There is adult day care for socializing and there are elders who end up staying home for whatever reason as perhaps they are introverts. I am curious if anyone has been able to succesfully integrate and provide a purposeful life and exsistance to the elders in your family WITHOUT it being too disruptive on your own family and how did you achieve this while managing and applying holistic protocols to prevent disease and manage their dementia symptoms so they don't flare up? I realise there is an initial learning curve with adjusting the foods supplements and lifestyle to manage everyones behavior and meet their needs and get everything comfortable. Thanks. It would be helpful to get some input. Note; How much of a challenge was it to find the right type of PART TIME caregiver willing to collaborate with your holistic protocols, and manage the cognition challenges of your parent with you. Such as in sharing the tasks if budget is of concern ?
Keeping them active has been key. My Dad suffered from Dementia. I found things to keep him active. As well as reading and singing together. Socializing has been key as well. Turmeric is a good mind booster. Mom has memory issues but no diagnosis, I do the same for her as Dad. Keeping her busy active and socializing. This has been what has worked for me. Of course it is a challenge, but doable, once you have a routine. Also very important, a routine. But not so much of a detailed routine that they become lost not knowing what to do next. But a variation daily so they do not get accustomed to an exact schedule, but somewhat. That disturbs them less. When sickness occurs or an onset of, I always use natural medicines to hinder or heal. And most importantly prayer. It is all about balance and once you get it figured out, it is lovely to see it working. Feeding them physically, spiritually, and emotionally is success.
Modern medicine seems to have such adverse side effects on what is supposed to help.
Small easily managed and prevented health issues can turn out to become serious acute hospital and medical emergencies causing death .
Sounds like you are seeking a volunteer.
This sounds interesting. Would love to hear the protocols you use- can you share?
The protocol I use involves keeping ahead of current independent and larger research being done world wide that keeps cognitively impaired and declining elders from full blown unmanageable dementia symptoms by finding out the deficiencies or environmental triggers first and fixing those.
Since the brain and memory is complicated, I personally believe the best protocol is individual. Some can take the medicine and do fine with it, but other's can't so you have to find other solutions.
Anyway I give/prepare my mom organic/gluten-free food, lots of spices, lemon/water, salmon, salads, organic eggs, green powder, Bragg apple cider, grape powder extract, elderberry extract, everything holistic that I can manage. Cooking everything home-made and from scratch takes up a lot of my time. It's difficult. So don't get burned out, try to have other people help you. I'm the sole caregiver so I don't have that option. I've been doing this for 5 years, going into my 6th year of dementia care. So far my mom is moderate, I would say late stage 5 entering stage 6. She is starting to have accidents, but otherwise she talks to herself, walks around, drink and feed herself. At least she is up and moving, I don't know how long that will last though. So yeah, I use a natural protocol for her. I try to keep her clean, cotton clothing, cotton linens and very simple cleaning supplies. My goal is to keep her as healthy as I can and keep her immune system strong (grape, elderberry, vitamin C etc.). That's not always possible with dementia, but you have to keep infection low and immunity high. If you can get their micro-biome working good, they can fight off infection better long-term. It starts with food and you need to be doing this strong for the first year when they first get dementia, and then try to maintain it. I started my mom on Apple Cider immediately, everyday the first year, now she takes it every 2 days or so for maintenance. She eats turmeric eggs every morning, for the choline and the egg is a complete nutrient system. So times when she don't feel like eating at night. The eggs have enough nutrients to keep her okay until she feels better. Just try to keep at it and prevent infection from going on too long.
I also use music and light therapy. The house is quiet and easy to walk in, plenty of room, no rugs, knick-knacks etc. anything she can trip over is removed. But even with these holistic methods my mom still went through wandering, sun-downs, aggressiveness, hitting me, name calling etc. so it all varies as to what will happen. But she went through all that stuff in about one-two years. About the last part of the second year she mellowed out quite a bit. She does get combative about changing her underwear and clothes in general though. But she isn't nearly as bad as that first year or two. So maybe holistic works better if you keep at it and stay consistent.
And what I’m curious about is how much do you need to keep after your parents to maintain their health such as what I’m trying to do or Nicene is doing? You seem to have a very good handle on integrating your parents into an active purposeful lifestyle . Would you consider it a fair balance where you aren’t compromising too much of your own life to structure and maintain theirs?