Coping as Caregiver

Today's Mayo Clinic Alzheimer's Newsletter has some great strategies for coping, which Angela Lunde says comes from accepting the changes in the person caused by this terminal and progressive disease.  You will notice in the last suggestion, Angela Lunde says that people with dementia cannot control their behavior.  That is not my personal experience, but it may very well be the reality for most people with dementia.  Here, copied and pasted, are the suggestions Angela Lunde says we need to accept to cope better as caregivers for someone with dementia. 

• People with dementia experience loss and loss of control. Feeling out of control naturally leads to behaviors of agitation, irritability, anger and depression. The more often caregivers tell the person what he or she can't do, the more the behaviors tend to escalate. (My response:  I try never to tell Dwane that he cannot do something.  I try, instead, to structure the physical environment to support what he can do and avoid those he cannot do.  I happen, also, to think that depression is not an automatic response in the person with dementia -- anxiety has been more our problem.)
• Dementia symptoms include a decline in the ability to communicate effectively through words, so behaviors such as irritability and aggression fill the void. In other words, there's a message behind the behavior. (I agree that behavior is telling us something, but I disagree that irritability and aggression need to fill the void of communication problems.  I like the idea of the speech therapist where one puts into writing points to communicate.  There are ways to communicate, even if processing and language are a problem.)
• People with dementia are not lying, lazy, aloof or disengaged. Rather they can't remember or process information because of the changes in their brain.
• Lack of insight into one's limitations is a common symptom of Alzheimer's disease. People with Alzheimer's disease often can't admit something is wrong with them. This is due to how the disease affects their brain. (This has been a huge problem for us, but I have also noticed that Dwane begins to "give up" some things that are difficult for him.)
• The physical changes in the brain cause new behaviors that people with Alzheimer's disease aren't able to control. They aren't choosing to be behave this way.  (This certainly can be true.  Apathy seems to be a companion to dementia, and I had a relative with Pick's Disease (an early onset type of dementia) who became unable to know whether he was hungry or satisfied.)