Managing Difficult Behaviors
Dear Caregivers,
At Navigating Aging Needs (NAN), creating a customized, tailored plan to help guide you through your caregiving adventure is part of our core duties. We recognize that every loved one is different, with different needs and different ways of reacting to this devastating disease, and we are keenly listening to your feedback in order to help us help you in a better way.
One thing you asked for was content pertaining to some of the most difficult challenges in caring for someone with Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders. These challenges include times when your loved one becomes irritable, agitated, disoriented, and/or angry, and exhibits behaviors that are difficult to deal with such as wandering, or its opposite, clinging.
We heard you, and invite you explore these new content offerings:
Sundowning and How to Manage It:
Sundowning is a state of increased confusion that may be accompanied by agitation, activity, and negative behaviors that happens late in the day through the evening hours. When sundowning, the person may become demanding, suspicious, upset, disoriented, see or hear things that are not there, and believe things that are not true. They may pace or wander around the house while others are sleeping. Here are some tips for potentially reducing the occurrence of sundowning and softening its effects when it does happen.
When Your Loved One Wanders:
While having your loved one wandering around the house might be challenging to you as a caregiver, it’s not necessarily unsafe. However, some wandering can be dangerous, including going into areas of the house such as stairwells, decks, hot tubs, or swimming pools. Also dangerous is your loved one leaving the house, yard, or property alone. To address the challenges of your loved one wandering, you can try some of these tactics.
Understanding Clinging and Shadowing:
For caregivers of people with Alzheimer's disease and related disorders (ADRD), clinging and shadowing behaviors happen more often than not over the course of a day. Being followed everywhere and being repeatedly interrupted when trying to complete a task is a common source of frustration for many caregivers of loved ones with ADRD. Here are some ways to cope.
Remember, if you can’t find the information you need on our website, you can always “Ask NAN” by clicking on this link.
Best,
Rosemary D Laird, MD, MHSA
Founder and Chief Medical Officer
“Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you; they’re supposed to help you discover who you are.”
— Bernice Johnson Reagon
