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Category: Alzheimer’s & Dementia Care

How to Manage This Type of Dementia Confusion: Alternate Reality

Dementia confusion, a common occurrence in Alzheimer's, can result in recent memories being forgotten or distorted, while those from the more remote past often stay intact. This may cause prior times to make more sense to an older adult with dementia than the present. A person’s alternate reality could be his or her way of making sense of the present through past experiences. Individuals with Alzheimer's disease frequently have problems expressing themselves, and at times their alternate reality has more to do with a requirement or a specific feeling they are attempting to express than it has to do with...

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Help for These Dementia Signs and Symptoms: Hallucinations, Illusions, and Suspicions

For individuals providing care for a senior displaying dementia signs and symptoms, careful, compassionate management is a must; but potentially the most overwhelming behaviors include suspicions, hallucinations, and illusions that others are out to cause harm. Incorrect impressions such as these manifest typically in the more advanced stages of progressive dementia due to changes within the brain. It’s vital to first understand the reasoning behind these emotions and behaviors, and to manage the root cause. Home & Hearth’s home health caregivers in Chicago, experienced in Alzheimer’s and dementia care, offer the following advice. Hallucinations/Illusions Underlying factors for hallucinations may perhaps...

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Homesickness in Dementia and Alzheimer’s: Tips to Help

Like they say, there’s no place like home; but what do you do when a senior with dementia insists on going home – when he/she currently IS home? Regrettably, when caring for an elderly person with Alzheimer’s disease or another form of dementia, this is an all too common dilemma. And the confusion and plaintive yearning being expressed are simply heartbreaking – and, if we are truthful, aggravating. At Home & Hearth Caregivers, our specially trained dementia care Illinois team helps family members handle challenging scenarios such as this, and we encourage trying the following to help restore peace to...

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Strategies for Each Stage of Alzheimer’s Disease Care

Providing care for an individual with Alzheimer’s disease can seem like attempting to solve a continuously changing puzzle. As soon as you determine the solution to one area, you learn that the picture has changed, and you need to rethink your plan. Figuring out the puzzle of Alzheimer’s disease care demands ongoing learning and a group effort, which includes professionally trained dementia caregivers who understand the numerous facets of Alzheimer’s support. Home & Hearth Caregivers offers the following tips, courtesy of the Alzheimer’s Association, to aid families in establishing care strategies through the progressive phases of Alzheimer’s: Beginning Stages: Family...

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Turn Up the Volume and Ease Dementia Symptoms

Today, music is more accessible than ever before. For individuals who carry smartphones or tablets along with them everywhere they go, hundreds of thousands – if not tens of millions of songs – are just a finger swipe away. If you are a caretaker for a senior, your smartphone can easily become one of the most valuable tools in your possession for helping an older adult thrive by awakening his or her emotional wellbeing with music. This widely circulated video from the Alive Inside documentary reveals just how tremendously powerful music can be for the elderly with limited abilities and...

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Coping with Challenging Alzheimer’s Disease Behaviors

If there’s one constant you can be sure of when caring for someone with Alzheimer’s disease, it’s change! Sometimes it seems that as soon as you’ve figured out how to successfully help your loved one cope with one challenge, it’s replaced with another. Home & Hearth Caregivers cares deeply about helping those with Alzheimer’s disease, and those who care for them, to feel as safe, secure and comfortable as possible throughout the progressing stages of the disease. To that end, we offer the following tips on how to help manage some of the most difficult Alzheimer’s-related behaviors that may arise:...

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Serving Suburbs
and Chicagoland

The Best Home Care for Seniors
in the Chicago, IL Area

At Home & Hearth Caregivers, we are proud to offer compassionate, family-like in-home care, respite care, and Alzheimer’s and dementia care services to seniors and families throughout Cook, DuPage, Will, Lake, McHenry Counties, including the following cities and towns:

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