When providing care for an elderly loved one with Alzheimer’s Disease, even routine, daily tasks can be exhausting. As the caregiver or even for your Alzheimer’s care team, you can never be too sure how well your loved one will accept and participate in a personal care routine task. It can be brushing her teeth, taking a bath, or getting her hair ready for the day.
When it comes to hair care when providing Alzheimer’s care, you will find that the more simple it is, the less stressful it’ll be for both you and your loved one. It’ll also help anyone who comes over to provide Alzheimer’s care services to your loved one.
Here are six tips to make taking care of your loved one’s hair easier for everyone.
Stay Positive
Keeping your loved one calm and at peace during the process of hair care is first and foremost an experience that goes by without any major interruptions. If you find a knot in your loved one’s hair that needs to be combed out, talk pleasantly about other things as you work the comb through the knots. Reminisce about a happy moment in her life or point out something pleasant to look at it.
Stay Calm
Staying calm is just as important as staying positive but this one also really affects your loved one. If she is due for a wash, dry, and style, then having a calm environment will help her through the process. You can put on her favorite music or light a candle that has her favorite scent. If your loved one is more adaptable during the morning, schedule her shampooing in the morning with her Alzheimer’s care provider.
Keep the Routine
Once you’ve found the perfect music, lighting, water temp, and products, do your best to keep them all the same so that your loved one can know what to expect and might even look forward to each step of the process. If there is something your loved one likes to do right after getting her hair done, remind her of that ‘reward’ as you take care of her hair. It could be the reward of sitting out in the garden or having a mid-morning snack that will keep her calm during her hair care.
Be Okay with Halfway Today
Not every day has to be perfect. If your loved one is having an especially rough morning and refuses to wash her hair, step back for a moment and think if it’s really needed today. Perhaps some dry shampoo and a brief comb-through are enough.
Keep It Brief
Unless it calms your loved one to have endless curls added to her hair, keep her style and her hair care process as simple as possible so that the entire process doesn’t take a lot of time.
Ask for help. If you find the task to be continually stress-packed, ask for help from an Alzheimer’s care provider or another family member. It’s okay if this personal care step is not your forte, there are plenty of other tasks you can still complete while someone else takes over this one.
When you’re finished, praise your loved one (and yourself) for getting it done, no matter how it turned out.
If you or an aging loved one are considering Alzheimer’s Care in Brooklyn, NY please contact the caring staff at Perfect Choice Senior Care today. Call (917) 920-6803
Perfect Choice Senior Care provides exceptional senior care services in Queens, Belle Harbor, Hunters Point, Brooklyn, Prospect Heights, Park Slope, Manhattan, Upper West Side, West Village, Upper East Side, Lower Manhattan and surrounding areas.
Their mission is focused on hiring individuals whose objectives are in line with their own.
“We will never compromise our clients for profit or political gain. It would be our absolute honor to serve you and to make you a part of our family, and to provide the best comprehensive and transformational health care services for you and your family.”
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