How To Never Make These Dementia Caregiver Mistakes: Resources for Caregivers
In this episode, we explore the common mistakes caregivers make while caring for loved ones with dementia and how to avoid them.
Drawing from personal experiences and biblical principles, this episode provides practical strategies to make caregiving easier and more compassionate.
1. Never Argue, Always Redirect
One of the most common mistakes caregivers make is arguing with their loved one. As dementia progresses, cognitive abilities decline, and trying to reason with or correct your loved one only increases frustration and anxiety for both parties.
Instead of arguing, focus on redirecting the conversation. If they say something incorrect, like wanting to go home even though they’re already home, ask them questions like, “What does home look like to you?”
This approach avoids conflict and helps create a more positive interaction.
2. Don’t Say “Don’t You Remember”
Saying “don’t you remember” is another common mistake that can cause unnecessary frustration and embarrassment. People with dementia genuinely cannot recall past events, and pointing this out only adds to their anxiety.
Instead, answer their repeated questions cheerfully each time, and avoid trying to get them to remember something they cannot. This simple shift in communication can reduce stress for both you and your loved one.
3. Validate, Don’t Correct
When your loved one says something incorrect, the instinct to correct them may be strong. However, correcting a person with dementia often leads to agitation and confusion. Instead, focus on validating their feelings. If they ask about a spouse who has passed away, rather than correcting them, you might ask, “Where do you think they are?”
This method validates their emotions and helps them feel understood without causing distress.
4. Never Force, Offer Limited Choices
Offering too many choices can overwhelm a person with dementia. Instead of open-ended questions like, “What would you like for breakfast?” give limited options like, “Would you prefer eggs or cereal?”
This approach reduces confusion and helps your loved one feel more in control while also making caregiving smoother.
5. Don’t Ignore Your Own Self-Care
One of the most important points in this episode is that self-care is non-negotiable. You cannot pour from an empty cup. Make time for rest and respite. Even God rested on the Sabbath, and so should you.
No one can provide 24/7 care without help, so be sure to build rest into your routine to avoid burnout.
Are you making any of these mistakes?
How can you start changing your caregiving approach today to foster better relationships and smoother caregiving?
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Transcript
[0:01] Hey, Christian caregiver, welcome to Dementia Caregiver Support for Christians, the podcast where I teach Bible-believing Christians how to make dementia care easier today while also helping you reimagine a brighter tomorrow.
Common Caregiver Mistakes
[0:18] I am super excited that you’re here today. I wanted to talk a little bit about some common mistakes that caregivers make with dementia caregiving.
[0:30] And so today’s episode is a little bit more of a down and dirty, a episode where hopefully you will have some practical strategies to take with you today to make your day literally easier as you learn and grow as a dementia caregiver. And so I wanted to tell you guys a story. I wanted to start with a story today. Many, many, many years ago, I started to notice some cognitive changes with my mom. And if you’ve listened to some of these episodes before, you might have heard me say that my mom was in her early 40s when she had a massive aneurysm. And I was 19 years old and hindsight is 20-20. I recognize now that there really, my mom should not have survived the aneurysm, but she did and she recovered very, very well. However, as she was aging after this massive aneurysm, she has had some other strokes over the years. And around 2012, my mom was diagnosed with what they called a transient ischemic attack or a TIA, or another word for it is a mini stroke. But what happened after that particular episode was that was when my mom’s short-term memory really was impacted when I, hindsight yet again, is 2020.
[1:56] Is when I can track back my mom’s memories starting to change. But I made so many mistakes with her. I was not super aware that she was having these changes. And what ended up happening is that I would say some really stupid things to her. But mom, I’ve already told you that. Or don’t you remember we’ve discussed this before? Or any of those kinds of mistakes that I was making. And this is, you know, very embarrassing because I’m an occupational therapist by background and training, and it shouldn’t have taken me this long to figure it out. But when you’re close to someone, it does sometimes take a little bit of time. But what this resulted in for my mom was a lot of anxiety.
[2:44] A lot of fear, a lot of embarrassment, a lot of negative emotions that my mom
Learning from Experience
[2:50] experienced because I was making the mistake of saying some of these things to her. And so I want to now tell you a follow-up story, which is when my dad started to have some of these changes.
[3:06] Well, thankfully, learning is something that most of us can do. And I learned from the mistakes with my mom. And so when my dad started having some of the signs and symptoms of having some memory problems, I did not make the same errors. And what has been fascinating is my father has no anxiety. My father has no fear or negative emotions related to the fact that he doesn’t remember things. And so I really reflected on that over the years, that our initial responses, our initial way of speaking to and helping somebody who is having true memory changes
Five Mistakes to Avoid
[3:47] can significantly impact or change the outcome of what it is that we see. So what we’re going to talk about today are five mistakes to never make as a caregiver when helping somebody living with dementia. So the first mistake we tend to make is that people, We argue with the person living with dementia. So the first thing is never argue, always redirect.
[4:17] When a person living with cognitive changes is changing, the reality is there are physical actual changes to both the chemistry as well as the physical connections in the person’s brain. There is an actual physical change in their brain. The challenge with that is because it’s not a overt or visible impairment.
[4:45] For example, somebody has an amputation, we can see that they do not have a leg. It is visible to us on the outside. It is easier for us to remember ourselves and to accommodate for the fact that that person is an amputee. Well, a person whose brain is changing has a physical thing going on on the inside. The challenge for us as the people who are around them is it is not visible to us that there are actual physical brain changes occurring, which means we’re constantly a step behind. Because the person has these actual physical changes in their brain, one of the things that you need to know or consider is that reasoning with them is not an efficient strategy. And the way it comes out that we are reasoning with a person living with cognitive loss is that we tend to argue with them. What are some concrete examples of that? I want to go home. Well, mom, you are at home. No, I’m not home. I don’t live here. Yes, mom, you’ve lived here for 50 years.
[5:54] This is your home. I’m telling you, I don’t live here. This is not my home. And so what happens when we start to argue with that person. And I really want you to go back to the episode earlier this week, which was how to prepare for dementia care, which is episode 187, and listen to that particular episode, because one of the things that I bring out in that episode is that the foundation of our caregiving as a dementia caregiver is the relationship that we have with that person. When we argue with that person, we are breaking that relationship with them. And what ends up happening over time is that we are unable to recoup that because later on, the thing that that person is going to remember is not what you said. It’s not what you did. It is how you made them feel. So when we’re arguing with somebody, we’re breaking that relationship.
[7:01] And later on, when we get to the point where we really need to be able to connect on the emotional level, level with them. We’ve destroyed that relationship and we have a problem. So never argue with a person who has an active brain change and always work on redirecting the person off of whatever it is. So back to the example I was using, I want to go home. Mom, you are at home. Okay, so we’re not going to argue. I want to go home. All right, Lizette, tell me more about home.
[7:32] Tell me more about home, who’s at home, and get the person that you are helping to talk to you. Because home for them could be a variety of different things, depending on where they believe they are at that moment in their life. For them, they could be a 12-year-old child that’s supposed to be home with their parent or their sibling. For them, home could be a specific geographic location, or home could be a feeling. So by getting the person to tell you what they mean by asking questions is a way for you to get information. So the first thing, never ever argue, always redirect, and then ask leading
Redirect, Don’t Argue
[8:16] questions to try to get the person to tell you a little bit more about what it is that they mean. And fill in the gaps. If they cannot tell you what those words are, then you just go ahead and you fill in the gap and try to get them to try to connect with them on an emotional level. The second mistake that you should never, ever, ever make as a caregiver, because this is something that I did. It’s the example that I used at the beginning of this episode where I said, never say, don’t you remember? This was the biggest mistake I made early on with my mom. I frequently said to her, mom, don’t you remember? We talked about that. Well, what it created for her was frustration, anxiety.
[9:01] Embarrassment, all these negative emotions which totally distracted our relationship from one another and caused my mom a lot of frustration and a lot of anger and a lot of fear. And so I really want you to concentrate on the fact that We don’t need to remind people that they’re not remembering.
[9:24] I want you to imagine an old-time film projection, right? Remember, we’ve all seen them, right? Each one of those pictures is a different picture, and if you go fast enough, then you have a motion picture, right? Or think about a slideshow where you go from one slide to the next slide to the next slide. The person is living right in that moment.
[9:48] And so they are aware of the situation or whatever is going on right then and there, but they really do not remember the slide before or the slide 10 slides before.
[10:01] So when we’re telling them, don’t you remember, they really do not remember. And it’s kind of like most of us have used a computer, right? And sometimes you save something in the computer and for whatever reason, it didn’t save, it was corrupted and poof, it’s gone, right? Saying to the computer, where is that file? Give me the file that it never saved is not going to be effective because it’s not going to be able to retrieve out of there. So never say to somebody, don’t you remember? Just go with the flow. Every single time they say to you things like, where is the whatever, right? You cheerfully answer them. What day is it today? Oh, today is Friday, October the 18th, as I’m recording this. Cheerfully answer the question like it was the first time. And it is something that if you cultivate the habit of doing this and just letting it go and saying, but they don’t remember, so trying to get them to remember is not an efficient strategy. It means that it’ll take a lot of the stress off of you. It’s kind of like turn into a broken record. It doesn’t matter if you have to say it 500 times that day. Yes, it can be super frustrating and annoying, but if you just make it a habit and a pattern of doing it cheerfully, I guarantee you, you will have a different outcome.
Validation Over Correction
[11:25] The person will not experience anxiety related to the fact that they cannot remember something. So that’s the second caregiver mistake we frequently make. The third caregiver mistake we frequently make is never correct, validate them instead. And it’s similar and goes hand in hand related to arguing with the person with dementia or trying to reason with the person with dementia. But when you never correct them and you just validate what it is that you see, it goes a long way towards decreasing that person’s anxiety because they will feel confused. They will feel ashamed.
[12:09] Are you a Christian dementia caregiver feeling overwhelmed? Sign up for your personalized dementia care audit with me. With over 30 years of experience, I’ll provide you tailored strategies and support, but from a Christian perspective. We only have one slot available per month. Gain peace of mind and confidence. Schedule your personal dementia care audit today.
[12:42] So if somebody says something that is not true, like I said, don’t correct them. It’s kind of like, don’t argue, just validate what they said. For example, if somebody asks, where is my husband who has passed away? You can say to them something along the lines of, well, where do you think that they are? Right? I don’t want to train myself to actually lie. It’s called therapeutic lying. and there I have a great episode and we recently just re-released it talking about breaking the cycle of therapeutic lying using a new caregiving method which is what I call therapeutic truth telling it’s episode 180 so go check it out because I really as a Christian made this mistake early on and I would use therapeutic lying and I’ve been convicted that that is wrong and so So use validation.
[13:39] Try to meet the person where they are, validate their emotions. If they are frustrated, say, it looks like you’re frustrated. I’m sorry, you’re frustrated. Acknowledge the fact that they are frustrated. Something else that is a helpful strategy is we frequently tell a person living with dementia, no, right? I want you to try to train yourself to say yes. So a way of reminding them or doing it is thinking through a way of doing this is if a person says, well, today is Monday and it’s Friday, you can just say.
[14:18] Yes, how about we do something else, right? So just try to train yourself to use the response, yes, instead of just always telling the person no. It’s super frustrating to everybody. Most people do not like to be told no. Normal people don’t like to be told no. So the more we tell somebody who is living with dementia no, the more we are continuing to precipitate this particular negative cycle of
Choices, Not Force
[14:45] frustration and anxiety and difficulty. The fourth mistake that we never should make with a person living with dementia or a caregiver mistake that we frequently make is we should never force the person.
[15:00] But we should offer them limited choices, right? And I really mean limited choices. A good example that I use with my clients frequently is that a person living with dementia, I want you to imagine going to a restaurant where you have 45 choices of things that you like to eat. That are available to eat. And when our brain is changing, having those many different options, those many different choices can get overwhelming for the person. So when we are helping somebody, never force them, but give them limited choices. Instead of 45 items to choose from on the menu, you know that there are two choices available. I’ll use this as an example. I had a client I was working with once who would ask her parents what they would like for breakfast.
[15:56] And I actually asked her, I said, if they asked you for bacon and eggs and pancakes, et cetera, is that something that you can or are willing to make for them right now? And she’s like, no. I’m like, then you don’t ask, what do you want to have for breakfast? Because that’s open-ended. It means I can ask for anything. You give the person two choices. You give them the choice between, do you want this or do you want that? And the choices are things that you can, that you are willing and able to do. So when you force somebody to do something, it makes them frustrated.
[16:35] Think about yourself. When you are forced to do something, it can be super, super frustrating to you. And so offer the person simple solutions, simple choices that they can make with the outcome that you want them to get to. So if you need the person to take a shower and they’re not wanting to take a shower, you give them two limited choices. Would you like to take your shower after breakfast or before lunch and you give them just those two choices instead of unlimited choices and don’t force them into participating in an activity that they are not at that moment willing or able to participate in. Remember that we want to preserve the relationship and not just do the task. Another episode that you can go listen to is episode 176, where we have a whole episode looking at what it really means to be in control versus in charge. And so it’s very important to be in charge and not in control because it will make your dementia caregiving journey easier. We do not want to control. We want to not control the person because anybody who is controlled is automatically
Importance of Self-Care
[17:58] going to respond to that.
[18:00] And then the last mistake we never want caregivers to make is never ignore your self-care. Make time for rest. I really want you to hear this and sit with this for a second because we serve a God of order and we serve a God of creation and God created in six days and he rested on the Sabbath.
[18:25] I want you to consider that respite was built in to the fabric of our lives right from the beginning of creation. We are built to have rest. God did not need to rest. He created the Sabbath for us because we need rest. And God built in into the fabric of Israel, respite, and those were called years of jubilee, right? And the Lord built in for us in the church a day of rest every single week. We need to be able to rest. No one person, and hear me and hear me well and clearly, no one person can provide 24-hour supervision to a person living with dementia. And you’ve heard me say on this program, if a person…
[19:20] Lives long enough with dementia, they will require 24-hour supervision. It is just going to happen if they live long enough. Yes, I know you’re saying, but not all people need 24-hour care when they have dementia. Some people pass away before they get to that point. Kind of like thinking about an airplane flying and then having something happen and there’s a crash, right? The airplane falls out of the sky. That is a person who is living their life and has dementia, who has a medical condition that occurs, that’s a stroke or a heart attack or a stroke or cancer or something else, that they are navigating this journey, but before they get to the end stages of dementia, that they actually pass away. What I want you to hear clearly is if you live long enough with dementia, you will need 24-hour supervision. And so you as a primary care person of somebody living with dementia need to know and recognize no one person, never will one person be able to provide 24-hour supervision.
[20:33] Seven days a week, 365 days a year for another person living with dementia. We have to make time for rest. So you cannot ignore your self-care. You have to build it in earlier. We believe that we are indestructible, that this won’t happen to us. But kind of like when your kids were little, you had to take time away from them too when you were providing 24-hour care. So five common mistakes that dementia caregivers frequently make. And what I wanted to do today is make it a little bit more down and dirty and give you some practical tips. So yet again, never argue, always redirect. Never say, don’t remember, or don’t you remember.
[21:16] Never correct, validate instead.
Recap of Key Mistakes
[21:20] Never force, offer limited choices, and never ignore your own self-care.
[21:27] You have to make time for rest. Now, if you have enjoyed these episodes, I invite you to share them with another Christian caregiver. If you are a Christian living, if you are a Christian listening to those podcasts, and you have other family members or people in church that you know that are struggling as a dementia caregiver,
Future-Focused Caregiving
[21:50] please point them to the newly renamed Dementia Caregiver Support for Christians podcast. I love serving this particular audience. I know that we serve a good and kind and loving God and that he has put this on my heart to help you navigate dementia caregiving in an easier way by giving you practical tips and strategies today, but also helping you keep your eye on the future because the Lord is future-focused. And I’m going to keep saying that every single time I have an opportunity to say that.
[22:31] We serve a God that has us, if you read your Bible carefully, you will notice that the Lord is pointing us to a new heavens and a new earth, a future-focused message, and that we are one day going to be with him in glory. And what a glorious way to end today’s episode. So if you know other families who are struggling with dementia that are Christians.
[22:59] Please share these podcast episodes with them. If you’d like them, please subscribe and give me some feedback on Apple podcasts and really communicate with me. Go check out the new website. It’s called thinkdifferentdementia.com. Go check it out. And if you’re ready for a conversation, hop on my calendar and we can have a conversation and see how I can perhaps help you through this particular time and season of caregiving in your life. As I end all my episodes, may the Lord bless you and keep you, and I look forward to having you listen to or watch, if you’re on YouTube, the next episode.
