Dealing with Dementia: Seattle Senior Monitoring

By Matt Smith | February 7, 2015

If you have a loved one living with Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia, providing a safe environment is always a primary concern. As dementia progresses, a person’s abilities change, affecting things like judgment, physical abilities, memory, senses, and understanding of time and place.

Providing care for someone with dementia requires some creative problem-solving to assure their safety and wellbeing. This usually involves assessing the environment, anticipating future needs, and adapting the environment to support those needs.

Here are some valuable home safety tips for dealing with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia:

Install Door and window Alarms: Dementia often affects a person’s sense of time causing them to think it is daytime when it is not. Many instances of wandering happen when the loved one leaves the home while the other members of the household are sound asleep. Door and window alarms can help prevent wandering and help keep your loved one safe.

Remove Bathroom Door Locks: A person with dementia can be easily confused and lock the door, preventing others from being able to reach them. Bathrooms can pose many dangers such as drowning or accidental overdose.

Install Keypad Locks: Individuals with dementia can forget familiar faces, even that of their closest loved ones. This leads to many instances of lock-out, when dementia sufferers lock out family members from the home. Since hiding a key outside the home increases the risk of burglary, a keypad entry is a perfect home security solution.

Secure Dangerous Items: Make sure items such as medications, alcohol, and firearms are all stored in a secure, locked cabinet. Cabinet alarms can help make some areas off limits.

Make Information Handy: Keep the phone numbers for loved ones near each phone so your loved one can find them easily if needed.

Use CCTV: Since dementia happens in stages, in the early stages they may be able to stay home alone for short periods of time. Using security camera systems, or CCTV, can help you view what is going on remotely, enabling you to spot and prevent danger.

Adapting to Alzheimer’s can be a real challenge for the caregiver and the sufferer. Alzheimer’s causes changes of which the sufferer has no control. This makes adapting the environment to meet the new needs very important. Home security alarms, such as door and window alarms or CCTV can help keep your loved ones safe without making the environment sterile or restrictive. If you need more information about improving home security for Alzheimer’s care, call us today.

Matt Smith
Latest posts by Matt Smith (see all)
Posted in Smart Home