Creating a Personalized Care Plan for Your Loved One in Dementia

Dementia is a challenging landscape to navigate for every family caregiver. However, with a personalized dementia care plan, you can better manage your loved one’s condition. Since you have a roadmap of their level of care need, customizing care based on their health situation is less overwhelming.

How do healthcare providers create a tailored memory care plan for dementia patients? This article guides you through building the care team for a loved one.

Dementia and Its Challenges

Dementia isn’t just one thing — it’s an umbrella term covering a variety of brain conditions affecting memory and thinking. The most common types include:

• Alzheimer’s disease: The most prevalent form, accounting for 6.5 million cases of people age 65 and older in 2022.
• Vascular dementia: It often occurs after a stroke
• Lewy Body dementia: It’s characterized by abnormal deposits of a protein called alpha- synuclein in the brain.
• Frontotemporal dementia:It affects the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain.

Think about your parent’s personality before they were diagnosed with dementia. Were they the life of the party and loved chatting with everyone? Or maybe they were more reserved, someone who enjoyed quiet activities.

Dementia can bring big changes in how they interact with you and the world around them. They might forget things, lose track of time, or have difficulty with daily routines they once managed effortlessly. These changes can make it tough for your loved one to handle everyday tasks, from managing medications to finding their way around familiar spaces. This is why creating a customized dementia care strategy is essential to helping them maintain quality of life.

Benefits of a Personalized Care Plan

A personalized dementia care plan is crucial because it considers your loved one’s current health circumstances. Good dementia care isn’t one-size-fits-all. Each patient has different care needs, levels of cognitive decline and disease stages.

Research shows individualized dementia care planning can lead to better emotional well-being, reduce stress, and improve quality of life for both the patient and caregivers. Moreover, different stages of dementia bring unique needs. Therefore, your care plan should adapt as your loved one’s condition evolves.

Moreover, this tailored approach allows you to focus on maximizing comfort and minimizing frustration, whether through meaningful activities, cognitive support, or environmental adjustments. When each aspect of care is suited to your loved one’s specific needs, they can feel safe, supported, and respected.

Create an Individualized Dementia Care Plan

Creating a care plan for dementia patients that works starts with understanding the details of what your loved one truly needs. Here’s a breakdown of key areas to consider:

1. Evaluate Your Loved One’s Needs

How much care do your loved ones require to live independently? Here are four key health needs to factor in.

Physical Health Needs

Many older adults have chronic health conditions like diabetes or arthritis, which don’t go away after a dementia diagnosis. If your mom has arthritis, moving around the house is difficult. Without planning for her physical needs, she might stop participating in activities, leading to both physical decline and lower self-esteem. Regular check-ins with her doctors and keeping up with her medications are essential.

Safety is another major concern, especially when it comes to mobility. For example, if your parent has trouble with balance, adding grab bars in the bathroom or clearing tripping hazards from the floor can help prevent falls. These tweaks are minor, but go a long way in ensuring safety at home.

Cognitive and Emotional Well-Being

Dementia doesn’t just affect memory but also mood and overall emotional well-being. Many people with dementia experience depression, anxiety, or agitation. If your dad gets frustrated at dinnertime, stick to a predictable mealtime routine. Simplify his meal choices and offer just one to two options rather than several. Small adjustments like these can often help reduce their stress.

Routine can also be a powerful anchor. If you’ve always started the day by chatting over a cup of coffee with your mom, keep this little morning ritual in place to offer her comfort. Including these meaningful habits in the care plan can make a huge, positive difference in their health.

Social Needs

The dementia care plan for loved ones must also consider their social health. Isolation can worsen dementia symptoms, so regular interaction with family, friends, or support groups can keep your loved one engaged and connected.

Maybe your loved one has always enjoyed playing cards with friends or going to a weekly book club. Even if they can’t participate in the same way, finding similar activities can offer a sense of belonging and normalcy.

Environmental Needs

Adjusting the home environment is also key to a better quality of life. Say your mom frequently gets confused and ends up in the kitchen when she wants to go to her bedroom. Simple changes, like placing clear labels on doors or using contrasting colors, can make home navigation for those with moderate to severe dementia easier.

2. Build the Care Team

How do you build a care team to create a customized dementia care strategy? Here are the people to tap for care resources.

Family Members and Close Friends

Family members and friends can help share care responsibilities. They can be the first people to be included in the care team. One sibling can manage medical appointments, while you handle daily routines. Clear roles can prevent misunderstandings and help everyone feel involved.

Medical Professionals

Medical professionals are invaluable to your loved one’s care team. They offer guidance to help you make the best choices. Specialists like geriatricians or neurologists provide insights into your parent’s health, while in-home caregivers help with daily tasks.

Social workers or case managers are also amazing resources, helping you navigate insurance, respite care options, and adult day care programs. Having a support network outside the family ensures your loved one receives the care they need at all times.

Leverage Community Resources

Community resources can be a big help, too, in creating a memory care plan for dementia. Organizations like the Alzheimer’s Association provide valuable information about the disease and connect you to other caregivers going through similar experiences.

3. Monitor and Adjust the Care Plan Over Time

One of the challenging aspects of dementia is its unpredictability. Your loved one’s needs will change over time. Therefore, monitor and adjust their customized dementia care strategy regularly. How? Assess their needs regularly and look for changing patterns in their behaviors or emotional states.

Have you noticed your mom who used to be okay with a daily shower now feels agitated when it’s time to bathe? This might mean she’s experiencing sensory sensitivity, which is common in the later stages of dementia. Modifying her routine to less frequent baths or doing sponge baths might help reduce her stress.

Individualized Dementia Care Planning Helps Manage The Disease

Creating a memory care plan for dementia isn’t about getting everything perfect. It’s about ensuring your loved one feels safe, respected, and supported all the time.

While this journey can feel isolating for family caregivers, you’re not alone. Join support groups, connect with other caregivers and lean on friends and relatives for emotional strength. Take breaks when you need to to avoid burnout.

Senex Memory Advisors has certified dementia consultants you can reach out to for expert advice about dementia care planning , senior living choices and financing options. Talk to an expert today.

Syed Rizvi

Syed has years of experience dealing with people, understanding their needs, and helping them find solutions to their problems.
As a Certified Senior Advisor (CSA), Certified Dementia Practitioner (CDP), Certified Montessori Dementia Care Professional (CMDCP), Syed is committed to working closely with Senior and their family knowing what is it like for individuals facing a challenging time, at times groping in dark trying to figure what is the appropriate next step or care level for their unique situation.
Syed and Senex Memory Advisors are fully committed to working closely with families in creating a personalized, step-by-step process memory care plan at zero cost.