Essay about Health

Handling Behaviour Challenges
Dementia patients sometimes act in strange ways, exhibiting repetitiveness, extreme anger and agitation, or paranoia, so accusing people of crimes. They even get violent and may hit people around them. The term “challenging behaviour” or “difficult behaviour” is often used for this, and caregivers get stressed and overwhelmed trying to cope with it.
On some days, the patient gets agitated (or wanders or gets abusive or withdraws or acts in ways harmful to self/ others)
What caregivers can do: Understand that these episodes are the patient’s response to a situation. Look for and reduce potential triggers. Satisfy any physical or emotional needs. Check if patient is in pain or unwell. Consider tools like validation, distraction, and fiblets to bring the situation under control. Keep yourself and patient safe.
Difficult behaviour of dementia patients is often because they lack the means to understand what is happening, and/ or have unmet needs they cannot communicate. They are also unable to cope with their own emotions, and may become abusive and aggressive, and hit people.
The best way to handle challenging behaviour is to try and prevent it. We can try to reduce the frustration that triggers it, such as adjusting the home for the patient, communicating effectively, helping the patient with activities, and having a daily routine that allows the patient to feel competent, secure and emotionally fulfilled. Even so, behaviour problems may occur, and we need to notice them before they reach “catastrophic” levels. We also need to understand the triggers so that we can try to avoid them in future.
A note: The methods discussed here do not include medication. If the patient’s behavior is unmanageable and harmful, please consult your doctor.
Here is a comprehensive approach for handling challenging behaviour. Ensure your mindset is calm and positive Consider: Is the behavior a “behavior of concern”? Use ABC analysis to understand why the patient behaves like this Prevent the trigger, or modify the patient’s response Some tools and tips See also…
Caregiver manuals, support groups, shared experiences, all help us improve our skill of understanding the patient and handling challenging behaviour.
Ensure your mindset is calm and positive brain damage contrast: image from ADEAR(Image courtesy: National Institute on Aging/National Institutes of Health)
Take a moment to remember: Dementia patients face genuine problems: Remember that dementia has damaged the patient’s brain, and all day long, the patient faces problems in understanding the environment, in doing things, in communicating with others. Any difficult behaviour is not because the patient is being stubborn. This challenging behavior is the patient’s way to communicate: When a baby is hungry, she cries. We don’t get upset; we know that this is the way the baby communicates her need. Dementia patients are also sometimes just not able to find the words and sentences to explain what they want. They are not even clear about what they want. They are overwhelmed and totally frustrated and know no other way to handle it. We are fortunate that our brains are working, and so we can try to understand the patient: Our advantage is that our brain is intact and functioning better that that of the patient. Let us, therefore, try to understand why the patient is reacting to the current situation in this way.
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Consider: Is the patient’s behavior a behavior of concern? dementia behavior that is odd but not dangerous behavior of concernSometimes, a patient may behave in a strange way, but so long as this behaviour is not harming the patient or persons around the patient, it is not a “behaviour of concern” and we need not do anything about it just because it is “odd”.
Sometimes we are uncomfortable when patients behave in strange ways, and we try to “correct” such behavior to fit “normal” behavior. For

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