Coping With Aggressive Dementia Patient

Coping With Aggressive Dementia Patient

Aggression is part of dementia which many elderly patients exhibit. It has been noticed that aggression in hospitalized patients is more than those who are taken care of at home but this does not mean that you will not have to cope with an aggressive dementia patient at some time or the other.

A dementia patient usually gets angry and aggressive due to something very small or mild like seeing a food item that he or she does not want to eat. One of the best ways to cope with aggressive dementia patients is to put them into anger management therapy. However, there are different ways of coping with aggressive dementia patients even without sending them to anger management therapy.

Coping with Aggressive Dementia Patient:

Aggression in a dementia patient can be verbal or physical. However, physical aggression is quite rare and you have to understand that a person suffering from dementia gets frustrated and one of ways to let out this frustration is through anger.

When it comes to coping with verbal aggression, you should use the following methods:

  • Always agree and do not waste your time trying to argue or reason with the person. In case, you do not feel like agreeing with the person, the best way to calm the person down is to acknowledge his or her feeling and try to see things from the person's perspective.
  • You should try apologizing even if it is not your mistake or you have not done anything wrong. This is an attempt to calm the person and diffuse the situation so that it does not get worse.
  • You can just let the person alone so that he or she can vent out his anger and then calm down.
  • Finally, you can pretend not to understand the person and ask the person to explain the reason for the anger. This can help the person calm down.

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Coping With Aggressive Dementia Patient