Many skills are required to take care of a dementia patient. Every day could be a new challenge. So, if you are living with a loved one who has dementia, opt for a daily care plan to make things easier for you. Once you have planned for the daily care of dementia patients, you could have more time to spend on activities that you love, like meditation, painting, cooking, gardening, and so on. So, let’s have a look at the checklist of activities. You can keep it flexible as per the changing needs of your loved one. Here we go!
Checklist of activities
• Meal preparation
• Laundry
• Eating
• Hobbies
• House cleaning
• Meditation
• Craft activities
• Bathing, dressing, and so on for your loved one
• Exercise
• Grocery shopping
• Video calls to friends or family members
Once you have the checklist, look it carefully, and create a daily care plan while keeping in mind the following things.
• Abilities of your loved one who has dementia
• Interests and personal likes or dislikes
• The daily routine of your loved one before he or she was diagnosed with dementia
• Regular bedtime or walking time for sound sleep
While keeping all the above things, it is also vital to find out whether your loved one become bored or restless during any particular time of the day or whether planning craft activities can create confusion.
Be creative and flexible
Since dementia is a disease in which there is an irreversible loss in cognitive abilities, you need to plan something which can keep your loved one happy and engaged so that you can have the much-needed time to invest in self-care. Remember, you need to be flexible with your daily care plan as what you have planned may not work well. In such a scenario, you have to include some other activities. In many long-term care facilities, a daily care plan for the dementia patient is developed within one month of admission in the facility. Most of the time, it is written in the first person and addresses many areas like eating or drinking preferences, physical health, cognitive ability, and so on.
Due to some unavoidable circumstances, if you have to hire a professional caregiver, your loved one can receive the best possible care if there is a preexisting daily care plan along with his personal traits and medical history. You can also take the help of an experienced caregiving coach to create a plan. Remember, a daily care plan for caregivers of dementia patients is an absolute necessity to have a caregiving journey without any stress.