What You Need to Know When Your Caregivers Cause Dementia Aggression
Caring for a loved one with dementia often means facing unexpected challenges—from outbursts to navigating paid caregiver dynamics and difficult decisions about medication.
In this episode, we walk through real-life caregiving scenarios and highlight the importance of creating personalized care plans, understanding triggers, and balancing support with faith and patience.
Why Behavioral Triggers Matter
Behavioral outbursts in dementia don’t happen out of nowhere. This episode sheds light on how external factors—like rushing a task, sensory overload, or caregiver energy—can trigger distress.
Key Takeaways:
- Pacing Matters: Care tasks like showering and dressing may require breaks in between to avoid overwhelming your loved one.
- Environment Counts: Small details, like background noise or clutter, can make your loved one feel overstimulated or unsafe.
- Positive Energy Helps: Caregivers who bring calm, encouraging energy often see fewer outbursts.
Understanding these triggers and making adjustments can reduce conflict and help maintain peace at home.
Navigating Paid Caregiver Dynamics
The relationship between paid caregivers and your loved one is crucial to their well-being. However, misunderstandings and mismatched personalities can create setbacks. The episode shares real examples of how caregiver dynamics affect behavior:
- A positive, experienced caregiver with a “bubbly” personality may de-escalate situations.
- A low-energy or rushed caregiver may unintentionally heighten stress.
Care plans should account for these differences, focusing on matching your loved one with caregivers who bring comfort and reassurance.
The Medication Discussion: Finding Balance
When behavioral challenges persist, caregivers may face the difficult decision of introducing as-needed medications (PRNs). The episode emphasizes balancing safety and quality of life:
- Medications can help stabilize extreme behaviors, but they shouldn’t lead to sedation.
- A low-dose approach, in collaboration with a neurologist, may help create stability without compromising your loved one’s personality or abilities.
The Importance of Ongoing Support
One powerful reminder from this episode is that caregivers thrive with consistent support. Joining a community early in your caregiving journey provides:
- A space to ask questions and share experiences
- Practical strategies for day-to-day challenges
- Spiritual encouragement to stay grounded in faith
As mentioned, the caregivers who participate early and stay engaged feel more equipped and less isolated when tough moments arise.
Faith in the Caregiving Journey
The caregiving journey is filled with moments that challenge your emotional and physical strength. This episode highlights how faith can serve as an anchor in difficult times.
When decisions about care feel overwhelming, leaning on prayer and Scripture reminds us that we’re not alone. God’s grace and wisdom can guide you, even through the hardest days.
Read more:
How to Have a Good 2025 Even When Dementia Caregiving
Know When Isolation In A Person With Dementia Is Detrimental
Ever Wonder How To Know What Is Causing Your Caregiver Stress?
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[0:01] Behavioral triggers, paid caregiver dynamics, and managing medication, as well as trying to get a husband up a flight of steps, or just a few of the challenges that we discussed in this Dementia Caregiver Support in Action episode. Hey Christian Care Champion, welcome to Dementia Caregiver Support for Christians.
[0:22] The podcast where I teach Bible-believing Christians how to make dementia care easier today, as well as help you focus on tomorrow. If you are a Christian spouse, the adult child, or a family member of a person living with dementia, and you want to find an easier way, this podcast is for you. Here we look at kingdom-focused caregiving, we honor the Lord Jesus Christ in our caregiving, and we show you practical ways how to make your caregiving easier. If you have not yet registered for our free monthly workshop, where we’re going to talk about how to quickly regain peace and calm in your dementia caregiving journey. In 2025, you will have 12 opportunities to have 12 different topics in a free monthly workshop once a month, every month without fail. This is my gift to you. So if you haven’t joined and been to one of these workshops, I invite you to register for them. They’re about an hour to an hour and a half, and I promise you they’re extremely interactive, extremely entertaining.
[1:34] Well, sort of kind of entertaining. They’re me, can I say. The workshop is, I put a lot of thought and a lot of time into the workshop to help you, to support you, to give you tremendous value, and I do hope that I see you in the next workshop.
Service Provider Challenges
[1:49] So hop on, register, and let me see you in the next workshop. But let us go back to this next episode of Dementia Caregivers Support in Action.
[2:02] So tell me what’s been going on. Well, so the highs are still pretty high, but the lows are getting lower. You know, the extremes. The extremes are broadening there. And after coming back from Greece, he had some behavioral outbursts in closer succession to the point that the service provider through home community care is kind of the offshoot of our health, you know, our universal health system, where they help coordinate for our paid-for caregiving. The service provider is an independent company.
[2:38] They work together. I have my advocate at Home Community Care, but the service provider obviously is there to provide care and protect their employees, all understood and everything like that. So I lost a few people who were coming into the home regularly through outbursts. The first one was a gentleman. He was coming somewhat regularly. And there was a bit of a fiasco in the sense that He told me that Colin hit him, but I didn’t hear a commotion. I didn’t hear observe it or any way. And it took him a week to report it to his employer. So I found it disingenuous in the sense that if it really was something, he was supposed to report it right away. That’s his duty. Even so, they cut him off, cut Colin off for a week or until we could have our meetings and go through that. And then I spoke to the coordinators hired up and they were all very company told the line and we’re not sending somebody back in until you do X, Y, Z. I did X, Y, Z. They brought people back. And then Colin had another outburst, what I described to you, where he punched the girl who, you know, suffers from the migrants. And she didn’t give him ample. She didn’t follow the care plan. The one thing that went wrong on that day is that we saw he was in a bad mood. We had a difficult time getting him down the stairs. I had to go take a meeting. I said to her, give him his protein drink. And she went to give it to him right away instead of letting him decompress. And that episode…
[4:00] I heard the commotion. I had to leave my meeting right as soon as I got on the meeting. I had to leave it, come down, found her composing herself. She wasn’t hurt or anything like that. But sure enough, obviously I expected a call, got a call. And apparently she went off on workman’s comp and I was like, okay, kind of thing. Cause she had, she says my migraine is getting worse. And she says she wanted to leave. And I just, I had a conversation with her. I said, do you want to come back? I knew her well enough to ask her. I said, are you comfortable or do you want to come back? And I guess she went away for a few days or when she told the employer what happened, they either told her you can’t go back or she decided she didn’t want to come back.
Coping with Behavioral Outbursts
[4:42] So again, Colin’s care has been on hold now for the last two weeks. I’ve had some private care brought in and Colin had a small outburst with the first girl who came. So she didn’t want to come back. It wasn’t serious, but it was enough for her to say to herself, she didn’t want to do it. And so now I have somebody new for the last week and a half and so far so good. I’m always there during the showering, the major hands-on care, the showering, the toileting, and getting dressed. I’m always there because those are the moments where he’s most vulnerable and he has a high likelihood of acting out. And we’ve determined that he needs long breaks between certain, you know, the showering activity.
[5:26] Let them have a rest 15 minutes, you know, or whatever it is, get them dressed, shave them, bring them downstairs, let them have a rest, you know, all of those things. So I’m doing everything I possibly can. Now the service provider wants me to look into those PRNs, I guess. I don’t know if you call it the same thing, but those as needed medications. So I’ve been waiting now for them to tell me whether or not Because Monday, actually, we go to see a neurologist. So I’ll ask about the PRNs. But the PRNs can take a while to find the balance or whatever. And the hard part for me is that Colin, when he’s low, it’s next to impossible for me to get him upstairs if I haven’t moved him up early enough.
[6:08] I had rearranged hours with the care provider that’s paid for for just an hour, for someone to come in for an hour every single night to help me put him to bed. But I don’t have that right now. And I can’t do that through private because they have a minimum, you know, three hours that they have to come for. So that didn’t make any sense. And that was part of the conversation with, you know, the caregiver, you know, the service provider, because I’ve had, you know, meetings with them. And I said, you know, I’m waiting on you guys to tell me when you’re willing to try again, because I can, I might see an improvement, but I also know how he is with me. The real test is how he is with strangers. Yeah.
Medication Management Discussions
[6:48] You know? So when are we going to try again? You know, it’s like, how do we know? We don’t until we bring somebody in, even on the parents. I mean, unless he’s completely sedated to the point where he’s, you know, we just don’t know.
[7:03] I, you know, just from, from what I know of Colin, he does better with women, women caregivers. He does better with them than, than yes. So as much as possible that we can have a female care provider, a female coming in and helping him, I think will alleviate some of the behaviors. And when they get in a rush, that’s when they’re going to precipitate what they see. I don’t know how much the company understands that their care partner is contributing his erupting. They understand to a degree. They have tried to put together a very detailed care plan. And according to the coordinator, it’s probably the most detailed that they’ve ever done. They admit that, you know, the, they have slim pickings in terms of the training level and experience level of the individuals. Like I have one PSW who is so experienced and her energy is always positive. He, he, they never, she has never had an issue with him versus the one that he punched who is a lower was a lower energy person she was not she didn’t have any of the bubbly personality that Colin responds to she was just kind right.
[8:22] But like I said I knew for a fact that she you know she told me many times that she suffers from migraines and wasn’t feeling very well I didn’t go so far as to tell her employer that I actually think she has a little bit of PTSD because back home in her original country, she actually dealt with psychotic people. And one time when she wasn’t even hands on with Colin, but Colin was hands on with me and he made a crazy face and filled his hands and, you know, stuck out his tongue in a little kind of way. He had a reaction and she had to leave the room.
[8:59] Then that may not be, then she may not be her son. No, definitely. I accept she, but she’d been coming for a while. And Everything generally would be okay, but she was the one, and I told them from early on, I said, she’s the one that I have the most concern about Colin acting out on. If he acts out with somebody else, it comes out of the blue for no reason, right? But the one that I have for the biggest, was having here for the biggest block on during the week, six hours, like so that I can actually go and do stuff if I have to. She is a, she’s a dream, right? Right. And the conversation that she had with her employer and partially was relayed back to me was that, well, again, the time thing. She’s got all the time in the world. If something doesn’t get done, it doesn’t get done. But I but we agreed a long time ago that even when somebody is here for an hour and a half, if something doesn’t get done, it doesn’t get done. You know, if he doesn’t have his apple, so be it.
[9:55] Kind of thing. If we don’t brush his teeth, so be it. All of that stuff. And and that she uses her techniques. You know, she keeps her back to him when she’s bent over trying to put on his slippers, for example, or whatever, so that he can’t, if he was to have a reaction, which he never has, that she protects herself. Right. Whereas other people bend over and Colin might swat them.
Balancing Care and Medication
[10:21] So, yeah, it’s that conversation is ongoing. But I believe that the service providers at the point where they don’t care, you know, they just simply don’t care because they believe Colin has become unpredictable. Predictable and uh believe that yeah i don’t believe that to be true either i’m i’ve seen too many people there there is a trigger they’re just not recognizing what that trigger is it’s either something in the environment is going on the tv’s on in the background they rushing him their emoji something something is called or it’s been too much back to back to back to back yeah there it’s not unpredictable they’re just not putting it together yeah but medication for him to keep him home i don’t want you to be afraid of that if that’s what yeah no i i i told them i was open to that i just said if it but if i told them if it if it reduced his quality of life then i would have a problem you know so that conversation is going to happen either way with the neurologist on Monday to find out what the options are and see how he tolerates it. But I mean, but if the service provider says, well, you have to give it to him no matter what before one of our employees come in, that kind of would set me off.
[11:37] But I want you to also consider that if you do not have the service provider at home, ultimately, he likely, you wouldn’t be able, and then he would end up in a long-term care facility, quality of his life is going to be. So she did just balance the pros and the cons of the two. No, I don’t want him snookered on medication, not at all, for sure. But if we can find the lowest dose ever medic to keep him a little more level so that they feel so that you can continue this good. I think that’s something that you really consider. Right.
Community Support and Resources
[12:09] I know it’s not a great answer. No, I mean, it just, it just helps to talk about it either way. Was that because it’s you know it gets me out of my head yeah no i get it i totally get it i totally totally but you’re doing such a good job i know it doesn’t always feel that oh yeah but i know that you are he is in extremely so are you thank you i appreciate that thank you any other quick questions no no i’m i it helps to talk 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.
[13:19] 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 appreciate that endorsement. You are 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.
