How To Best Manage Repetitive Dementia Care Tasks: Resources For Caregivers
Are you feeling overwhelmed by the repetitive tasks involved in dementia caregiving? From answering the same questions to managing daily routines, it can feel like you’re stuck in an endless loop of caregiving duties.
The Emotional Toll of Repetitive Caregiving
One of the most challenging aspects of dementia caregiving is the emotional toll of dealing with repetitive behaviors.
Whether it’s answering the same question over and over or assisting with daily tasks like bathing and dressing, these routines can become exhausting. This constant repetition often leads caregivers to feel frustrated and even burnt out.
In this episode, we discuss how caregiving frustration often comes from wanting control. Letting go and focusing on providing care with patience and love is key.
Keeping Tasks Simple
To manage repetitive tasks, we introduce the KISS principle: Keep It Simple. Simplifying routines and creating consistency helps tasks become habits, saving mental energy.
Setting a fixed time for daily activities like meals or hygiene creates a rhythm, making caregiving easier. The less you have to think about each step, the more energy you’ll save.
Using Visual Cues for Repetitive Behaviors
Dealing with repetitive questioning can be one of the most draining parts of dementia caregiving. One practical tip shared in the episode is to use visual reminders around the house.
For instance, if your loved one frequently asks where certain items are kept, label cabinets with pictures or words. This simple adjustment can reduce repetitive questions and free up your time and energy.
Leveraging Technology to Ease Caregiving
We live in an age of technology, and caregivers can benefit immensely from using apps to help manage daily tasks. From grocery shopping lists to medication reminders, technology can automate and simplify your caregiving routine.
In this episode, we highlight several apps designed to make life easier for both caregivers and those living with dementia.
For example, apps that help with medication management can ensure that your loved one takes their prescriptions on time without you needing to constantly monitor them. Other apps can help with meal planning or household management, saving you precious time and energy.
Play to Your Strengths
One powerful insight from this episode is the importance of playing to your strengths. As a caregiver, you have unique talents and ways of managing stress.
Whether it’s making a game out of completing tasks or using checklists to stay organized, the key is to find what works for you.
If you’re a competitive person, set small challenges for yourself—like completing three tasks in an hour. If you thrive on organization, use checklists to keep track of your progress.
By recognizing and using your strengths, you can create a caregiving routine that feels more manageable and less stressful.
Responding with Grace
The final takeaway from this episode is the importance of responding to repetitive behaviors with grace. Caregiving can be frustrating, but the way you react to your loved one’s actions can make a huge difference.
Answer questions patiently, with a smile, and repeat information as though it’s the first time you’re being asked.
The episode reminds caregivers that God is patient with us, repeating His commandments and offering grace even when we stumble. In the same way, we’re called to be patient and loving with our loved ones, even when the repetitive nature of caregiving becomes overwhelming.
Conclusion: Finding Balance in Repetitive Caregiving
Lizette provides practical solutions for managing the repetitive tasks and emotional challenges of dementia caregiving. By simplifying routines, using technology, and responding with grace, you can reduce the mental load and improve your caregiving experience.
Remember, you don’t have to do it all perfectly—you just need to take small steps to make caregiving a little easier each day.
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Transcript
[0:10] today and how to help caregivers re-imagine a brighter future tomorrow. Today we are going to talk about how best to manage repetitive dementia care tasks as a resource for you as a caregiver. Now, sometimes we think about repetitive behaviors like answering repetitive questions and those kinds of things like pacing and wandering and hallucinations and all of these kinds of repetitive things that come up with dementia and dementia caregiving. But there’s a lot of repetitive tasks in caregiving that are not just the emotional.
[0:52] There’s the physical stuff too, right? So we have both the physical caregiving tasks, helping somebody take a shower, helping somebody clean up, helping somebody eat, all of those kinds of things. And sometimes all of these repetitive dementia care tasks take over our lives and we forget that there still is an end to this, that there is a life after caregiving. We are so focused on the doing of dementia that we forget to look at the bigger picture. We forget to look at our relationships. We forget to look at our self-care. We forget to do all of the things that we know intuitively are vitally important for us to be able to do and manage in order to actually have an easier caregiving journey. So I thought we would talk about this a little bit today. I know we’ve all seen this. We’ve seen the repetitive responsive behaviors in
Understanding Repetitive Behaviors
[2:08] dementia, the repetitive.
[2:11] Questioning, doing or saying something over and over and over again. And these things annoy us. But more than that sometimes, and I see this with my own dad, ironically.
[2:24] Sometimes it’s the day-to-day things that we have to do to help and provide care for another person that is annoying. So for example, before the person started to live with dementia, they might have been helping you do the dishes, or they might have been helping you with the laundry, or they might have been helping you grocery shopping or with the yard work. And now as the person’s abilities are changing with the changes in their brain, they’re no longer able to help you if you are a spouse or if they’re a parent living with you or whatever your situation is, they may not be able to help you with some of these repetitive tasks that all of us have to do on a day-to-day basis in order to manage life, right? It’s we take care of ourselves, we take care of a house, we take care of our spouses, we take care of our relationships, we do the grocery shopping, we do the laundry, we do the dishes. In dementia and dementia caregiving, there’s a component of it that is just taking care of the house. And if you listen back to an earlier episode this week, 183.
[3:38] Where we talked about my personal reflections on Hurricane Helene and its impact, we talked a little bit about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, right? So we have to be able to put food on the table. We have to be able to do all of these different things. And all of these tasks that we get to do, or all of the questions, or all of the things that we have to answer all the time can get annoying. I don’t know about you, but sometimes it is super annoying to answer the same question over and over again. I’ll use my husband and I as an example right now. Both of us have a little bit of hearing loss. We live in a duplex that if you’re on one side of the duplex with all of the angles in the house, you can’t hear one another. So if he starts to talk to me and he’s in the kitchen and I’m doing something in the bedroom, I get super annoyed because I’ve repetitively told him, don’t talk to me if you’re not standing here. I can’t hear you, right? So these are the annoying things that we all deal with all the time. And if we’re super honest with ourselves, we all want it our way. don’t we?
[4:47] You know, I’m the most important person in my life. I don’t know about you, but you’re probably the most important person in your life. If we do it the right way, God is the most important person in our life. And then everything flows from there. But we are sinful creatures and we want our own way. And so when we’re dealing with these things, it gets annoying because really the root of that is, I don’t get to do things the way I want to get to do them, which if I really boil it down to the root root, and I wasn’t planning on going this way, but since it kind of started to come out anyway, the root of that is pride.
[5:31] And you know what that is? One of my besetting sins is pride. And most of us, that is the thing that separates us from the love of God, because we believe that we should have everything the way we want it. We believe that we are the most important person in the world because everything for me revolves around me. Everything for you revolves around you. And if we take it one step further, everything for the person that we’re caring for revolves around them. And it really is just sin, right? What is sin? Sin is the lack of conformity of, for us, to the will of God. It’s our want of conformity. We do not want to follow God’s laws. We do not want to obey.
[6:19] We want things the way we want things, and that is why we are always needing to repent and go back to God, because we cannot, cannot follow these, the laws of God, God’s righteous law, we cannot follow it completely at all. We strive to, but none of us can. The only one who has is Jesus Christ, and he died for my sins because I am not able to do that. So today’s conversation took a little bit of a turn after I outlined this episode, but my prayer whenever I prepare for these is, Lord, prepare and provide the right words in my mouth, right? So I believe that the Lord wanted me to say this today, and I am super excited that I know and understand that I’m a sinner created in the image of God, and that I need a Redeemer to redeem me from my sin. And my sin is at the root of all of my own problems, right? And so back to our episode where we’re talking about how to best manage the repetitiveness of dementia caregiving, the tasks, both the repetitive questions.
[7:38] The repetitive tasks, why are all of these things challenges for us, right? So remember when our kids were little and we had to do all the things, right? We were super frustrated at the beginning because it was physically exhausting, right? Babies can’t say thank you. We feel in our being a parent and raising babies and making them turn into young adults over time, we feel like there’s never enough time. We’re juggling all the things. We may be working.
The Toll of Caregiving
[8:09] We may be trying to be a husband or a wife. We may be trying to be a sibling. We may be trying to be a parent.
[8:16] We have different roles and responsibilities. Some of us might be working still. Some of us might be homemakers. We have all of these things that we have to do these tasks in caregiving, because being a parent is a caregiver.
[8:31] But we know in terms of that journey that there is going to be an end. And we have a better idea of the timeline because we know how old our kids are. My direct neighbors right now, they have 18-month-old boy, and she’s pregnant with number two. And we know that depending on how many children they have, They have 18 to 21 years from now, and then their caregiving journey related to being a parent and growing adults are raised in the fear and admonition of the Lord is going to end. There’s a deadline. There’s a timeline. But with dementia, it takes a different toll on us. Because we do not necessarily know when it’s going to end. We know it’s going to end at some point or another. The Lord is either going to call me home or the person I’m carrying home at some point or another. We know that our caregiving journey is going to end, but it’s an open-ended end. We don’t know how long it’s going to be. We don’t know if it’s two weeks or three months or six years or 20 years in the case of one of my clients, right? We have no end date. It’s always easier to do something when we know it’s going to end.
[9:47] Like you can tolerate anything for a short period of time if you know how long it’s going to take. So in relation to dementia and dementia caregiving, it really does take a different toll. Being a parent caregiver raising children is very much a physical toll. Yes, there’s some emotional components to it. I’m not saying that there are not. But in relation to dementia, dementia and dementia caregiving, the research shows the reason people burn out is not the physical care. It is the emotional toll of caregiving.
The Importance of Grace
[10:22] Yes, there is a physical toll, but it is much harder emotionally for people. And that is where we need to give ourselves grace, right? God gives us grace every single day. Now, what is the definition of grace? The definition of grace is unmerited favor. That is what God gives us in Christ, right? We deserve God’s wrath and condemnation, but he gives us Christ, and he gives us Christ in a gracious way, because we do not deserve it. We do not deserve forgiveness. So grace, the definition of grace is unmerited favor. And you, dear Christian caregiver, need to give yourself grace in this journey as well, related to just sometimes taking a deep breath and saying, I’ve done the best I can. I didn’t do it perfectly, but I did the best I can. And give yourself some grace. So the second thing we’re going to look at today, we’re just briefly going to look at some practical strategies.
Practical Strategies for Caregiving
[11:29] So what are some practical strategies? Keep it simple, stupid. We all know that principle, right? Keep it simple. The KISS principle. Simple routines, consistency, routines, those things are vitally important when you are dealing with dementia. And so if we’re dealing with the repetitive tasks that we have to do as a caregiver.
[11:51] Keeping things consistent, doing it the same way over and over every single day will make it easier. If we can move things out of the, I have to think about it into the habit track, then we will be able to do things for a longer period of time. The more we have to think about doing something, the more energy it takes. The more energy it takes, the more tired I get. The more tired I get, the more of an emotional toll it will take on me. So if we can move things out of the thinking part of our brain and into the habit path, then we will be able to sustain this over a longer period of time. Find some ways of coping for yourself related to some of the repetitive behaviors that people show, which are things like repetitive questioning or pacing or other things like that. Find some visual reminders. If somebody is always asking you the same question, where do we keep the XYZ?
[12:52] Then label the cabinets, put things with pictures or words depending on where the person is so that you can cut down on some of the repetitive questions that you will then have to stop what you’re doing to go and answer. So that’s a very practical strategy related to questions that you can use for yourself, for the running of the household, for the taking care of the tasks that we have to do. If you’re a checklist person, use a checklist. If it makes you feel better, if you know that you need to go grocery shopping and you’re one of these people that use a checklist use a checklist. But if you’re a person like me that a checklist drives crazy.
[13:33] Don’t try to use a checklist, right? You got to play to your strengths. For me, a better way for me to do things is I have to make it a game. I have to almost compete against myself. I have to tell myself, if you get these three things done within an hour, boom, and then boy, I’m on, right? So if I can get my groceries, you know, the shopping done and the bed made and all of that stuff, and I give myself a deadline and a timeline.
[13:59] Man, I’m Johnny on the spot. I can get it done. So you have to know what your own innate strengths are and play to your strengths. We all have strengths. And that’s the other thing that we don’t factor in is how to use your strengths, your innate God-given strengths to help you in your dementia caregiving journey. Another practical solution for you to use is leverage technology. We live in an age of technology. There are apps for everything. Automate what you can automate. Delegate what you can delegate. I know that’s not an app, but it is a strategy. Delegate what you can delegate and use an app. So if you’re trying to, there are apps for routines for people living with dementia that you can put an app on a phone that there are ways to use as strategies. There’s so much technology out there. There are apps that can help you with meal planning. There are apps that can help you with budgeting.
Leveraging Technology in Caregiving
[14:58] There are apps that can help you with writing a grocery list. Use technology as a caregiver. There are apps that can help you with medication management. Use technology to leverage your time as a caregiver.
[15:12] Not all apps are going to be applicable for you to use with the person that’s living with dementia. Some are designed for people with dementia, but you as the caregiver can certainly utilize apps to make your life easier. Be selective in your apps. Don’t just have 45 apps. Choose the best apps. We have an old joke, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. So start with the biggest problem. If it’s running the household, then get an app to help you run the household, whatever it may be. And then related back to another practical strategy related to repetitive questions, because this is something that comes up a lot for people, is keep the relationship in view at all times, which means you as the caregiver cheerfully answer the question the same way every single time, like it’s the first time you’ve heard it, and just be the broken record. I know it’s hard, but you know what? When you train your brain to do it, it actually becomes easier because then it becomes a habit and you don’t have to think about it. What time is it? Oh, it’s 1.36.
[16:25] Okay, thank you. Keep going, doing whatever you’re doing. Oh, honey, what time is it? I forgot what time it is. Oh, it’s 1.36.
[16:33] Just answer the question every single time, positive tone, happy voice, smile at the person. Because what I noticed over time is that we’ve actually created the anxiety. A lot of people with dementia experience is because we correct them. We tell them, oh, but I told you that. Oh, but I told you that. They really don’t remember. So if you You can train yourself to cheerfully answer or cheerfully do the task over and over and over again and just make it a habit and put it on autopilot.
[17:06] Kind of like that broken record. All of us remember a record player. If you do that, it will go a long way in maintaining your relationship. And I want to remind us, and this is for myself as well. Trust me, I do not cast stones. this is part of my sanctification journey too. God is long-suffering with us, and he tells us the same stuff over and over and over again. He tells us, follow the Ten Commandments, repent and obey, over and over and over again. Turn away from your sin, repent and obey. How many times do I need to forgive somebody? 70 times 7, which does not literally mean 70 times 7. It literally means repent and obey. If somebody asks me for forgiveness 100,000 times, I will forgive them 100,000 times. That’s what we are mandated to do. God is long-suffering with us, and we need to be long-suffering with the people around us, specifically the people living with dementia, because they do not do this on purpose.
[18:08] I know sometimes it feels like that. I know sometimes it does,
The Mind Game of Caregiving
[18:12] but we do not get what we deserve from God because he is long-suffering to us. So we need to be long-suffering to the people that we are helping who are living with dementia, specifically related to repetitive dementia caregiving tasks. Now what’s the last point for today? If you are struggling with this because of the emotional toll it is taking on you, you need to find support. Caregiving is is a mind game. I know that sounds odd for some people who may not have been listening to me for a long time, but life is a mind game, right? We are mandated to actually think God’s thoughts after him, right? And the more I’m in this realm and working with family caregivers from a kingdom focused perspective, the more I realize that how we think about our caregiving journey is how we go. That is exactly where we go. Caregiving is a mind game. Life is a mind game. We are mandated by God to think God’s thoughts after him. And as long as we are in the world’s view of dementia, which is, it is doom and gloom. It is terrible.
[19:30] It is the worst thing that can happen to us. It is whatever the narrative is related to dementia and dementia caregiving, if we are thinking those thoughts all the time, then guess what? We will get that result. If you train yourself to think God’s thoughts after him, that this is God’s providence, that this is for my sanctification and for the person whom I’m helping, for their sanctification, for God’s glory. If this is for perseverance, that this is for learning to be patient, whatever it is. If we think God’s thoughts after him, I promise you, I guarantee your dementia caregiving journey will have a different outcome. If you have a kingdom focused, a kingdom mind related to your dementia caregiving, you will have a different result. Yes, the ultimate result is the person you are caring for will pass away, but so am I. unless the Lord comes again.
[20:34] You and I are also going to pass away. This is a normal, innocent, cursed world result of sin is the wages of sin is death, and we are all going to pass away unless the Lord comes. Now, something that is also very important is who we surround ourselves with. If you are a listener who is surrounding yourself with negative Facebook groups or reading books that are only highlighting the terrible nature of this disease. If you are surrounding yourself with people who are only complaining and not seeking active solutions, you will get the results of having a hard and difficult caregiving journey.
Joining a Supportive Community
[21:23] So if you’re ready to join a community of like-minded caregivers.
[21:29] Just like you and me, if you are wanting to think differently about your dementia caregiving journey, if you want to have a kingdom-focused dementia caregiving journey, if you want to find more support for your dementia caregiving journey, I invite you to schedule a call with me where we can see exactly where you are and we can see how we can work together to make this dementia caregiving journey easier for you. I invite you to schedule a 20-minute phone call with me. I promise you if you sign up and come to one of these calls, you’ll walk away with an actionable strategy to be able to use. But I have grown and developed a community of like-minded caregivers where we come together and we think God’s thoughts after him. But it’s also a the rubber hits the road type of a community where we are.
[22:34] Problem-solving, and implementing solutions, practical solutions to everyday real problems, today’s problems with the future focus. So thank you for joining me for today’s episode. I love serving this community. I invite you to, if you haven’t joined my Facebook group, join the Facebook group. If you like these episodes, share them with other people. I really want to grow this audience of kingdom-focused dementia caregivers. I want you to remember that I pray for every one of you every single day, not by name, but by category.
[23:14] And I want you to be able to know that you have somebody that you can reach out to and talk to if you need help. So like I end all of my episodes, may the Lord bless you and keep you. Share these episodes, join my Facebook group, come hang out with me on YouTube, all sorts of ways to connect. But may the Lord bless you and keep you until the next time we meet again.
