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Author: Home Helpers Home Care

Alzheimer’s disease creates a wide range of difficulties and challenges for the seniors who suffer from the condition as well as the family members who love them. One of those issues is Alzheimer’s-related time loss, in which time becomes extremely distorted and seniors with Alzheimer’s disease become confused easily. Alzheimer’s care providers can help families cope with this and other challenges.

Time Distortion and Alzheimer’s Disease

What occurs when seniors with Alzheimer’s disease experience time loss and time distortion is that they don’t have a solid grasp of the passage of time. Activities might have happened days or minutes ago, without seniors understanding why their perception of time is inaccurate. This can cause a great deal of frustration for seniors and family caregivers, especially around routines.

Emotional Impacts of Time Loss

Losing time can be incredibly upsetting for the person with Alzheimer’s disease and the people around them. Feeling as if they’re missing something can cause seniors with Alzheimer’s to feel anxious, frustrated, and helpless. Those same feelings of helplessness are upsetting for family members, too, because they can’t correct the problem. Issues related to time loss can cause seniors with Alzheimer’s disease to start living in the past more often, asking about family members who passed away or trying to engage in old routines, like going to work. This can be scary for seniors as well as family caregivers.

Finding Solutions That Help

In the earlier stages of Alzheimer’s disease, as seniors start to have trouble with time, clocks that are easy to read and calendars that seniors can reference do help quite a bit. Having notebooks where they can keep track of when they last did certain things is another helpful tool. Eventually, though, these solutions don’t help any longer. The changes that Alzheimer’s brings can affect seniors’ ability to remember these tools are available.

Patience Is So Important

Approaching everything related to Alzheimer’s disease with patience and empathy is so important. Family caregivers are human, though, so there are going to be times when frustration is the prevailing emotion. But offering corrections or challenging how seniors with Alzheimer’s disease perceive time isn’t going to help anything. Offering reassurance and practicing patience is going to go a lot further.

Alzheimer’s Care Services Can Help

Home care experts who understand how Alzheimer’s disease progresses and the impact it has on seniors can make these challenges so much easier to manage. Their expertise can be comforting for family caregivers when things seem to change out of nowhere. Because Alzheimer’s disease is progressive, there’s no way to know when things are going to get worse or how exactly seniors will react. But understanding that there are some techniques that can help, like avoiding confrontation, gives families something to try.

Issues like Alzheimer’s-related time loss are not easy ones to understand or to manage correctly every time they arise. But Alzheimer’s care providers can be there to offer support for family caregivers and seniors with Alzheimer’s disease as they try to do the best they can every day.

If you or an aging loved one are considering Alzheimer’s care in Canoga Park, CA, please contact the caring staff at Home Helpers Home Care of Ventura County today at (805) 301-5930.

Home Helpers Home Care of Ventura County provides exceptional home care for seniors in Thousand Oaks, Westlake, Ventura, Camarillo, Simi Valley, Agoura, West Hills, Canoga Park, Chatsworth, Topanga and surrounding areas.