Another Quora question and answer I thought it might be useful to share to help others.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Whatever you do, don’t tell them to calm down! Everyone hates being told what to do, including people who live with dementia day in and day out.
A good strategy is to not make them feel anxious in the first place, and then you won’t have to calm them down. To do that, try my BANGS approach:
BANGS: 5 surefire ways to stop aggression before it starts
There’s a big myth out there that dementia causes the people who live with it to be anxious when it’s actually a whole bunch of other stuff that, in most cases, lies behind the words and actions they use to communicate and that those around them find challenging.
For example:
Avoid noise (among other things):
loud sounds and dementia mostly don’t mix
Also, ask yourself these questions, and based on your own responses, adjust your behaviour accordingly:
20 questions that help explain why people with dementia get agitated and physically aggressive
And if you don’t manage to avoid a crisis, here’s what to do in case of one:
Teepa Snow demos 10 ways to calm a crisis with a person living with Alzheimer’s / dementia
I have 600+ posts on this blog; they include tips, tactics, strategies, lived experience, videos, audio, pics, etc. Explore! (to subscribe for free – see below)
Teepa Snow demos 10 ways to calm a crisis with a person living with Alzheimer’s / dementia
Teepa Snow demos 10 first steps to calm & comfort a distressed person living with dementia
#mc_embed_signup{background:#fff; clear:left; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; }
/* Add your own MailChimp form style overrides in your site stylesheet or in this style block.
We recommend moving this block and the preceding CSS link to the HEAD of your HTML file. */