Communication Tips
Communication Tips
These tips for communicating with someone with dementia can improve the relationship between the caregiver and care recipient, and lead to better quality of care.
DO's
- Face the care recipient directly, maintain eye contact while communicating, and attract her/his attention before beginning.
- Be at the care recipient’s eye level. If the person is standing, you should be standing, and if the person is sitting, you need to be sitting.
- Orient the care recipient frequently. Provide frequent cues about who, what, when, where, and why.
- Provide continuity by continuing on the same topic without changing focus too often. If the topic is going to change, provide orientation.
- Try to help the care recipient find the words that s/he may be “stuck” on trying to remember.
- Simplify your instructions to only one or two topics. Keep sentences short, simple and direct. Repeat nouns rather than using pronouns.
- Try to ask easy questions. If there are choices, limit the number of choices to two if possible.
- Use pleasant facial expressions and tone of voice, pictures, hand signals, and pantomime to convey your message.
- Give the care recipient time to respond. Offer clues about how the person can answer the question if necessary.
- Remember that good communication is a two-way exchange. If the care recipient is having difficulty holding up her/his part of the conversation, try to help her/him to participate.
DON'Ts
- Avoid pointing out errors. There is generally no need or benefit to correcting errors made by the care recipient. Pointing out errors may cause distress and agitation.
- Avoid arguing. Arguing won’t improve the care recipient’s ability to remember. It will only make the situation worse.
- Never invalidate emotions. Affirming the care recipient’s feelings is important.
- Don’t criticize, scold, or embarrass the care recipient.
- No matter how busy you are, never rush the care recipient.
This information is not meant to be a substitute for medical advice, read more at: http://www.lightbridgehealthcare.com/2838.xml
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