Senior Home Care: Celebrating The Holidays With a Senior Loved One Who Has Alzheimer’s
Senior Home Care: November is National Alzheimer’s Disease Awareness Month
With the holidays coming up it’s a good time to start planning ahead if you’re going to have a senior loved one with Alzheimer’s in your home for the holidays. With a little preparation, you can have your senior loved one over for the holidays and make the holidays enjoyable for them and for you and your guests. The key to making the holiday fun for everyone is to anticipate what your senior loved one might need in order to be comfortable and plan accordingly with your senior home care provider.
Use these tips to make the holidays merry and bright with your senior parent this year:
Rearrange The Furniture
If you’re hosting the holiday parties in your home go through the furniture layout and make some changes to make the room safe and easy for your senior loved one to navigate. Move area rugs so that your senior parent won’t trip them. Create wide walkways all over the room so that your senior loved one has plenty of room to get through, especially if they use a cane or a walker. Remove tripping hazards like cords and make sure that the floors aren’t slippery. Also, make sure there are comfortable chairs every few steps so that your senior loved one will be able to sit down comfortably anywhere they are.
Keep The Food Simple
A fancy plated multi-course dinner is likely going to be too much for your senior parent with Alzheimer’s. Instead, keep the food simple and choose things that can be eaten in one or two bites so that your loved one will be able to easily eat on their own. You may want to get a plastic cup with handles designed for seniors for your loved ones so that they aren’t trying to hold a delicate glass all evening. If you have your heart set on a large sit-down meal then arrange for a senior home care provider that your senior parent likes to either bring your senior parent to the party after the formal dinner to enjoy dessert with you. Or, you could have a senior home care provider bring your senior parent to the party early for snacks and cocktails and have the home care provider take them home before the formal dinner starts.
Get Some Help
You will be very busy trying to keep the guests happy and seeing to the details of the party so it’s a very good idea to have a senior home care provider attend the gathering with your senior parent to help your senior parent get around the house, manage their food and drinks, and make sure that they can get to the bathroom when they need to.
Pack An Emergency Essentials Bag
Before the holidays you or your senior home care provider should pack an emergency essentials bag for all family gatherings that has incontinence pads or underwear if your senior parent needs them. The bag should also contain wipes, sanitizer, a change of clothes, a sweater, and anything else that our senior loved one may need throughout the night.
