How Your Mindset In Dementia Caregiving Produces Positive Results
Are you struggling with resistance to care from your loved one with dementia?
Welcome to a new perspective on dementia caregiving. Today, we’ll explore some unique and actionable insights that can truly transform your caregiving journey.
Cultivating a Positive Mindset
Your mindset significantly influences your caregiving experience. It might be surprising, but our attitudes and behaviors directly affect how our loved ones respond to us. Adopting a positive, Christ-like mindset can lead to more peaceful interactions.
Remember Philippians 2:5, which encourages us to cultivate a servant-hearted approach. This can make a big difference, even in adversarial relationships.
Understanding Resistance to Care
Resistance to care is a common challenge. It often stems from the person with dementia trying to communicate unmet needs. Understanding this can help us approach situations more compassionately.
The “PEACE” framework is a useful tool:
Person: Consider their physical needs. Are they in pain or uncomfortable?
Environment: Is the environment conducive to calmness?
Engagement: Are they engaged in meaningful activities, or are they bored?
Caregiver: Reflect on your behavior. Are you contributing to their resistance?
Evaluation: Continuously assess and adapt your approach.
Unique Caregiving Styles
Each caregiver has a unique mode of operation (MO). Understanding your MO can empower you to leverage your strengths effectively.
Whether you need detailed information, checklists, or prefer a flexible approach, tailoring your caregiving style to your strengths can reduce stress and improve outcomes.
Developing a Growth Mindset
Embracing a growth mindset is crucial. Being coachable and open to learning can transform challenges into opportunities. Recognizing that caregiving is part of your sanctification process can help you see it as a journey of personal and spiritual growth.
Practical Tips for Caregivers
Here are some practical strategies to help manage resistance to care:
Stay Calm: Your loved one can sense your emotions. Approach them with calmness and patience.
Simplify Communication: Use simple, clear instructions and reassure them frequently.
Routine and Familiarity: Establish a consistent routine to create a sense of security.
Engage in Activities: Keep them engaged in activities they enjoy to reduce boredom and agitation.
Final Thoughts
Caregiving for a loved one with dementia is challenging but also rewarding. By adopting a positive mindset, understanding resistance to care, leveraging your unique caregiving style, and maintaining a growth mindset, you can navigate this journey with grace and resilience.
Remember, you are not alone. Join support groups, seek resources, and continue to learn and grow in your caregiving role. Your dedication and love make a significant difference in the lives of those you care for.
Join our next free workshop to learn more about avoiding challenging dementia behaviors without stress. Register now and empower yourself with science-backed caregiving skills.
May the Lord bless you and keep you on this journey.
Read More:
Talking About Caregiver Burnout With Michelle Gordon
Check the other podcast: https://dignicarebydesign.com/category/podcast/
Email me: lizette@dignicarebydesign.com
Message me at Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thinkdifferentdementia/
Listen to the Podcast
Listen to the episode on the player above, click here to download the episode and take it with you or listen anywhere you normally listen to podcasts.
[0:01] Have you ever, as a family caregiver of somebody living with dementia, contended with what we call resistance to care? Or are you a family caregiver of somebody living with dementia who is extremely negative about your caregiving journey? Well, if this is you, then today’s episode is specifically for you, where we are going to talk about how much we actually can impact the results that we get related to our specific caregiving journey. So check out episode 143.
Finding Peace in Dementia Caregiving
[0:53] Well, welcome back to Christian Dementia Caregiving, the podcast where we teach Bible-believing Christians how to have hope as well as peace during their caregiving journey. Because even though dementia care isn’t always easy, it can be very simple. people. Today’s episode is really a continuation of episode 142, where we were talking about dementia caregiving sometimes needing to be done, but not needing to be perfect. And that episode came about because of me attending a Alzheimer’s Association support group here locally in Greenville, where I live, where I spoke with a family caregiver, a.
Recognizing Caregiver Stress
[1:54] Opportunities for rest for himself. So if you haven’t listened to that episode, go back. It’s just one episode back. It was a very valuable episode because we really do not always recognize that we specifically individually have one way of doing things. And we believe that’s the only way that we can or that things can be done and that dementia caregiving, sometimes it’s okay for it to be done, but not perfectly done. So I invite you to go back and listen to that episode if you haven’t listened to it yet. But today’s episode is also something that came to me after presentation at the support group where we were talking about caregiver stress.
[2:43] And I have a very specific caregiver stress episode. It’s 122 that you can also go back and listen to if you haven’t listened to that one yet, where we talk about all of the different buckets of stress that a person can have. But at this specific caregiver Alzheimer’s Association’s support group meeting, there was a husband and a wife combination where the wife is the daughter of the person living with dementia and her mother is living with her husband. And it was very specific that she is living with her husband. She is not living with the person who was their stepfather. So that was a very distinct difference that was made. It’s her mother’s husband, not her stepfather. But this particular woman…
[3:43] Who is the daughter, expressed a fair amount of frustration and struggle with her interactions with her mother. She explained that her mother’s husband will frequently throughout the day, because he is not able to cope well, he will call person with dementia’s daughter to come help him. And that there’s a lot of friction and difficulty in their interaction as a daughter who is helping her mother. And one of the things that we teased out as she and I were talking in the support group where I did some live coaching with her was that her relationship with her mother seems like very similar to my relationship with my father, which was extremely adversarial. My relationship with my father has been mostly adversarial my entire life. Even though I know my father loves me, we have a very difficult relationship.
[5:00] So this particular daughter also has a very difficult relationship with her mother. Now, we mentioned in that conversation, we were able to determine that it was not an abusive or a neglectful or a physical or emotionally abusive type of a relationship. It was just always adversarial. so that is a whole separate podcast episode and I actually think I should do that because if you are the primary caregiver of somebody who has been abusive to you I give you permission to not be the primary caregiver but we have to do some things before we just up and leave right so don’t if that’s you do anything wild and woolly give me a week or so to do that as one
Cultivating a Mindset like Christ
[5:58] of the the next episodes. But for today’s episode, we are going to look at how your mindset is.
[6:07] In dementia caregiving actually produces positive results. Now, I know this is something that is extremely frustrating probably to people to hear, but we, as the people around the person living with dementia, to a very large extent, control the narrative and the results that we see with at the person living with dementia. The more I do this, the longer I do this, the more I really truly believe that most of what we call is people around the person with dementia.
[6:47] Quote unquote, challenging behaviors, we cause. We are the direct result of it. We, the people around them, significantly impact what we see. So for today, we’re going to start with the very, very first point, which is we need to cultivate a mind like Christ when we are a caregiver. And I know that that is very difficult because for me, it’s an extremely difficult thing. I mean, we’re mandated as Christians to think God’s thoughts after him. And I know for myself that that is an extremely difficult thing to do.
[7:31] Where does my thought want to go? My thoughts go to the gutter. My thoughts go to, oh, well, where’s me in doom and gloom? Or I don’t deserve this. Or why is nobody helping me? Or I don’t want to do this. That is the reality of being a sinner in a fallen world.
[7:52] We do not have the mind of Christ. But we are actually mandated to cultivate the mind of Christ. So Philippians 2 verse 5 says, have this mind among yourself, which is yours in Christ Jesus, right? So we want to cultivate a caregiving mindset that is servant-hearted, a servant-hearted mindset. Christ washed his apostle’s feet. And even when we are in an adversarial relationship, like this particular daughter, when we come into that specific situation, when we cultivate a servant-hearted mindset, then we are much more apt to be able to remember that this person is not doing it it on purpose. And by the way, if the person who was there that evening is listening to this podcast, I’m preaching to myself as well, because I have a very adversarial relationship with my dad.
[9:06] I have to work very, very hard when I go see him to have a servant-hearted mindset and to really reframe and train myself to not just think.
[9:23] Walk into the situation every single time because we go back to our habit patterns. Every single one, habits are paths of least resistance. They are our friend, but they can be our foe as well. It is good to have a habit because then we don’t have to think about something. But when our habit pattern is a negative habit pattern, we have to think about it to get out of it. And I know for a fact for myself that when I’m cultivating a mindset like Christ, that I am way more gracious. I am way more willing to be patient, not easily annoyed by what is going on. But I also recognize, and this is something that may be hard for you to hear as a Christian caregiver, giver, that our dementia caregiving journey is a part of our own sanctification process, right? It transforms us into becoming more and more like Christ every day. We’re never going to attain it, but we are being sanctified. We are being set apart to be more like him. And so when you are struggling with your mindset and having a servant-hearted posture.
[10:51] Remember that your relationships with the person that you’re taking care of can be transformed through the strength of the Holy Spirit. So just keep that in the back of your mind. We are not alone in this journey.
[11:11] Christ is with us, the Spirit is with us, and despite what we hope and wish for our lives, a dementia caregiving journey is for our good and for God’s glory. Did you know that caring for a person with dementia doesn’t have to be this hard? If you are struggling and you would like to join our next free workshop, the topic of the workshop is three tips how to avoid challenging dementia behaviors, without stress, anxiety, or burnout. I invite you to walk away with science-backed dementia caregiving skills that many professionals don’t even know after attending this free workshop on Saturday. If you’d like to register, message me the word workshop on Instagram or check out the link in the show notes below.
Understanding Resistance to Care
[12:23] The second part of this today is one of the things that she mentioned is that her mother is extremely resistant to care, especially when she needs to help her take a shower. Well, their previous adversarial relationship is likely not helping the situation at all. But I wanted everybody today to kind of understand a little bit about what we mean by being resistant to care, right?
[12:59] All dementia-related things that we see, and resistance to care is one of the things that we see, all of it is related to that person with dementia trying to communicate something to you that they’re not able to communicate anymore.
[13:20] Now in this particular situation with this daughter and her mother, her resistance to care may not be related to bathing per se, but her resistance to care may just be related to the adversarial relationship that they have cultivated because her mom is not going to forget that adversarial relationship. She is not. And that’s one of the things I’m working very hard on trying to change with my journey with my father is because I’m not going to ever be able to be his primary physical caregiver because of our adversarial relationship. I think he will sense my frustration and my difficulty related to our relationship, and that will possibly contribute to him being resistant to letting me help him. So I really am working very hard to try to change that. But 54 years of parental-daughter water interactions is not going to go away overnight, will it? So resistance to care, which can look like, I don’t want to take a shower, or I won’t let you help me transfer you, or I won’t let you do this for me or with me.
[14:41] Resistance to care typically has same root causes as resistance to care. All of the types of resistance or challenging behaviors people have. Now, I have another episode. It’s episode 122, where I talk about the peace framework. And I’m just briefly going to mention what the five letters stand for in the peace framework. The first one is person living with dementia. What is going on with them? Are they in pain? Are they hungry? Are they constipated? Something going on with them. The second one is how is the environment that they are currently in contributing or not contributing to what you’re seeing? The third one is are they being engaged actively in activities or are they bored out of their skull? Fourth one is how are you as the caregiver contributing to what you see which is what we’re talking about today resistance to care and then the last one is we are constantly evaluating.
[16:00] What’s going on and changing our approach evaluating and changing our approach we cycle through this every single thing that happens with the person living with dementia. Remember, it is a form of communication, a form of an unmet need, but understanding how having a framework, how to run through it in your head every single time helps you narrow it down from this this overwhelming, confusing mess of a belief that it’s hard and it cannot be easy, by running it through this framework, it will become easy. It’ll start to become second nature, I promise you. So strategies for resistance to care is applying the peace framework to the situation. So back to the person at the support group, my belief is that her relationship with her mom.
[17:07] Is contributing to her mom’s resistance to care. Because the person at the support group meeting expressed to us that she already is wound up before she even goes into the house. And I can guarantee you one thing, and that is people living with dementia, they are emotional sponges. They will forget what you say to them. They will forget what you did. They will forget what they had for breakfast or lunch, but they are not going to forget how you make them feel, which is why I keep coming back to, I have to work so much harder to try to not step into that adversarial relationship with my dad, because if he progresses, then that is what he is going to remember. He is going to remember how he feels, even though he loves me and I understand that he does, but I make him feel like we’re in an adversarial relationship. So I believe that she is inadvertently contributing to this resistance to care. So we have to be able to check our emotions at the door before we go in and help the person that we are helping.
[18:30] Now, the third thing that we’re going to talk about, which is something I have not spoken about on this podcast before, is that each of us have a unique caregiving MO. Now, MO stands for mode of operation. The Latin is modus operandi, which is amazing that I was able to pull that out of my head right this second.
[18:58] Because each and every person are created in the image of God, we are unique and fearfully and wonderfully made. Every one of us is different.
[19:15] We are human. We all have, for the most part, you know, we all are people. We have two eyes, two ears, nose and a mouth, hands, feet. We are a human. And we are different. We all think differently. We all have different cultures. We have different personalities. We have different abilities in how smart we may or may not be. We are all created in the image of God, but we are all created uniquely and differently. And our unique, specific way of being us significantly impacts our ability to be a caregiver. How we think impacts how we are a caregiver. How we act, how we react, all of those things 100% impact us. Your caregiving, and each of us have a unique caregiving MO.
[20:32] Some people in caregiving need all of the facts first before they can take action. They need to research it up the yazoo. So if they need to take some respite breaks, they are on the internet, they are researching what what their options are. They’re talking to 15,000 people and coming up with the information, the facts first before they can take action. Some caregivers don’t need all of the details. They just need to know the basics. They need it boiled down to the absolute, do this now, now do this next. And that impacts how you are a caregiver. If you are somebody who needs the facts, then you need to have the facts. You need to build that into your caregiving. If you don’t need the facts, then don’t sit for hours on the internet trying to research it. It will make you crazy. You have to work towards your strengths.
[21:37] Some people as a caregiver need checklists. They need to know exactly what is going to happen, when it’s going to happen, and they need to check it off in order to know that they are on the right track. And some people are more like me. They can fly by the seat of their pants. They don’t need a checklist. They don’t want a checklist. If you give them a checklist, it’ll make them crazy. They don’t want to write down every blood pressure or to, you know, document every bowel movement. They don’t need that level of detail in order to be the best caregiver. Some people.
[22:20] Need a very, very consistent routine and not have a hundred options thrown at them related to what they need to do or when they need to do it. And other people, they need to be able to try different things and see what works, give them a framework, and they will try until they figure it out on their own. They will experiment until they come up with the solution by themselves. They are the MacGyvers of caregiving. They figure it out on their own. Some people have to, can see a solution in their mind. They don’t need a specific solution.
[23:02] They can kind of envision it. They can see what their solution is. And other people as caregivers might actually physically need to try things. First, they need to be able to touch and do things or make models or have different ways of coming at the problems that they’re seeing. But what I want you to take about today from this is that knowing how you You are uniquely wired as a person and how you get things done can empower you as a caregiver. And so one of the biggest things that we need to be able to do is take our unique
Developing a Growth Mindset in Caregiving
[23:49] strengths into our caregiving journey because it also helps us produce positive results. And then the fourth thing that we’re going to look at today in how our mindset in caregiving can help us produce positive results is that when you are in a caregiving journey.
[24:11] Developing your growth mindset is vitally important. And if you are coachable, if you have a growth mindset, if you are wanting to be empowered to truly have an easier caregiving journey, then I invite you to schedule a call with me and we can talk about how I can uniquely help you in your caregiving journey. Journey because the most successful caregivers are people who have a growth mindset, who are coachable, and who are Christians. Because our Christian worldview makes a significant difference in how we approach our caregiving journey. But we need to develop a growth mindset in caregiving.
Reframing Thoughts in Caregiving
[25:11] We need to reframe how we think. Now, my company that I established…
[25:19] The name of my company is Think Different Dementia because I want people to think different about dementia.
[25:30] I want to change the narrative of dementia caregiving. I want people to recognize that although dementia care isn’t always easy, it can be easier. And it is actually very simple. And if you continue to listen to this podcast, you will see that it is actually pretty simple. But we need to reframe how we think about our caregiving journey. If we think our caregiving journey is hard, if we think it is terrible, if we think it is triggering, if we think it is all of these negative things, and we have about 4,000 thoughts a minute. Thoughts, our thoughts are powerful, right? God talks in the Bible of thinking God’s thoughts after him. God doesn’t talk about being, you know, doom and gloom and woe is me. He wants us to think our thoughts on Christ. He wants us to think our thoughts on him. Yes, we are to be aware that we are sinners. Yes, we are to be aware that we need to repent of our sins and that there’s only one way to God. Yes, all of those things are true, but we are to think God’s thoughts after Him. And.
[26:58] Our thoughts drive our feelings. I will use this as an example. A couple of weeks ago, I was very, very sick. I had a raging sinus infection and I felt terrible. The entire time I felt terrible, my thoughts drove my feelings, which meant that I felt like I could not do this, that I was not cut out to be a dementia coach, to have a podcast, to help family caregivers of people living with dementia. Those feelings drove my actions, which meant I didn’t actually do anything. I just sat around moping.
[27:37] Granted, I wasn’t feeling good, but my feelings drove my actions and my actions actually got my results. The results were I didn’t get anywhere. I didn’t take action, to actually work on the business, to take care of the things that I knew that needed to be done.
[27:58] But our thoughts drive our feelings, our feelings drive our actions, and our actions drive our results.
[28:06] Fast forward a couple of weeks later, my thoughts are now not the way they were were before. My thoughts are now the Lord has gifted me uniquely to be able to do this job as a dementia coach. He has gifted me with the ability to speak. He has gifted me with the ability to help family caregivers of people living with dementia, which 100% drives my feeling that I can do this, which drives the actions that I show up in a different way when I’m recording my podcast or when I’m going to my parents, which changes the results that I’m getting. So we absolutely need to have a growth mindset in caregiving because challenges are just opportunities in disguise. And I say that again, challenges, dementia challenges are just opportunities in disguise. And we can absolutely change our outcome by having a growth mindset.
Importance of a Growth Mindset
[29:19] Have you ever actually recognized or realized that you have about 4,000 thoughts a minute?
[29:30] So if you say some of the things that you think out loud.
[29:38] To yourself in a room with no one else, you will start to recognize and identify your thoughts. And if your thoughts are, oh, woe is me and doom and gloom, that is going to be the negative result that you actually get. When you have a growth mindset, it works on your ability to be resilient. What does it mean to be resilient? It just means that you bounce back faster, right? When you work on having a growth mindset, you will cultivate an ability to be adaptable to the situation that you’re in.
[30:21] And people who have a growth mindset become extremely capable and competent problem solvers. So we want to be capable and adaptable and resilient problem solvers because dementia caregiving does come with a fair amount of solving problems, but we want to solve problems according to our own unique ability. Now, James 1 verses 2 through 4 says.
[31:20] That you may be perfect and complete in Christ, lacking The in Christ I added because it is only in Christ. But I wanted you today to really understand that our own mindset…
[31:35] In dementia caregiving can either produce a positive or a negative result for us in our caregiving journey. And this was yet again, as a direct result of going to a Alzheimer’s Association support group and interacting with a woman who is struggling as a caregiver with with some resistance to care based on her own current space, her head space that she’s in. And I’m hoping and praying that she listens to this episode and that you as a family caregiver of somebody living with dementia have taken value out of today’s episode. It was jam-packed with practical solutions and strategies for you to try because we cannot change someone else, but we can. And the only thing we can change is how we respond to someone else. We can change ourself. We cannot change our situation. We cannot change our circumstances. We cannot change their response to us, but we can change how we respond to them,
Recap: Keys to Positive Results
[32:52] which then can change how they respond to us as a person living with dementia. So a quick recap, we need to cultivate a mind, our mind to be more like the mind of Christ.
[33:05] We need to understand resistance to care. And we talked about the peace framework. And if you haven’t listened to episode 122, go listen to episode 122, because we talk about those root causes there.
[33:22] Talked about something I’ve never spoken about on the podcast yet, which is understanding that each of us have a unique caregiving MO or mode of operation or modus operandi. And we will continue to unpack that over the next several months and years. And then lastly, how vitally, vitally important it is for us as a caregiver to develop a growth mindset in our caregiving journey. And when we do all of these four things, we can actually cultivate positive results in our caregiving journey. So I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. I’m going to invite you for one one last time, this weekend, tomorrow, July 13th, 2024 at 10 a.m. If you’ve not come to the live workshop, I do a workshop live once a month. This is the last time I’m going to be doing the topic for right now of tips on how to deal or cope with challenging dementia behaviors.
[34:34] So if you’re a 24-hour caregiver struggling with challenging behavior, come to this workshop. You can interact with me. I invite you to come on live. We can talk. You can ask me specific questions at the end of the workshop. So I hope to see you there. Come to this. Like I said, this is the last one I’m going to be doing live on this particular topic. I’m going to switch topics up. Haven’t quite decided what yet, but it’ll be different. If you haven’t done that yet, please do that. If you’re not ready for that level of commitment yet, do we have a free Facebook group? It’s called Christian Dementia Caregiving. So you can join the free Facebook group as well, where you can continue to interact with me. Like I end or I try to end all of my episodes, if I remember, is may the Lord bless you and keep you and like and share these episodes with other Christian caregivers and let me know what you like and I will see you in the next episode.
