Managing Grief & Loss
Dealing with loss is a part of life. It is all right to feel sad when a loved one passes on.
Grief is a reaction to any form of loss. While it is a universal experience, responses to it vary from person to person, depending on a range of factors such as one’s relationship with the beloved, and the meaning one attaches to them. Here are some common reactions that you and your other family members may experience while experiencing grief.
Taking a Breather
It is good to think about caregiving as something akin to running a marathon. Like in a marathon, you will want to pace yourself, making sure that you do not run too fast and burn out before the race is over. Pace yourself from the start so that you will not be overwhelmed over the years of your caregiving journey. More importantly, ask for help and take an occasional breather so that you can recharge yourself for the next leg of the journey.
Dealing With Caregiver Stress
Caring for a loved one with dementia can be stressful. Find out some self-care stress management techniques to deal with caregiver stress. These include ways to adjust your mindset and how you might manage your emotions and health.
Managing Negative Emotions
A caregiver’s role is challenging, especially if you need to balance a job, family and housework on top of caring for your loved one living with dementia. You may think you can or should do everything by yourself, or may want things to be done well with very good outcomes. This is understandable, as the stakes are high in caregiving. However, it is not always possible to have things done perfectly as a caregiver, and expecting this may increase the likelihood of burnout.
The Needs of Informal Caregivers
When working with informal caregivers (family members, friends, or foreign domestic workers) of persons living with dementia, it is important to first understand their needs, worries, and struggles, before working with them to develop and implement an effective care and support plan. A research conducted locally in 2013 explored the experiences and challenges informal caregivers of persons living with dementia face. Through the study, they identified the following unmet needs of these caregivers:
Risk Factors
There is no single cause of dementia. Rather, a combination of multiple factors is associated with the development of dementia. Family history and lifestyle factors, such as exercise patterns, dietary habits, and stress levels, are examples of risk factors that may contribute to the onset of dementia. Risk factors are characteristics which increase the likelihood of developing a disease. Their presence does not guarantee the development of the disease in question. For example, not everyone who smokes develops heart disease and not everyone with heart disease has been a smoker. However, a person who smokes is more likely to develop heart disease.
Learn about Dementia via E-Learning
Want to learn more about dementia? The following article provides a list of e-learning programmes to better support your loved one’s needs.
Different Types of Dementia
Alzhemer’s disease is the most common type of dementia. It is caused by the build-up of certain kinds of proteins in and around brain cells. It has an insidious (slow) onset and is a progressive disease whereby symptoms gradually worsen over a number of years. AD is irreversible, slowly impairs memory and thinking skills, and may eventually affect the ability to carry out simple tasks such as eating. Currently, there is no cure for this disease but treatment can help manage symptoms of AD.
Is It Dementia or Other Conditions?
Some conditions share symptoms with dementia. Here is a comparison between dementia, mild cognitive impairment, depression, and delirium.