Deflection

As for a person suffering from dementia, they fear everything, especially losing their independence. As for the caregivers, a dementia person filled with fear can practically paralyze the good intensions of a caregiver. It is only with resilience that the caregiver will be able to maintain a caring environment.

It is like the fight, flee, or freeze response that is built into all of us when danger is near. When a person is in a state of fear, it can control a person mental and physical health. If a person with dementia does not feel secure, the will fight until the caregiver gives in to the fear, unless it a threat to their personal safety. But, if a person with dementia decides to flee from danger, they will move everything out of their way, without any regard to others, objects, and/or property, to get out of danger. In their current state of mental health, the freeze option does not exist.

The biggest item for a dementia person is losing their independence. If a person has lived in their own home and made all their own decisions for years, they will not let go of their destiny. When a caregivers comes into their house, the will fight them with every ounce of their strength maintain their independence, despite the fact that they need help with house hold choirs and their health issues.

Childhood fears become a reality. If a grade school classmate was abducted, it will be on the top of the dementia person’s mind, since they will require all the outside doors and the doors to their bedroom locked. Then they will come to the family member and state that you do not know what I go through with unlocked doors.

Fear of taking drugs becomes a reality, since they declare that they are poison. Then it becomes a test of crushing the drug and disguising them in food, so that they do not detect the drug. Ice cream can be used to disguise the drugs, since the frozen milk helps to num the tongue. Some time liquid drugs can be added fruit juice may works; but, if the liquid drug has a taste, the demential person may detect the drug in the juice and stop drinking the juice. So, it becomes a matter of trial and error to find the best way to disguise the drugs.

The fear factor becomes hard on the family. Although some of the items that they fear are straight forward, others take a hours observation to determine the fear. But, if the item that is feared is known, this is just half of the problem, since best way to calm a dementia person is to find ways to counter the item that they are fearing.

Fear is a powerful emotion. And, as for a dementia person, their measurement of fear maybe off of the scale, without any signs of relief. This makes life hard for everyone that is around the person. As for the family caregivers, they have to learn to cope with their love one’s items of fear and find ways to countermand their fears.