It’s hard for most of us to imagine what it must be like to live with dementia. Memory loss is just one of the challenges. It also becomes hard to express thoughts and feelings – even acute ones such as being in pain or discomfort. Little wonder that people with dementia often get frustrated and exhibit challenging behaviour.
Globally, around 50 million people have dementia. There is a new diagnosis every three seconds. And as our population continues to age, these rates are likely to keep increasing.
The behavioural changes that come with dementia can be hard to cope with. Even though carers are aware that a person isn’t deliberately being difficult or becoming aggressive, and that it’s the condition not the person, situations can still be hard to manage. Dealing with challenging behaviour resulting from dementia isn’t easy.
Managing Challenging Behaviour
Care teams need the right training and support to know how to deal with challenging behaviour and prevent it from escalating or getting out of control. Training will protect your staff, clients and your business by helping carers to identify possible triggers for challenging behaviour and to deal with incidents professionally and in the best interests of the client.
With the right training it’s also possible to design therapies and activities that help reduce the frustrations that people with dementia often feel. Being able to address the root causes of challenging behaviour is always better than having to manage the consequences. Without careful management these consequences can include harm to the client or physical assaults on staff.
Appropriate training can also reduce the need to resort to medication as a means to help clients control their symptoms.
A Supported and Valued Team
Training care staff to deal with challenging behaviour is a classic example of taking actions that make staff feel supported and valued. We know that these are powerful factors in improving motivation, job performance and retention.
Redcrier has a wide range of courses related to caring for people with dementia and coping with aggression in the workplace. These are available as face-to-face; distance learning and e-learning options. Take a look at our list of courses or call us to see how we can help you equip your team with the skills they need.
