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Create a Supportive Environment: 

• Understand Individual Needs: Gain a comprehensive understanding of your elder’s interests, abilities, and preferences. By understanding your elder’s needs, you can provide a tailored support environment for your elder to express themselves. When your elder feels understood, they will be more open to socialise in their preferred setting and engage in activities that they are comfortable with. This enables willing participation filled with anticipation as they feel a sense of belonging in their social interactions. 

• Physical Environment: Physically modify the living environment to promote social interactions. Arrange furniture in a way that encourages conversations instead of placing your elder at a corner which restricts large group conversations. Place familiar objects or memory prompts like photographs that can spark discussions and aid in cognitive stimulation. 

• Promote Inclusion and reduce stigma: Create a supportive environment by educating and raising awareness to the community about dementia. Foster a culture of empathy and acceptance such that they have a learnt understanding of what elderly with dementia go through. Upon understanding their circumstances, do not ostracise them for their disabilities but treat them as normal persons but with greater awareness of certain symptoms such that there is normalcy and minimal judgement. By treating elderly with dementia with respect without stigma, your elder will feel valued and at ease.

• Facilitate Communication: Upon creating a supportive environment, employing effective communication strategies strengthens relationships as trust, familiarity and rapport are built. Engage in simple, to-the-point language when communicating with your elder instead of beating around the bush with long elaborations. Maintain eye contact to ensure focus, speak slowly with clarity, and be patient allowing ample time for responses. Non-verbal communication, such as gestures and touch, can also enhance understanding and connection as they are less imposing and could serve to drive the message through to your elder more efficiently. Through this, it helps elderly to practise and improve their communication skills and confidence to articulate. It preserves their dignity as they are given the autonomy to express their preferences and engage their decision-making skills.

• Foster Connections with Loved Ones: Encourage regular visits from family members and friends by arranging gatherings or by their own initiative. If there are time or physical constraints, facilitate connections through technology such as phone calls, video chats, or texts. By maintaining interactions with their loved ones, your elder will feel loved and cared for even if they have memory difficulties. Through this, it will evoke positive emotions as your elder reminisces over past memories and inherently feel at ease knowing that there are people (if your elder is unaware of their status as a loved one) who show concern to them.

 

Explore Community Resources:

• Community programmes facilitate a sense of normalcy and purpose where your elder can engage in cognitive stimulating activities with other elderly who are in the same predicament or share similar interests. As they go about mingling, your elder maintains a level of independence as they remain connected and engage in activities with their community despite the challenges dementia brings. Here are some programmes for elderly held in community centres by People's Association.

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Educate and Support Caregivers: 

• By gaining more information about your elder’s condition, you will be equipped with a greater understanding and skills to better interact with your elder. This fosters trust and stronger bonds between you and your elder, and alleviates the stress and frustration from frequent miscommunications in the past without prior information. This improves their comfort level in their social interactions as they start off with you. On your end, learning about your elder’s condition lightens your emotional load as a caregiver whereby confidence in providing quality care is honed. Some reliable sources to gain information include caregiver support groups, articles from reliable caregiving websites or courses with which we too provide here at CaringWheels.  

 

Seek Professional Help: 

• Should you prefer a more medically tailored approach, it is always good to clarify with your elder’s doctors, or seek help through geriatric specialists. They would know your elder’s condition best or would be experts in tackling ageing and can provide in-depth support in improving your elder’s social health. They may recommend additional interventions or support programmes catered to your elder’s medical needs and personality, making the journey towards improving your elder's social health smoother. 

 

Constant Adaptation:

• As dementia is a progressive condition, your elder’s abilities may deteriorate and their personalities may change from time to time due to damages in frontal lobes. Hence, regular evaluation of the effectiveness of social interventions and activities is necessary to be tailored to your elder's social needs. There is no one-size-fits-all in a condition like dementia.