When someone suffers from dementia, moving to a new location can exacerbate symptoms and speed up a potential decline in cognitive health. However, this can be a problematic situation as people with dementia often need professional level support in order to stay healthy.
Dementia can present a lot of issues beyond the memory problems that are so prevalent with the disease. Some of these issues revolve around daily living activities. For example, eating and diet are one of the biggest things that continue to plague those that suffer from dementia. Eating becomes really hard for a number of reasons. People forget to prepare food. They don’t have the same hunger sensations that they once did. They don’t have the physical ability to prepare their own food or to do so safely. Eating is a simple thing, but it’s one that people with dementia struggle with. Maintaining a healthy diet and getting the right nutrients on a daily basis can become impossible on their own.
This is what in-home care is designed to do. It’s designed to give seniors the support they need in the location that they wish to receive it in. For many people, this is the home that they’ve lived in for years and years. The help of a professional caregiver can make diet a lot easier to maintain.
Changes or improvements in diet will not cure dementia. Many types of dementia do not have a cure. This includes the most prevalent form of dementia: Alzheimer’s disease. However, there are indicators out there that the likelihood of developing some forms of dementia can be reduced by dietary changes. There’s also evidence that supports the notion that dietary changes can slow the spread of some kinds of dementia, especially if these changes occur in the early stages of the disease.
This is NOT what in-home care is designed to do. It’s designed to put supports in place–like keeping an eye on diet–so that the quality of life someone experiences improves.
Changes like this can be hard, but there are certainly benefits to them. Even if you don’t make changes to help with dementia management, there are other health benefits that occur. Weight loss, better cardiovascular health, managing nutritional needs better–they all come with their own benefits when it comes to overall health.
One of the benefits of an in-home caregiver is that they can help with food and eating. Eating is considered one of the six main activities of daily living for most insurance policies, which means that if someone needs help with food preparation or the actual act of consuming food, insurance is a lot more likely to help cover the cost of senior care. Eating is a basic necessity of life. Having assistance with this when it is tough to do on your own is a key part of living the highest quality of life possible. It’s an essential part of wellbeing.
When someone suffers from dementia, simple things become harder and harder to do. The right care team can make a world of difference in someone’s life.
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