How To Help ALoved One With Alzheimer's?

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:01][music] >> Hey there my friend. Today is casual day cuz as you can tell I am not actually feeling up to par. And um but I did want I didn't want to miss today's episode. So I'm just going to kind of wing it today.

[00:00:22]So please bear with me. But I want to talk about um you know, dementia is kind of it's it's like a landmine, right? You're you're you're walking along and >> [snorts] >> things just explode and um we're trying to avoid those landmines as much as possible and I get it. I've been there. Oh my God, have I been there? I've helped thousands of families just like yours. I know what you're going through, the struggles. It's hard.

[00:00:50]You know, you've you've given up your life, you've given up so much to help your loved one and I applaud you for that because you know, where would they be without you? Or you're going to visit and those visits are hard and they're not fun and you don't want to go and then you feel guilty if you don't go.

[00:01:07]I hear you.

[00:01:08]So for anyone who's new out there, my name is Deborah and I am a certified master dementia strategist. I have multiple multiple certificates in dementia.

[00:01:20]They're all over the place.

[00:01:22]Um but my problem with that was the more certificates I got the more I realized that it wasn't anything that was going to help me get results in my house or in the houses of all my hundreds of caregivers that were going out and helping family members.

[00:01:40]And that kind of made me angry and that's when I got to work.

[00:01:45]And I decided that we had to put something together some strategies and tools and things that would actually help you um at your house or if you're a professional in your senior living community that actually gets results and that can calm your people with dementia down.

[00:02:02]So the landmines >> [cough] >> they come up really fast. They come up.

[00:02:12]They I mean, they just explode, right?

[00:02:14]And we can't it's hard to avoid them. And that's my specialty. I help you avoid these landmines because they're all over the place. But the biggest problem is we as the caregiver we don't understand why these landmines are exploding, right?

[00:02:35]Because we're trying and we're we're explaining and we're we're we're we're trying to be helpful, right? And it just seems to make them more and more upset, right?

[00:02:49]And because God forbid you tell somebody with dementia that you're just trying to help.

[00:02:56]Don't tell them you're just trying to help. You know, you could say that to me as your friend, Deborah, I'm just trying to help you and I'd be like, I know. I know you're trying to help me.

[00:03:04]But you say that to a person with dementia and they're like I don't need your help. I don't want your help, right?

[00:03:12]Because I want you to think about this for a minute.

[00:03:15]>> [snorts] >> A person with dementia >> [cough] >> is >> [snorts] >> they've lost so much and they've given up so much. They've given up their independence. Sometimes they've given up their home.

[00:03:30]Um they've given up driving.

[00:03:36]Um maybe they're not as socially active anymore because they're embarrassed and they're afraid they might do something wrong.

[00:03:43]So they've already given up so much and then we come in and we're just, you know, trying to be helpful.

[00:03:48]But um what that really does to them is it makes them feel more incompetent.

[00:03:54]So [snorts] as caregivers, it's it's funny because I do you know, I do a lot of trainings and it's funny when I'm teaching and people that I teach, they're like wow, you know, it's really not hard, but I didn't really get it before and now I totally understand why my words are what is setting them off.

[00:04:21]Because when they're already upset we have to make sure we're choosing our words and our actions and the way we approach very, very cautiously.

[00:04:30]Because the minute the millisecond that you say the wrong thing, instead of making the situation better, we're making it worse. And the worst worst it gets, the harder it is to recover from that, right? So what I can teach you is how to uh calm them down by using the right words.

[00:04:55]And I call them trigger words. There's a lot of trigger words out there for a person with dementia.

[00:05:01]And I can teach you how to avoid those.

[00:05:04]You can also get a lot of this in my book, Forget Me Not, number one best seller, fantastic information in here.

[00:05:11]But um you know, it's it's it's a matter of skills and it's a matter of choices on how we're approaching, right? And I know that you guys have probably heard before your facial expressions, right? Because only 7% of communication is our words, only 7%.

[00:05:37]So what you're saying to them isn't sinking in.

[00:05:40]It's your body language and your facial expressions.

[00:05:45]So if they're upset and you come walking in the other room and you're like hey, what's the matter? They're going to see that and that's not going to make it better, right?

[00:05:55]So we need to be coming in like hey something's wrong. I want to help you, right? But again, we don't want to say I want to help you, but you want [snorts] to come in, you got to find out what what their problem is before you start bringing them down. Got to find out what the problem is.

[00:06:15]And sometimes we skip a lot of steps, right? We're diverting to activities.

[00:06:19]We're diverting to activities way too soon and that's not going to work because when your person is really upset or really angry or really frustrated, you can't shove a puzzle in their face or shove an activity in their face and ask them to help you with a project because they're still concerned about this thing and you're ignoring that. We can't ignore what their feelings are.

[00:06:42]We can't ignore what their feelings are.

[00:06:43]We have to spend a little bit more time there in order to get here. And in the long run, it'll save you time. I know. I know. Cuz a lot of times when we're first trying this out, we're like oh my God, that'll take so long, but it really doesn't. It really doesn't. Not if you do it right. Not if you do it right. So the first and most important thing you got to watch is your facial expressions and your body language and how we're approaching people.

[00:07:09]Because you know, their feelings are real.

[00:07:11]Their feelings are real to them even if maybe they're not real because they have dementia, right? They may be blowing things way out of proportion, but they can't help that. So we as the caregiver, it's our job to relieve their burden of suffering.

[00:07:29]That's our job is to relieve their burden of suffering.

[00:07:35]So when they're having a hard time, they're not trying to give you a hard time.

[00:07:41]They're just having a hard time. And it's our job to help them figure out how can we make that hard time easier for them?

[00:07:50]And in turn, it makes it easier for us.

[00:07:55]So the students that have been in my course, they report 100% success rate. I always tell them, I'm always here for you. But I don't hear from them again.

[00:08:06]And that's because I tell them, you're never going to need another class.

[00:08:09]You're going to learn everything you need to know. And it's true because they don't keep coming back and asking me this or that or oh, I forgot about this or forgot about that.

[00:08:18]It just [snorts] doesn't happen.

[00:08:20]So you know, these little videos, they're awesome and you're going to pick up a couple tips and tricks, but it's not going to change your everyday life. It's not going to make monumental changes and but we can get there. We can get there.

[00:08:36]I can show you. I I can show you. It's not hard. It's really not.

[00:08:42]But we have to realize that a lot of this comes from us. Yes, they have brain damage. Yes, they are having a lot of struggles and a lot of problems and they're not rational and they can't you know you can't you can't talk to them the same way, right? But what we can learn is how to change the way that we are communicating with them so that they understand, right? Because they're having they're having trouble receiving the information. So if I can show you how to get that person with dementia to receive you differently then you're going to get the results that you need, right?

[00:09:26]Brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant.

[00:09:28]Brilliant.

[00:09:29]>> [snorts] >> So it's not that you're doing it wrong.

[00:09:32]You're just doing it wrong.

[00:09:34]>> [laughter] >> And I don't mean that in a bad way, right? But it's like you don't know something until you've learned it.

[00:09:43]Right? Like we all had to learn to tie our shoes. We all had to learn to drive a car and those are those are skills.

[00:09:50]And so it's just a matter of skills and anybody anybody can do it. Anybody can do it. Um but the results are life-changing.

[00:10:02]They're literally life-changing.

[00:10:05]And I want to help you, and I want to help your loved one, and I want to help you if you're a medical professional.

[00:10:11]Um But yeah, I mean the person with dementia, they're struggling. They're struggling, and we as the caregiver, we need to learn how to help them with those struggles. Because the less that they're struggling, and the more self-confidence that they have, the fewer behaviors you're going to have to deal with.

[00:10:38]I'm Debra Dementia.

[00:10:41]Book a call.

[00:10:42]It's the only way.

[00:10:44]It's the only way.

[00:10:46]Just book a free call. What have you got to lose?

[00:10:50]I'll see you next time.

[00:10:52]You got this.

[00:10:53]Together we can. You too can have these amazing results, guaranteed. Join us in disrupting the memory care industry once and for all. To see if you qualify for our program, go to answersaboutalz.org.