Missing Caregiver Compassion

Have you ever been in a nursing home at meal-time 

Many of the people in the dining room rely on Caregiver Compassion because they have Dementia and are unable to feed themselves. The level of help needed varies greatly. Some people may simply need someone to remind them to take a bite, and others need to be fed every bite and drink.

Often feeding someone with Dementia will take an hour or more, but what if the person trying to feed them doesn’t have compassion or much patience? So instead, they are trying to hurry them. Unfortunately, that usually doesn’t end well. Either the patient gets upset because they are being rushed and refuse to eat, or the caregiver feeding them gets frustrated and quits feeding them.

Either outcome is bad for the patient, but Caregiver Compassion and Patience would have changed the outcome.

 What is Caregiver Compassion?

The meaning of compassion is to recognize the suffering of others and then take action to help. 

I am a nurse. Compassion is in my blood; it is who I am. Unfortunately, not everyone has compassion. 

Compassion is often what separates a good nurse from a great nurse, and it is what sets us apart from others. 

Compassion for someone with Dementia is different than for someone with a physical disability. It is easy to recognize someone with an injury may need pain medicine or repositioned, but for someone with Dementia, compassion is necessary for relieving their mental pain and distress.

When caring for someone with Dementia, compassion can be seen as looking at who that person was before the disease. Then, remember that person is still there and ask what I can do for them today to make their life a little easier and as close to normal as possible. 

What happiness can I bring into their day? 

Can I put a smile on their face?

Caregiver Compassion could be taking care of someone who was a private person and ensuring I maintain their dignity during personal care.

Perhaps I am caring for a woman who never left the house without her makeup, jewelry, and dressed up. Compassion for her could be a shower, curling her hair, putting on makeup, and dressing her up simply to make her feel like her old self.

Caregiver Patience and Caregiver Compassion go hand in hand.

When you step into their shoes, you develop compassion, which leads to patience.

1. Recognize the problems they are having are serious
2. Understand these issues are not self-inflicted. They have no control over them and are not trying to manipulate you.
3. Picture yourself in their situation.
4. Ask yourself, will my response make the situation better or worse?
5. Adapt to the needs of your loved one

Develop Empathy and Caregiver Compassion

Empathy is feeling another person’s pain, whereas compassion is taking action to relieve the suffering of others.

Place yourself in their shoes. What if you were the one with Dementia? What if it was you repeating over and over or incontinent for the 10th time today? 

How would you want them to respond to you?

Are you responding to your loved one how you would want to be treated?

What is Caregiver Patience?

I found these definitions of patience in a couple of different dictionaries

• The capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset
• Quiet, steady perseverance; even-tempered care; diligence
• An ability or willingness to suppress restlessness or annoyance when confronted with a delay
• The capacity for calmly enduring pain, trying situations, etc

In simple terms, if you have patience, you can stay calm and not get annoyed, for example, when something takes a long time, or someone is not doing what you want them to do. 

Why do you need Caregiver Compassion & Patience?

Dementia changes how the brain works by damaging the brain cells. This damage interferes with the ability of brain cells to communicate with each other, causing them to take longer to process things. 

As a result, their response time and actions will be slower. An example would be getting dressed. In the past, it may have taken your loved one 2 minutes to get dressed, but as Dementia progresses, getting dressed may now take 30 minutes.

In today’s society, we all are in a hurry, but someone with Dementia dances to the beat of a different drum. Unfortunately, you can’t change the beat of their drum. Trying to speed them up only leads to anxiety for them and frustration for you. But the good news is that you can change your drum’s beat!

Slowness is only one of the areas you will struggle with. Many of the challenging behaviors associated with Dementia will also try your patience. 

Repeating is common behavior

Dementia causes your loved one to forget what they have just said or done. As a result, they may ask the same questions 20 times in a row. These questions are often related to an event, what time dinner is, or an upcoming appointment. They become very anxious and worried about events. 

Many caregivers get very frustrated by this behavior, but there are a few things to help curb the repetitive questions.

1. Remain calm, smile
2. Answer the question completely the first time
3. Reassure and comfort with a touch and words
4. Distract them with something for them to do
5. Add a whiteboard with their schedule written on it in plain view
6. Don’t tell them about events ahead of time 

Shadowing

Shadowing is another behavior that caregivers find to be very annoying. You can learn more about shadowing HERE.

There are several benefits to developing patience with your loved one.

1. You make them feel more comfortable
2. You make better decisions
3. It can bring you peace
4. Improves your mental health
5. Improves your physical health

How do you develop Caregiver Patience?

Breathe!

It is incredible how something so simple can make such a big difference, but it does! A quick way to calm your anger is to take a few deep breaths.

Slow, deep breaths relax your nervous system and your body. 

1. Take a deep breath in counting to 5
2. Imagine you are smelling flowers
3. Exhale, counting to 5 as you do
4. Imagine you are blowing out candles
5. Do this a minimum of 3 breathes, with a goal of 8-10

I have been teaching this to my hospitalized patients for years. It helps with anxiety and pain management also.

Humor helps shift the mood and can help them feel more comfortable and normalize the situation. Smile, laugh, and reminisce about funny memories to help lighten the situation.

Learn and practice Mindfulness. We all keep hearing the term Mindfulness but what exactly is it? 

Earlier, we talked about how everyone is in a hurry, and for many of us, the drum we hear is a fast tempo. 

Mindfulness means slowing down your life and focusing on what you are doing. In other words, you are slowing the drum beat only you can hear.

More information on Developing Patience

Having a loved one with Dementia changes everything.

You soon realize you can’t control what is going on. The sooner you realize this, the easier it becomes to develop patience.
You can’t control the changes but can control how you react. It is easy to become frustrated and even angry with your loved one when they move too slowly, do something wrong, or have challenging behaviors.
1. Recognize it is the disease, not the person.
2. Realize your loved one has no control over it.
3. Realize you have no control over it.
4. Realize how you reacted in the past is no longer appropriate.
5. Pause and think about how you should respond; what response will be the most helpful?
6. Take a couple of deep breaths
7. Respond in a soft, calm tone in a way you would want someone to respond to you if you were the one with Dementia.

Re-evaluate your time

Look at your day. Do you have a routine for your loved one? A routine is a necessity in helping build your patience. Someone with Dementia functions much better with a routine and will become very anxious if there is a disruption to their routine.
Does your day feel like you are constantly doing something and have no time for yourself? Re-evaluate your time. Try removing 2-3 tasks that aren’t necessary but just habits. Prioritize what has to be done. Reach out for help. Can someone help with the housework once a week or run errands for you? Lightening your load can help increase your patience level.

Find a support group

A support group helps you realize you are not the only one in this situation. Many others in similar situations are feeling what you are feeling. In addition, you can learn from others who have found developing patience made a vast difference in their everyday lives. Learn more about caregiver support groups HERE