GIFT CARE FOR ELDERLY

The following modules are designed to teach you about nonpharmacological, restraint-free approaches to managing challenging behaviors in persons with dementia. It is our aim that by the end of this course, you will see challenging behavior differently. As individuals become more impaired by the dementing process, they lose their ability to communicate. Because individuals can't tell you what's bothering them, their challenging behavior might be the only way they can communicate to you that something is wrong. Taking away their ability to communicate by using powerful medications to sedate them simply masks their problems and may not reduce suffering. If an individual were in, say, significant pain, prescribing a benzodiazepine or atypical antipsychotic medication might suppress their challenging behavior but will have little or no impact on their experience of pain... In this context, those powerful medications are a form of chemical restraint because they suppress a patient's ability..