3 Tips: How Do You Calm Down Someone with Dementia?
One of the number one questions I receive as a dementia therapist is “How do you calm down someone with dementia?” This question is so relevant to caring for someone living with dementia. At times it might feel like the most important job of your day is calming down someone with dementia. I’m here to help with three suggestions.
**Before I begin, please know that not all people are the same. It can be helpful to remember that we all react differently to situations. Some of my suggestions may resonate with you, while others may not. I suggest giving them a try and seeing if they work for your person with dementia. If you need more support or have questions, feel free to email me here.
The first question to ask yourself is:
“What does calm look like to my person living with dementia?”
For me, calm would be me looking as if I’m happy and content. My body language would show a smile on my face and an overly relaxed stance sitting in a chair. It would also mean that I could carry on a conversation without feeling a need for conflict and I might be open to friendly, physical touch ie a pat on the back or hug.
The next few questions to answer are: Are you trying to calm a person with dementia in the moment? Are they having a hard time, maybe yelling or hitting? Are they raising their voice? Do they look visibly upset? If yes is your response, then it’s time for suggestion one, Validation.
Validate your person with dementia’s emotions
What does validating mean?
We all want to be seen and heard. Living with dementia doesn’t change that. If anything it amplifies it! Imagine living without the ability to say what you really want to say and that others around you are filling in those missing words for you, but their fill-ins aren’t what you’re trying to say. Imagine feeling as if you aren’t seen or heard… What is coming up for you with these thoughts? Your person with dementia might be feeling this way and that’s why I suggest validating their emotions.
How do you calm down someone with dementia by validating their emotions?
Show them you’re listening.
When you’re asking yourself, How do you calm down someone with dementia? try to remember this: Listening is more than listening. Show them with your own body language and in your voice. Are you looking at them and they look mad? Here’s your chance to say, “It looks like you’re mad (insert feeling you see here)!” I add the explanation point because I encourage you to say this in a similar tone as the person with dementia. More often than not when we meet someone’s emotion, instead of pushing against it, we can help to soften that emotion.
Something I see that 99% of the time DOES NOT work is telling someone to calm down. Why doesn’t that work? It’s not that easy, right? Calming down and try to forget about the one BIG thing that is bothering you… Yeah, um no! That just makes my feelings even stronger. I feel my blood starting to boil, what about you?
See if that suggestion helps. Here’s another:
How about answering this question before you need to calm down someone with dementia? How can you set your person living with dementia up for success? What would that look like? For this question I suggest creating a calming environment.
2. Create a calm environment
Why do I need to create a calm environment for calming someone with dementia?
If the home a person is living in feels calm, that person will be more likely to feel calm themselves. Think about when you’re in a home or place that feels cluttered or very loud. What feelings get brought up for you? For me, I think about feeling tightness in my body and a need to cover my ears with my hands, the exact opposite of calm!
For someone living with dementia it might be difficult for them to tell you that they feel overwhelmed by the noise and items around them. Their reactions could vary from wanting to leave the room, ie exit seek, or simply get loud themselves in an effort to feel heard.
How can you check your surroundings to see if the environment might be too overwhelming?
take a sensory inventory starting with sound.
Ask yourself can I concentrate in this space with the noise level like this? It’s important to remember that hearing loss can be related to dementia, but it also might not. Someone may have perfect hearing and raising the volume might not be necessary for them.
Another sensory input to check is vision. Do your surroundings feel overwhelming and confining? I’m well aware that you cannot always rearrange your spaces, due to everyone having “stuff”. You might be able to donate some things that don’t serve you anymore. What kind of changes in your space can you make to create a calmer space?
Continue to be in a room, checking how your other senses feel. What does it smell like? What can you touch? Are there things in that space that look like they might taste great? See if you can make some changes and let me know if this helps!
What are you feeling now? Ready for the last suggestion?
Last, but not least, and often most important is to look at a person’s sleeping habits. Are you asking yourself, how do you calm someone living with dementia? in the evenings. Are nights your most challenging times with them? This one is trickier, especially because if they’re not sleeping, it means you aren’t either. Not good for either one of you!
3. Adequate night sleep requires adequate awake time
If someone is sleeping all day, or even frequently napping, they might not be getting enough wake time to be tired enough to sleep at night. Unfortunately, this is all too common and I’m going to share a story of my friend Ruth as a real-life example of calming someone living with dementia at night by helping them change their sleeping habits.
Example Story: Helping Ruth Calm Down (so she can sleep!)
(Names have been changed for privacy)
Ruth was a 78 year old woman living with Vascular Dementia in a community setting. She spent all hours of the night wandering the halls of a memory care community. She had trouble verbally communicating and would often speak in sounds, more than words. Imagine Ruth, walking up and down the halls all night long, trying to tell those caring for her that she wants something, but can’t get the words out. They might tell her to sit down and try to put her to bed, but the last thing she wanted to do was get in bed!
There were lots of evening conflicts. Ruth at times was reported to be verbally and physically aggressive and we needed to make some changes. She would be up all night and then sleep all day. So what did we do to help her? We slowly (over the course of several weeks) kept her awake longer during the day.
How did we keep her awake?
We got her involved in all the activities we could, starting with ones that interested her most. The more interested she was in an activity, the more likely she was to stay awake. This started with keeping her awake during meals and then moved on to art. She first only stayed awake to paint for 15 minutes at a time, but after a few weeks we had her focused on painting and beading. We then had her in exercise groups, both walking and in her chair. Her daytime became more fulfilled and purposeful.
At the end of all this, Ruth finally SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT! That meant that Ruth was finally calm at night and therefore calm during the day.
We couldn’t believe the changes!
One of my favorite things to hear about is your successes! Please let me know if you found this article helpful.
**If you’re North of Boston, MA and are looking for a stimulating activity, consider Art Therapy for your person living with dementia. We come to your home and bring all the art supplies for 60 minutes of undivided attention for your person. This also means a 60 minute break for you!