Keeping calm: Techniques for soothing without preaching

This is an article in Hovi Care’s series of 10 articles with the topic: 10 Wishes for Caregiver.

The keys to success when working with a person with memory disorders are both very easy but challenging. Everything starts with the person’s situation and his/her abilities.

In this series of articles, we’ll help you make the day successful with a person with dementia. (PwD) You will need a bag of tips and tricks to tackle a multitude of situations. The tools and methods include:

• standing side-by-side
• reminiscing together
• continually searching for ways to enhance a person’s feeling of safety
• supporting a person’s self-image
• creating moments that enforce feelings of participation and a person’s sense of accomplishment

Let’s Get Started with How to Keep Calm Without Preaching

This applies to both parties: relax and do not preach. You should stay calm, and he/she should help the person with memory disorders become relaxed. Sometimes you can start talking a lot with the hope to calm the person down. The end result might be quite the opposite, though.

Calming the person is best accomplished by listening, but also being very aware of the situation and the person’s history and what kind of implications that might have. So you need to know what works best with this person. It could be redirecting the attention, as some get relaxed by talking about the issue at hand, while others might best be calmed down by doing an activity.

Get to Know Them and Their Needs

Knowing the person will help you find the best tools to resolve the situation. The situation itself will affect how responsive the person is to discussion.

Sometimes letting the person spend some time by himself/herself helps, or the opposite: staying by the person and holding his/her hands. It all depends on a person’s need for personal space; some will get agitated if the person next to him/her leaves.

The Keys to Keeping Peace

The key is to stay calm in the moment and remember that one reflects the other person’s emotions. If things are not working, perhaps changing the caregiver for a moment is a good option. The other caregiver can, for example, ask an unexpected question which can redirect the attention elsewhere.

Or perhaps you know a key memory of the person’s history that can calm down the situation. The only way to know what works is to know the person well enough. If a new caregiver is attending to the person, make sure there is someone available who knows the person’s history. A familiar face gives a sense of safety for the person.