5 Quick Tips for Managing Anger and Aggression in Dementia Care
Are you struggling to manage anger and aggression in your loved one with dementia?
These challenging emotions can feel overwhelming, but there are practical ways to navigate them while maintaining peace for both you and your loved one.
Understanding the Root Cause
Anger and aggression in dementia aren’t random. They often stem from deeper triggers. These could range from physical discomfort to emotional distress.
The key to managing these episodes lies in identifying the triggers. Keep a detailed behavior log. Note the time, environment, and events leading up to the outburst. This log can reveal patterns, helping you anticipate and prevent future episodes.
The Power of Calm Communication
When faced with aggression, your response matters. Using a calm tone and simple, reassuring language can help soothe your loved one. Avoid arguing or correcting them. Instead, validate their feelings.
Phrases like “Let’s work on this together” can diffuse tension and foster a sense of safety.
Redirect and Reassure
Sometimes, a gentle redirection is all it takes to shift your loved one’s focus away from their anger. Engage them in an activity they enjoy, like a walk or a simple task. If they’re too upset, give them some space.
It’s okay to step back and allow them to calm down on their own.
Address Basic Needs
Anger often has a simple cause. Is your loved one hungry? Thirsty? In pain? Checking and addressing these basic needs can prevent many outbursts. Ensure their environment is comfortable and soothing, free from overstimulation like loud noises or chaotic surroundings.
Creating a Peaceful Environment
A calm environment can make a world of difference. Background noise, like a blaring TV, can be distressing for someone with dementia. Ensure their surroundings are peaceful and familiar.
Soft lighting, quiet spaces, and comforting objects can create a sanctuary of calmness, reducing the likelihood of aggression.
By incorporating these strategies, you can create a more peaceful caregiving experience. Remember, you’re not alone in this journey. There are communities and resources available to support you as you care for your loved one.
Feel free to join our monthly “Ask the Dementia Coach” sessions for personalized guidance and support. Together, we can make the caregiving journey less stressful and more fulfilling.
Read More:
Talking About Caregiver Burnout With Michelle Gordon
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[0:01] Well, what’s up, Christian caregiver? Welcome back to Christian Dementia Caregiving, the podcast where we teach Bible-believing Christians how to still have hope as well as peace during their dementia caregiving journey. And today’s five quick tips episode is specifically about how to handle anger and aggression. Now, anger and aggression in dementia and dementia caregiving is something that I feel very near and dear about because there’s always the component of making sure that both the person living with dementia is safe, but specifically the caregiver. We cannot take the caregiver out of this equation.
[0:55] And anger and aggression can be one of those things that really, really can be very challenging specifically for the caregiver for a variety of different reasons, all the way from size discrepancy, a much bigger husband who’s stronger than his wife. That can be a very scary situation for people. I’ll never forget working with a specific person who would get extremely angry at other people, but wouldn’t necessarily get angry at me. So sometimes we have to put a different care partner in. But there are a lot of reasons why a person could possibly have anger or aggression in their dementia caregiving journey. Some of it could just be that they have always been an angry person and that as their inhibition switch has gone away, they’re not able to control those emotions before. I do feel and I believe that our ability to have emotional regulation.
[2:05] Which is one of the executive functions we have when we are developing into normal adult people, we learn or we’re supposed to learn to be able to control our own emotions. Now, sometimes over time in a dementia journey, we lose that inhibition switch and what we see is what has always been there and it sometimes surprises us. But I don’t know about you, but if you are perfectly honest with yourself, you know that sometimes we’re not that nice on the inside. We’re just able to control it, right? We’re able to inhibit those thoughts, those words, those things.
[2:51] I want you to consider, you know, the last time you drove down the road and somebody cut in front of you, what was your first automatic response? I guarantee you it wasn’t necessarily great. It wasn’t necessarily edifying. Some people are able to maybe control it a little bit better. Some people might have been blessed with a little bit better, you know, fruit of the spirit, which is gentleness and peace. But some people aren’t. And I have always been fearful that this is going to be one of my biggest challenges because anger is something that comes extremely easily to me. So I’m full aware of anger as being something that we have to be able to consider
Coping with Aggression
[3:38] as we are going through a dementia caregiving journey. But what are some quick tips, five quick tips related to coping with aggression specifically in people living with dementia?
[3:52] It can be very distressing for the person as well as you as the caregiver. giver. But if we are sensitive to maybe some of what is causing this, we may be able to mitigate the effect of these specific triggers for you and the person you are helping. So I have this little acronym that I always teach people. It’s called PEACE. Person, Environment, Activities, the care partner, and then we educate around that. And there are numerous episodes where we unpack these a little bit more, but related to aggression, there’s always something that is triggering this, whether it be emotional from the person, whether it be something that I do or say. So a good strategy number one is keep a behavior law to be able to track patterns and potential things that is causing this specific thing.
[5:00] The pattern could be a person coming in, a different caregiver. I didn’t sleep well at night before. You have to be very specific when you are doing a behavior log. Time of day. Who was there? What happened right before that? Sometimes it could be a couple of hours before that and see if you can figure out what is causing that particular behavior to happen. It could be a specific time of day. It could be a medication side effect or a change in routine. And then when you know what is triggering or possibly triggering it, then we have something to work at because there is usually, usually specifically with anger, something that is causing it. So a dementia diary is a very, very good way to start. The second quick tip is try as much as possible, and this is where I fail miserably because anger is my dad’s default setting and anger is my default setting. So do as I say, don’t do as I do, right? I want you to try as best as possible to use a calm tone, reassuring language, speak slowly.
[6:25] Very simple sentences, ask the tell me more questions or tell me more about it or say things that are tapping into that emotional reserve. Try to use positive body language, relaxed posture we all know how we’re supposed to.
[6:47] Interact with one another. And we don’t always do that, especially when somebody gets angry. Do not try to argue or correct. Validate the person’s emotion. Let’s try this together or statements that move towards trying to understand what might have caused the outburst. And this is This is definitely a way I know that as a care partner, I sometimes contribute to the situation is through my own nonverbal or even verbal contribution to it because of my own strength levels. As much as you can, you need to try to see if you can diffuse the situation.
[7:37] My mom always used to say, it’s not what I say, it’s how I say it. And that has always stuck with me. So let’s keep that in mind as we are using our language and our calm tones.
[7:50] The third quick tip today is try some redirection. We have to be careful in how we redirect a person specifically if they are angry. Sometimes the best strategy is just to give them some space. If the person is safe and they’re angry, you can just maybe give them some space and walk away. But if you are able to redirect them, try to engage the person in something that they enjoy. Maybe go take a walk, move to a different room, and ensure that you are adapting the activity to their abilities so that you avoid frustration because they’re already maybe annoyed and frustrated, and it could make things worse. So just keep it in the back of your mind that sometimes, depending on the person, some of these strategies may not work. A fourth quick tip is think about basic needs. Is the person hungry? Are they cold? Are they in pain? And that goes back to peace program, the peace framework that I use, the person, the environment, the activities, and how I as a caregiver.
[9:09] And contribute. So another quick tip is look for the basics. Look for, am I constipated? Am I hungry? Am I thirsty? Do I need to be taken to the restroom? What is the physical physiological need that has not been met, specifically related to anger? And then the last one is create a soothing environment using familiar objects. One of the biggest things that I believe we overlook often in behavior related to somebody living with, and I hate the word behavior, but the response that we are getting, I think we often overlook what is going on in the background, specifically related to a television. I often would go into people’s houses where there was a television on in the background. You and I are able to filter out that noise, but the person living with dementia is not.
[10:18] And so keeping a soothing environment may just be looking at is the TV on, trying to maintain a comfortable environment without a lot of overstimulation. So that can really make a big, big difference for the person as well as yourself.
Invitation to Seek Support
[10:44] Are you a Christian dementia caregiver struggling to cope? Does dementia caregiving really need to be this hard? I invite you to join our free monthly Ask the Dementia Coach meetup. Get personalized guidance and support from me, a pastor’s wife, occupational therapist, and Christian dementia coach. By blending evidence-based strategies with Christian principles, you can radically improve your caregiving experience. Register now for our next session of Ask the Dementia Coach. We limit registrations, so don’t miss out. Sign up today. Just to recap again, anger is something that you really need to be familiar with, specifically if there is a specific trigger. So keep a behavior diary or log patterns and look for those patterns and potential triggers. Try to use as best you can reassuring language and a calm tone.
[11:54] Make sure that you can, if it’s appropriate, redirect the person. If it looks like it’s making things worse, just give them some space and some time, specifically if they are safe. Make sure that you’re looking for basic needs like hunger or pain when you are looking at what caused this specific aggression, and then try to create a soothing environment for the person. Specifically look at whether or not there is anxiety.
[12:29] Auditory overstimulation or a television or noise in the background that you and I are able to filter out, but that the person living with dementia might not be able to filter out. So yet again, if you haven’t joined me for an Ask the Dementia Coach monthly audit meetup, I invite you. It is there for us to get together as a group of people where you can come together with not just me, but some other listeners. You can ask me some questions related to your specific dementia caregiving journey. But the purpose behind that is for us to get together as a group. It’s not the one-on-ones. Those are the dementia audits. This is my monthly dementia, Ask the Dementia Coach meetup for us to get together as a group and really support one another. I want you to feel like you’re in a community of other like-minded Christians who are walking through this journey together. So right now I’m getting ready to do the next Ask the Dementia Coach session. So I’d love for you to sign up. The link is in the show notes below, or you can message me the word ASK, A-S-K, on Facebook or on Instagram.
[13:54] Just the word ASK and you will get the link to sign up for this month’s Ask the Dementia Coach session. I really would love for you to join me, co-create with me, come hang out with me, come hang out with other like-minded Christians who are on this journey together with you. And as I end all of my episodes, may the Lord bless you and keep you. And I will see you back again in the next episode.
