Calm Caregiving: Navigate Dementia with Patience & Peace
One of the hardest realities of dementia caregiving is realizing that logic doesn’t work. No matter how many times you explain, reason, or correct—your loved one’s brain processes information differently.
So how do you handle repetitive questions, confusion, and nighttime anxiety without frustration?
Today we explore how shifting your approach can bring more peace into your caregiving journey.
You Can’t Reason with Dementia—But You Can Reassure
Many caregivers instinctively correct or explain when their loved one asks the same question repeatedly or insists something that isn’t true. The problem? Dementia doesn’t operate on logic.
🔹 Example: Your loved one insists people are in the house watching TV when it’s just you two.
❌ Logical Response: “No, Mom, we’re alone. I’ve checked, and there’s no one here.”
✅ Better Response: “It sounds like you’re feeling uneasy. What can I do to help you feel safe?”
By validating their emotions instead of correcting the facts, you ease their anxiety rather than escalating the situation.
How to Handle Repetitive Questions Without Losing Patience
Hearing the same question over and over can be exhausting. But responding with frustration often leads to more agitation, not less.
💡 Tips to Stay Calm:
✔️ Answer as if it’s the first time—Your loved one isn’t asking to annoy you; they simply don’t remember asking before.
✔️ Redirect when needed—Change the subject by offering a snack, turning on music, or suggesting an activity.
✔️ Use written reminders—If the repeated question has a simple answer (like “What day is it?”), write it down on a sticky note to reference.
The key is to focus on their emotional need rather than just the question itself.
Nighttime Anxiety and Sundowning: What to Do
Evenings can be particularly difficult for dementia caregivers. Increased confusion, restlessness, and fear—often called sundowning—make nighttime stressful.
👣 Try This Approach:
🔹 Keep a consistent bedtime routine to create familiarity.
🔹 Use soft lighting in the evening to reduce disorientation.
🔹 Respond to nighttime fears with comfort, not correction: “I’m here with you. You’re safe.”
By meeting your loved one emotionally, you help reduce stress and create a sense of security.
Caregiving Is a Learning Process—Give Yourself Grace
Many caregivers struggle with expecting progress from their loved one, especially if they have a medical or therapy background. But dementia doesn’t improve—instead of focusing on rehabilitation, caregivers should focus on habilitation, helping their loved one maintain independence in familiar routines.
🙏 Encouragement for Caregivers:
✔️ You won’t always get it right—and that’s okay.
✔️ You’re learning just like your loved one is adjusting.
✔️ Every small act of patience and love matters in this journey.
Dementia caregiving isn’t about fixing your loved one’s thinking—it’s about meeting them where they are. By shifting your responses, you’ll create a more peaceful caregiving experience for both of you
Read More:
How to Prioritize in Dementia Caregiving: The 4D Method to Reduce Stress
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You cannot reason with dementia.
[0:01] One of the hardest parts of caregiving is realizing that logic doesn’t always work. You cannot reason with dementia. But what if I told you there’s another way, one that brings peace, both to you and your loved one? In today’s episode, listen to Karen’s story where I’ll show you how to shift your perspective when frustration sets in, and why meeting a loved one at their emotional level can make all the difference. Hey, Christian Care Companion, welcome to Dementia Caregiver Support for Christians, the podcast where I teach Bible-believing Christians how to think differently about dementia caregiving. If you are a Christian spouse, the adult child, or a family member of a person living with dementia and want more clarity, less stress, and provide better care, this podcast is for you.
[1:07] Here we provide you with practical solutions, hope, and encouragement, and all through a biblical lens. If you haven’t yet joined me for one of our monthly Ask the Dementia Coach question and answer sessions, the time is now. The next one will be this Thursday, February the 20th at 6 p.m. Please come join us and find a community.
[1:38] Come get live dementia caregiver support and leave feeling encouraged and empowered
Finding Calm in Repetition.
[1:45] with your next step in your caregiving journey. Now, without further ado, let us head into the next episode where we are going to talk about being frustrated with repetitive questions, how to actually bring calm into your caregiving journey.
[2:09] Let’s set a goal for today. Let’s say it’s six months from now and your caregiving has become easier. What does that look like for you? It’s funny because I feel for you, Jodi. I’ve been doing this for a bit and changing my life, moving here. Patience is, I need more patience myself. I know what I’m not supposed to say and I find myself saying it. My daughter also lives here. She’s 23. And this is her grandmother. And she’s a lot better with her than I am. I don’t know if it’s also a mother-daughter relationship. You know, I can’t, you know, I know I would never any, obviously, I’m not only a physical therapist, but I’ve always worked in hospital environments. And so I deal with patients all the time with dementia. And I know I don’t communicate with them the same way that I communicate with my mom. So things are moving forward. So I actually need you to answer what would make it easier. What would make it easier? If six months from now, caregiving was easier, what would that look like? Like better communication with her? Better communication.
[3:23] My daughter tries to help me get breaks because there’s a lot on me. I since I moved here, I’m not currently working. That’s a stressor for me. I don’t know that I could, you know, I need to manage something in terms of getting my own breaks and being able, I do have a caregiver that I have come in when I wasn’t living here. It was like two times a week. Now it’s been like one time a week. And maybe I need to look at having that to give me a break because it’s, it’s hard when it’s all on me.
[3:55] So since you are a PT, I’m going to ask you the clinical question. Do you know what stage your mom is and do you know what kind of dimension? No, unfortunately, I was not here when she was seen by a neurologist. Generally, her primary care physician kind of. And I need to get that feedback because I would like to know what the scans specifically showed. I would say mild to moderate, moving more strongly in the moderate. But my mom can still, like dressing is getting, she gets frustrated. Dressing gets, you know, that whole coordination, problem solving of like getting dressed. She still takes, you know, her own showers and things like that. She’s walking physically. Physically, she’s great. We just, you know. No driving? No. She stopped driving a long time ago. No driving, no med management. What about meals, snacks, things like that? I help her with meds and I help her with like all of the cooking. Yeah, that when I wasn’t here, we had Meals on Wheels and that was a huge, huge help. So let me ask one more clarification question to help me. Would you say your mom’s quality of self-care if you let her be by herself is still good? Or would you say the quality of her self-care is starting to go away? Yes, starting to go away. It gets, it’s getting harder. Okay. So to me, it almost sounds like your mom is more like in the moderate stage.
[5:18] And it’s just changed. It’s just changed in the six months that I’ve been here. Like I’ve seen a change. All right. Because, you know, the way I describe it to people, there’s three buckets. The first bucket is the person can still do everything for themselves with relatively good quality. They’re just starting to lose the ability to do the higher level skilled things that allow us to work or to drive or to those kinds of things. And then the middle bucket is where the person is still.
[5:50] Able to do everything physically for themselves, but they’re starting to skip steps. They’re starting to lose the quality and they need a person to come alongside them and guide them and cue them and make sure that the quality is there, that they’re getting the right clothes for the season or the occasion, et cetera. And then that last stage, but they physically can still do everything. That last stage is we have to help them perform all of those tasks. Yeah, so she just the whole process is also taking longer.
Understanding Stages of Dementia.
[6:24] Yes, I help her picking out the appropriate clothes for the weather and things like that. And it’s just the time and she’s so frustrated and she keeps thinking that she’s just sick and that this is God, I wish I, you know, it’s like getting over a cold. So how best can I help you today? Do you have a specific question? How can I help you? Before you answer, I’ll give you a second to just think about that. I will say I am you in the sense that I have the healthcare background and I’m also now the daughter caregiver, right? And everything that we learned in school goes out the window. It is different.
[7:00] Yes, we have the head knowledge, but what has to catch up is the heart, right? And so I want you to be encouraged in that this is also a skill that you can learn. It is different than the skills that Jodi or Helen or someone else on the call might have to learn because you know the stuff.
[7:22] If you’ve worked in hospitals, you know the skills, you know the stuff. What we have to concentrate on is taking it from here because it’s so automatic. Because I look at you and you’ve got a 23-year-old daughter. I’ve got a 25 and a 27-year-old, so we’re not too far apart in age. You’ve been a PT for a long time. You’ve got to take it out of automatic and put it up front here. Remember when you were working with students and they’re like, oh, but you make it look so easy. right? It’s because everything that we do when we’re working has gone into our automatic. And for us as skilled professionals, helping a parent, we actually have to take it out of that automatic and put it right back in here like a student and really think about what we’re doing. Because otherwise what happens, at least for me, this is what happened. We go into the patterns of being mom and daughter. Whatever the drama was, you know, we all have drama with our kids. Whatever the drama was, whatever the dynamic was that we went through growing up, that’s the one that comes out when we’re now supporting them in this different way.
Shifting from Therapy to Caregiving.
[8:32] So don’t be discouraged. You can learn to do this. You can learn to do it well. Yeah, I think I found myself, and I’m trying to let it go, is like trying to be the therapist and expect improvement, which I’m not going to get Like, you know, expect learning that’s just not there.
[8:51] However, having said that, you can work with her on habilitation, not rehabilitation. Work with her on routine and familiar things, doing it the same way over and over and over and over again and creating a new habit. Using procedural memory. So getting dressed, you know, maybe the night before to speed things up, you go out and you set things up. And in the morning, you just say, okay, mom, this, and then this, and then this, and see if you can cut out some of the steps and just make it a little bit of an easier task. So it’s not going to the closet, opening, making decisions, just take some of the decisions away and just, or do them in the evening and give her two choices and have her pick what we’re going to wear the next day. So you control it and then you set those out for her for the next morning and in the morning just remind her to get dressed. Yeah. Was that helpful? Yeah. Yeah. It’s just, you know, things, it’s just amazing how things change and.
[10:02] Nighttime is a tough time you know the sun downing the confusion that increases at night I have a hard time answering the same question over and over and over and over in this in within a short span of time like there’s a particular topic of conversation and like a certain question pops into her head and we could be watching a movie and she’ll ask that same question over and over and over and I know I’m supposed to just answer that question like it’s being asked the first time. And I have a hard time with that, you know, just all these things. And then at nighttime, like you mentioned, when you’re tired, so I’m losing my frustration because I’m tired and it’s like getting her. No, there’s nobody in the house. It’s just you and I, you know, thinking that there’s people watching TV with us. I mean, there’s all kinds of stuff. It’s just, you know, I know I’m rambling. It has nothing to do with what you just said.
Meeting Emotional Needs.
[10:52] It’s okay. You know, your rambling is actually helpful because it’s telling me what’s going on.
[10:58] So meet your mom emotion. where she is, specifically at night. So if she believes there’s somebody in the house, we need to reassure her, not reason with her and say, but mom, I’ve checked, there’s no one in the house, right? That’s, oh, you know, it seems like you’re a little worried right now. What can I do to make you feel better? It looks like you’re anxious. What can I do to help you feel better? Meet her emotionally. She’s saying one thing that to me is pointing towards, she feels insecure, She’s not sure. And what’s coming out, maybe, you know, she’s hearing the TV. She thinks those are people, whatever. But if you can try to meet her at her emotional spot, I think it’ll go a long way because to me, it sounds like she’s a little afraid or anxious at night. And I think if you can meet that emotional need, it’s going to, it’ll bring her anxiety down. Okay, thanks. You want to give that a try and let me know how it goes? We’d love to hear. I really would.
Joining the Community for Support.
[12:02] People who are really benefiting from the community are the people who joined earlier on, before they need it, and that have been active and are participating in the community because then they already know what questions to ask and they have a place to come and they’re not constantly wondering, what do I need to do? How do I need to do it? So people listening are interested in tapping into or learning about the community. I’d invite you to just go to the website, thinkdifferentdementia.com. There’s a link for you to schedule a 20-minute call there’s no pressure i’ll serve you regardless of whether you join the community or not but it is a way for you to take this relationship a little deeper a little bit more hands-on support because really the research also shows it’s longitudinal support over time absolutely yeah for sure i would highly recommend lizette she’s awesome i see i appreciate that endorsement and well thank you everybody for listening today And as I try to remember, I try to remember, I don’t always remember, may the Lord bless you and keep you and come back and listen some more. I’m hoping to do more of these coaching style episodes. So come back in and check us out. And thank you for being here today.
