The tree is askew and the decorations are misplaced. Mum’s cooking doesn’t taste quite the same – she forgot the sugar in the Christmas cake and didn’t peel the potatoes. Dad can’t seem to recall whether he has actually made a home-brew this year, and his Christmas T-shirt is on back to front. The thoughtful gifts are, well, just not that thoughtful. A couple of the grandchildren don’t seem to have any gifts at all.
Or perhaps you currently care for a parent living with dementia and are dreading the festive season as a time when you will be confronted by memories of previous Christmases, before the devastating diagnosis of dementia hit your family.
Tamar Krebs, CEO and founder of Group Homes Australia has some great advice for making the most of this festive season.
- If you know that replicating the Christmas of the last 30 years is going to be a huge strain on your parents, shake it up a bit. Bring food in, or offer to do the cooking.
- Instead of eating in, head to the beach and use the public BBQ.
- Use the tree decoration as a task for the children in the family.
- Offer to get cleaners in before everyone descends to alleviate the pressure of preparing the family home for guests.
- Try and focus on creating new memories and living in the moment, rather than focussing on how things “used to be”.
- Celebrate what your parents can do, rather than what they can no longer do. Do not waste time and energy worrying about whether Mum or Dad will be around for next Christmas, but instead enjoy the fact that they are around for this Christmas. Be sure to tell them how much you love them and how happy you are to be spending this Christmas with them.
- Christmas is also a popular time for reminiscing. If you are spending Christmas with someone living with dementia, looking at old photo albums or mementoes is a very powerful tool to help remind that person of who they are, what they were capable of, and what makes them unique, rather than just being a person who is living with a diagnosis of dementia.
Not everyone who is living with dementia has family around to help care for them. Suicide rates peak at this time of year as it can be an incredibly lonely and isolating experience if you are not surrounded by friends and family. If you know someone who is living with dementia who will be alone this Christmas, please reach out to them and include them in your celebrations.
About Group Homes Australia:
Group Homes Australia offers a unique model of care for people living with dementia. Residents live in real, warm and friendly, homes with a maximum of 10 residents per house. Residents are cared for by a team of homemakers and resident nurses. With an average staff to resident ratio of 1 to 3 and a wide variety of glowing testimonials from the likes of Ita Buttrose, Kate Swaffer and numerous resident families, Group Homes Australia offers an unparalleled quality of care, which leaves you free to relax and enjoy the festive season, knowing you couldn’t have chosen a better place for your friend or relative to enjoy the festive season. Respite care is available for only $295 a day, but there is very limited availability. Group Homes Australia can be contacted on 1300 015 406. www.grouphomes.com.au