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What are you best tips for being more patient?
Caregivers: Dementia | Last Active: 3 days ago | Replies (68)Comment receiving replies
This website has been helpful to me. My husband has MCI which was diagnosed about a year ago. His main difficulty is memory and words but the thing that drives me crazy is not being able to navigate the tv with the remote. Every time is like the 1st time showing him where he is on the screen and the direction he needs to go to get to the shows he’s interested in. I wrote down the instructions for the TV but it doesn’t help. I do what some of you have said and treat each day as a new one and try not to get impatient. I sit next to him and help him with the buttons. We switched from Amazon Firestick to Roku because it seemed more intuitive. Speaking to the remote for the app helps, but sometimes he can’t remember the app or says it too slow. This is a very minor problem and I know most of you will wish this was all you had to deal with. Thanks for letting me vent. Feel better already!
Replies to "This website has been helpful to me. My husband has MCI which was diagnosed about a..."
@mickey5455 In the beginning I would explain to my husband how things worked, such as the remote. Thinking if he understood better what was happening he would be able to remember or figure it out on his own. Now I realize that doesn't work. I show/tell him how to work the remote and we just move on. However, too often I find myself just doing it for him. Wrong! He just became more independent on me. So I take a real deep breath and try to talk him through it. That approach takes much more patience but it does seem to slow his decline a little.
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@mickey5455
It was frustrating to watch my husband try to figure out the tv remote. Now he doesn't even try. The thing which was most concerning to me was that he no longer could operate his iPhone. So I got him a flip phone with a built in "life alert" for when I used to go out and leave him for an hour or so. He was not able to work that either. Through educating myself on dementia changes in the brain I learned that people with dementia can lose the ability to sequence events. That means he can no longer do things in the order required to make them function. Using a remote or phone requires you to do things in the correct sequence or you will be lost on the device. He will sometimes put his Depends on the OUTSIDE of his pants, in the wrong sequence. Learning all I can about dementia has enabled me to adjust my expectations for what is possible given his failing brain. This has enabled me to see him as he is now and not expect him to be as he was. This has been a game changer for me. May God bless you and your husband in your struggles and help you to accept the things you cannot change and the courage to change the things you can.