Caring for older adults with dementia is stressful, especially when they become physically or verbally aggressive, wander away from home, develop paranoia or hallucinations, engage in inappropriate or repetitive behaviors, or refuse to let caregivers help them.
Upward of 95% of patients experience these neuropsychiatric symptoms of dementia, which tend to fluctuate over time and vary in intensity. They’re the primary reasons people with dementia end up in assisted living facilities or nursing homes. At some point, families and friends trying to help at home simply can’t manage.
“When people think about dementia, they usually think about forgetfulness and memory impairment,” said Mary Blazek, director of the geriatric psychiatry clinic at the University of Michigan. “But it’s behavioral and psychological disturbances that are most disruptive to patients’ and caregivers’ lives.”
Now, help is available from a first-of-its-kind website created by prominent experts in this field. It offers free training in a comprehensive approach to managing neuropsychiatric symptoms of dementia — a method known as DICE — based on several decades of scientific research as well as extensive clinical practice.
The website’s goal is to “give people tools to better manage often-distressing situations,” said Helen Kales, chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at UC Davis Health in Sacramento, California, and one of DICE’s creators. Users learn that neuropsychiatric symptoms are caused …
Article Attribution | Read More at Article Source
Caring for older adults with dementia is stressful, especially when they become physically or verbally aggressive, wander away from home, develop paranoia or hallucinations, engage in inappropriate or repetitive behaviors, or refuse to let caregivers help them.
Upward of 95% of patients experience these neuropsychiatric symptoms of dementia, which tend to fluctuate over time and vary in intensity. They’re the primary reasons people with dementia end up in assisted living facilities or nursing homes. At some point, families and friends trying to help at home simply can’t manage.
“When people think about dementia, they usually think about forgetfulness and memory impairment,” said Mary Blazek, director of the geriatric psychiatry clinic at the University of Michigan. “But it’s behavioral and psychological disturbances that are most disruptive to patients’ and caregivers’ lives.”
Now, help is available from a first-of-its-kind website created by prominent experts in this field. It offers free training in a comprehensive approach to managing neuropsychiatric symptoms of dementia — a method known as DICE — based on several decades of scientific research as well as extensive clinical practice.
The website’s goal is to “give people tools to better manage often-distressing situations,” said Helen Kales, chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at UC Davis Health in Sacramento, California, and one of DICE’s creators. Users learn that neuropsychiatric symptoms are caused …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]