If you have family or loved ones with dementia, Dr. Heather D’Oyley offers helpful tips to keep them healthy, happy and engaged this festive season.

Christmas can be a challenging time for families and caregivers of people with dementia. Unfamiliar surroundings, large groups of people, constant noise and commotion are a sure recipe for a cognitive disconnect.

But there are ways to ensure that your elderly loved one remains healthy, happy and engaged this festive season. According to psychiatrist Dr. Heather D’Oyley, the key is to recognize when your loved one is overwhelmed by too many visitors and too much activity, and then knowing what to do about it.

“The choices you make about how to celebrate with your loved one is really dependent on their personality and how far their dementia has advanced,” says D’Oyley, a geriatric psychiatrist with the Older Adult Mental Health Team in Vancouver.  “While some may still be comfortable at large family gatherings, others might prefer to remain in the quiet sanctuary of their care facility. You always need to ask.”

How you can help

• Find hidden memories:  Although people with dementia have difficulties recalling what has happened in the short-term, their long-term memories are often better preserved. Try engaging your loved one with familiar songs or old photographs to stimulate meaningful conversation and a welcome trip down memory lane.

• Keep it one-on-one: For people with dementia, group conversations are difficult – if not impossible – to follow. Keep your interactions limited to few people. Ideally, one-on-one conversations are best for setting up meaningful interactions.

• Routine matters: Depending on the disease’s progression, people with dementia, especially if they live in a residential care setting, live their lives according to routine. If you’re bringing your loved one home for the holidays, try replicating their daily routine to lessen the stress of the holidays for you and your family member.

• Change it up: If your loved one is in residential care, there will likely come a time when they will not want to leave their home to celebrate the festive season. This is not something that should make you upset, but is a natural part of the disease’s progression. Rather than lamenting this loss, see it as an opportunity to establish new traditions.

More health and safety tips… at your fingertips!

• visit www.vch.ca for our “12 Safety Tips of Christmas”.

• join the VCH Corporate Facebook site and follow the VCH Corporate Twitter site for family-friendly health tips and resources  you can use at home.

• spread good cheer and share our expert advice and resources with your family and friends by sharing our Facebook posts and retweeting our bite-sized tips on Twitter.