Caregiver's Guide to Understanding Dementia Behaviors

Family Caregiver Alliance. Practical caregiver-facing dementia behavior guide.

Key findings used in wiki

• FCA presents dementia-related behavior as meaningful communication that may reflect unmet needs, environmental triggers, pain, medication effects, fear, fatigue, or disease progression.
• The guide emphasizes that caregivers cannot control the disease process, but can adapt communication and environment.
• Practical communication strategies include getting attention before speaking, calm tone, simple questions, breaking activities into steps, reassurance, affection, reminiscence, and avoiding unnecessary argument.
• The guide recommends checking with a physician when behavior changes, especially to assess pain, medication side effects, or underlying illness.
• Common caregiver-facing behavior topics include wandering, incontinence, agitation, repetition, paranoia, sleep disruption/sundowning, eating, nutrition, and bathing.