RespiteMatch.com Health Blog

The ways in which friends and family are able to help the person with Alzheimer’s disease and their caregiver have no limit. Use your unique abilities and gifts to really make a difference in someone’s life! The following suggestions are written from a spouse’s point of view, but could well apply to the parent/child caregiving relationship as well:

1. Offer to sit with my husband/wife even if I do not leave the house. This will give me the time to do other things around the house and garden.

2. Come for a visit when you can, but call first to confirm that it will be convenient. We both get lonely and bored. Don’t assume that the Alzheimer’s patient needs rest at the expense of communication or that communication must be a two-way street.

3. Talk to my spouse, who can understand some things even though he/she cannot respond. Even if there is no understanding, it is comforting to have a friend there to pretend that my spouse does understand. We do not know what gets through.

4. Be patient and understanding. Put yourself in my spouse’s place and imagine what you would feel like when memory fades and you become more and more helpless. Hold his/her hands. Give praise but no scolding or corrections.

5. Make a specific offer of help—say, “I want to come over Monday at 3:00 to bake, clean house, do laundry, or whatever.” If you say, “Call me anytime for anything,” I won’t know what you want to do or when you are free…so I probably won’t ask.

6. Offer to watch TV with my spouse some afternoon when an old movie is on. Bring a book or magazine in case he/she falls asleep. This will give the feeling that his/her company is still enjoyable without either having to entertain the other.

7. Suggest coming over to take my spouse for a walk. Exercise is terribly important, but I sometimes cannot find time for a walk, and my husband/wife enjoys it; be ready to hold his/her hand.

8. Encourage your wife/husband to come over to visit us in the evening. My spouse enjoys company and it gives me a chance to have a normal, sensible conversation, when my spouse cannot do so.

9. Cook a dinner or other meal entrée and stay to eat with us if you can. Familiar company helps both of us. Be prepared to eat slowly and don’t be surprised if food gets spilled.

10. Bake cookies, brownies, bread, etc., or something special that my spouse likes—a favorite recipe. If possible make enough so some can be frozen.

11. Run errands. Find out what needs to be done. Take my spouse along while you do some shopping or do an errand.

12. Once in awhile, when I can get a sitter, join me for an evening meal at a restaurant and/or some evening entertainment such as the theater, a concert, or a movie. I need to have some stimulating and enjoyable time.

13. Offer to help at holiday and birthday times. Assist in buying gifts, wrapping presents, trimming the Christmas tree, or anything else you can think of.

14. Even if the joke is terrible, tell it! Bring Reader’s Digest or other material and read aloud. Describe what is funny out there. It may not tickle my spouse’s ribs but it won’t hurt. Speak to that part of my spouse that is alive, for that is the real person.

15. Touch or hug my spouse if you feel like it. The isolation of being “mentally” out of it is pretty devastating.

16. Bring some music—cassette tapes or records. If you play an instrument, bring it along, even for practice. Sing some old-time songs with my spouse (“Let Me Call You Sweetheart,” etc.). Music brings pleasure and even memories, when non-musical memories are gone.

17. Tell my loved one how great he/she looks, even if you have to stretch the truth a bit. Self-esteem is terribly important when the power to do things has weakened or gone.

18. Tell us about the real life you are living. This will help my spouse to feel less like an untouchable and may give the sense that he/she is still involved in the world. One of the hardest things about Alzheimer’s disease for both of us is the problem of conversation. If you don’t talk to us about the real world, we are left with meals, birds, flowers, weather, and TV to talk about, and gradually most of those are disappearing from my spouse’s world.

19. Go to a meeting with my spouse—most any kind. You may meet friends who will enliven his/her life for a moment, even if forgotten two minutes later. Take him/her to lunch so I can get away by myself or have time to catch up on correspondence, house cleaning, or even a nap.

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