How to care for someone with dementia

Whether you provide round-the-clock care at home or pop in to a care home a couple times a week to visit with an older person with dementia, understanding how to better care for people with the condition can have a transformative effect on your relationship with your loved one. 

How should you react when mum calls you by the wrong name? Should you take your dad out even though he gets anxious in new environments? There’s not always a right answer for every situation, but there are tips and tricks to make connecting with someone living with dementia possible. 

Care UK has worked with dementia experts and innovators in the design and technology industries to understand the best ways to care for someone with dementia. Keep reading for advice for caring for your loved one. 

What is the best way to care for someone with dementia? 

The best dementia care is personalised care. This means that as someone close to a person living with dementia, you often hold the key to supplying the best possible care yourself – even if you don’t realise it.  

For example, in our homes we use life story books to influence a resident’s care plan. Everything from their favourite foods to pastimes they’ve enjoyed throughout their life, and even their hopes and dreams for the future, are written down in their life story book to ensure carers in the home know to talk to and connect with each resident. 

Learn more dos and don’ts of caring for a loved one with dementia in our free guide, ‘Let’s talk about dementia’. 

How do you keep someone with dementia happy? 

Finding ways to spark joy and happiness is key to caring for someone with dementia. When you’re visiting a loved one or caring for them yourself, it’s important to focus on exploring and enhancing those positive emotions. Often, family and friends of someone living with dementia will be surprised at how much happiness their loved one can still feel, as these emotions can be overshadowed by the symptoms of dementia. 

Think about hobbies your loved one enjoyed as a child or an adult, as these can bring back happy memories and calm feelings of distress. If it’s knitting that your loved one had a passion for, help them rediscover the knack for it, or simply offer up a skein of yarn for them to hold – the feel of it alone could be enough to stir up lost memories. Maybe they enjoyed, gardening, jigsaws or playing an instrument. Whatever it is, bringing these activities back into their life can have a multitude of positive effects.