It never ceases to amaze me how quickly the holidays approach each year. As I sit and listen to families plan their holiday festivities, it is easy to get a bit frustrated when plans include bringing their parents home from memory care units to enjoy the celebration. While being part of the family is so important, it is also extremely critical that families look and define WHY they are bringing their parent home and for how long.
When individuals are in memory care units, they receive a constant level of stimulation and a routine which helps them cope with their dementia and the change in their memory and memory retrieval skills. Interaction with family is critical to help them feel connected and included, but it is also important that the family define the how and the why of including them in large family festivities. The change in venue is one of many stressors that Mom or Dad experience while joining the family, but they also can be frustrated by the noise and chaos created by grandchildren and great-grandchildren, the lack of obvious structure and change from their usual routine. For them, it is the equivalent of going from a peaceful week-long retreat straight into an amusement park full of sugared up four-year-olds. The overwhelming stimulation can create behaviors in the parents and frustrations for the entire family.
Families know their parents, but they also need to ask the team in the memory care about the individuals’ tolerance for change and chaos. As people continue to decline with their dementia, their stamina decreases, and their tolerance for the festivities might also decrease. The team can offer the family suggestions on the length of time their parent should spend with the family and appropriate agendas while the family is together. It might be in Mom’s best interest to bring her home for a turkey dinner and to watch the great grandkids open presents from Santa, and then take her back to the memory care for a nap and some down time. Then, the next day, she could come back to open her own presents. This allows everyone some down time, but also the time to enjoy family and for the younger kids to get to know their older relatives and keeps everyone’s stress more manageable.
Also important is watching those seniors as they enjoy the day for signs that they are overwhelmed by the stimulation of having “more energetic” and louder family members around than they are used to. They are used to a more sedate, regimented setting and age and cognitive decline make handing excess stimulation more difficult for everyone. If the parent appears to be more frustrated, or more “remote” (frequent naps or zoning out), it might be time to change activities and provide them with some time to process what they have seen and heard and give their brain a chance to “catch up”. Maybe mom used to be able to handle the stimulation of a dozen kiddos running, laughing, and enjoying themselves, but now, that is overwhelm and her brain may not be able to process it, or tune it out, like it used to. This is not a slap at the family and the traditions, it is a fact of dementia. No one likes to hear that there is a definite decline in their parents or grandparents, but it is part of the dementia progression.
Take the holidays one event at a time, spread out those events, keep them a bit more “toned down”, and forgive everyone for being human. Those simple steps help to make the joyous events of the holiday more joyous for everyone.