Tips for Maintaining Emotional Health with Alzheimer’s

Helping a loved one living with Alzheimer’s avoid frustration while maintaining a high quality of life and relative contentment are concerns for millions of caregivers across the country. While trying to live with normalcy every day isn’t always possible, there are some tips that can help both caregivers and their loved ones enjoy greater emotional health.

Here are just a few tips that can help both you and your loved one weather the ups and downs of daily life:

• Understand the connection between emotions and behavior – A person living with Alzheimer’s is very likely to have behavior that is driven largely by emotions. Help keep these emotions in check by working to create a calm and reassuring environment.
• Maintain personal emotions as much as possible – Keeping your emotions as even as possible can help create a more calming environment for everyone. Patience is a virtue for sure.
• Avoid over-correcting – When a person with Alzheimer’s begins suffering memory loss or mistakes a familiar face for a different one, it’s common for loved ones to correct them. This is a perfectly normal reaction, but it simply isn’t always necessary. In fact, over correcting can make your loved one feel very frustrated and may even serve to frighten. Live in the moment and simply let mistakes or slips of the tongue go. This can help your loved one maintain calmer emotions while helping you avoid unnecessary personal angst.
• Don’t forget to touch – Holding a loved one’s hand, giving a hug or even a simple pat on the back can be very reassuring for both of you. Don’t forget the power of basic human connections.

Keeping emotional health in check for both you and your loved one is important for maintaining quality of life. By creating and maintaining a comforting environment and learning to let go of the little things, you can help yourself and your loved one immensely.

About Author The Cottages have been operating in Texas since 1997 and are family owned and operated by The Cottages Senior Living. The Cottages are state-of-the-art certified assisted living residences for people living with Alzheimer’s and other memory disorders.

The Cottages have been operating in Texas since 1997 and are family owned and operated by The Cottages Senior Living.