Understanding and Respecting the Person with Dementia

It’s very important that people with dementia are treated with respect. If you can understand what the person is going through, it might be easier for you to realize why they behave in certain ways. It is important to remember that a person with dementia is still a unique and valuable human being, despite their illness.

When a person with dementia finds that their mental abilities are declining, they often feel vulnerable and in need of reassurance and support. The people closest to them – including their caregivers, friends and family – need to do everything they can to help the person to retain their sense of identity and feelings of self-worth.

Feeling Valued

The person with dementia needs to feel respected and valued for who they are now, as well as for who they were in the past. As a caregiver, there are many things you can do to help:

• Try to be flexible and tolerant.
• Make time to listen, have regular chats, and enjoy being with the person.
• Show affection in a way you both feel comfortable with.

Things to remember

• Each person with dementia is a unique individual, with their own very different experiences of life, their own needs and feelings, and their own likes and dislikes.
• Although some symptoms of dementia are common to everyone, dementia affects each person in different ways.
• Everyone – including friends, family members, caregivers, and the person with dementia – reacts to the experience of dementia in their own way. Dementia means different things to different people.

There are lots of things you can do to help the person with dementia feel good about themselves. Here are some suggestions.

As someone caring for a person with dementia, you need to take account of the person’s abilities, interests and preferences. These may change as the dementia progresses. It’s not always easy, but try to respond flexibly and sensitively.

Supporting other people

If anyone else is involved in caring for the person with dementia, give them as much background information as possible, as well as information about their present situation. This will help them see the person they’re caring for as a ‘whole person’ rather than simply ‘someone with dementia’. It may also help them to feel more confident about finding conversation topics or suggesting activities that the person may enjoy.

If someone is not used to being around people with dementia, here are a few things to emphasize:

• Dementia is nothing to be ashamed of. It is no one’s fault.
• If the person tends to behave in ways that other people find irritating or upsetting, this may be because of the dementia – it’s not deliberate.
• The person with dementia may remember the distant past more clearly than recent events. They are often happy to talk about their memories, but anyone listening needs to be aware that some of these memories may be painful.

What’s in a name?

Our sense of who we are is closely connected to the names by which we call ourselves. It’s important that people address the person with dementia in a way that the person recognizes and prefers.

• Some people may be happy for anybody to call them by their first name or nickname.
• Others may prefer younger people, or those who do not know them very well, to address them formally and to use courtesy titles, such as Mr. or Mrs.

continue: Respect and Tips on How to Make Someone Feel Good About Themselves

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Reviewed: 03/2006