How Companionship Care Can Help Prevent Dementia

Companionship care is a form of home care, delivered by our dedicated home carers, that offers tailored support and friendship. By focusing on some of the key practices known to promote a healthier lifestyle we can have a positive effect on reducing the effects of dementia.

Companionship care can include accompanying you to social events, providing support around the house, or simply having someone to talk to. In short, companionship care can play a significant role in the prevention of dementia. Here we'll look at 5 key aspects of Companionship Care services and the various ways in which Nurseplus Care at home can support you and your loved ones.

• Cognitive Stimulation

• Conversation

• Social Interaction

• Recalling Memories

• Managing healthy habits

Cognitive Stimulation

Definition: techniques that have the objective of maintaining cognitive performance at normal levels, or taking it to maximal levels, working on those capabilities and abilities that are still located at normal levels.

By focusing on cognitive stimulation, a key aspect of Companionship Care, every one of our hard-working home carers will continuously encourage the people they care for to engage in a range of stimulating, fun, and enjoyable activities. These will be carefully planned out so that they align with their interests and abilities.

Each of our dedicated home carers will engage in activities such as playing games, completing puzzles, baking, and gardening. Whatever your loved one finds interesting and stimulating, this way we can support them to continue doing the things they love and avoid disrupting regular, familiar behaviours.

Conversation

Definition: a talk, especially an informal one, between two or more people, in which news and ideas are exchanged.

When a person has someone familiar to talk to regularly, feelings of loneliness and isolation, both of which are associated with a higher risk of dementia, are less likely to occur. Companionship care is proven to be more effective when visits are scheduled at the same time every week getting the person used to a fixed routine. The person is then more likely to look forward to our visits knowing that on certain days at certain times, they will have company from someone they know and are familiar with.

At Nurseplus Care at home, our team will match up the interests of your loved ones with our home carers. This ensures carer and client will find it easier to converse comfortably early on in the care plan and will reduce feelings of awkwardness. Our carers will be able to communicate with the people they care for clearly and calmly and will have patience, understanding, and respect for the person they are taking care of.

Social Interaction

Definition: a talk, especially an informal one, between two or more people, in which news and ideas are exchanged.

Regular social engagements not only provide enjoyment and companionship but they can also provide a sense of belonging and purpose, essential for mental health and crucial to helping prevent dementia. Our carers will accompany clients on daily errands, and when attending clubs and groups in their communities, we can even help to build better more consistent communication with family members and friends.

​Nurseplus Care at home will help promote social interaction during our Companionship Care visits as it is known to have a positive influence on health and well-being. By engaging in social interactions our carers can help reduce stress and encourage continued contact between your loved ones and those who are close to them.

Recalling Memories

Definition: Recall in memory refers to the mental process of retrieval of information from the past. Along with encoding and storage, it is one of the three core processes of memory.

Recalling memories is a huge help in preventing dementia. Discussing the past, family, friends, memorable experiences, and moments captured in photos can decrease the risk of dementia by stimulating the mind and engaging in discussions of fond memories.

Our homecarers will ask your loved ones to recall certain memories regularly in order to gain a better understanding of the person they are caring for and to help identify early signs of memory loss and dementia. We will work to stimulate memory recall through storytelling and through playing games that the person may have played when they were younger.

It's important to know that should there be any changes to the needs or level of care your loved ones need, we can adapt our care plans to suit, going beyond companionship care, and considering more long-term solutions if needed.

Managing Healthy Habits

Definition: A healthy habit is something you do that may significantly improve an aspect of your life, such as sleep, mental health, or exercise.

Having a healthy lifestyle is proven to help decrease the chances of cardiovascular diseases, such as strokes and heart attacks, which are all risk factors that are known to increase the chances of Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia developing. Healthy habits such as attending regular doctors’ appointments, cooking healthy meals, undertaking regular exercise, and supporting overall physical well-being are all encompassed in our companionship care plans.

Your Nurseplus Care at home companionship care team can help your loved ones manage their healthy habits, decreasing the risk of dementia. Our companionship carers will help encourage the people they care for to incorporate these habits and provide support at doctor’s appointments, going outside with them for a walk, and cooking their food using healthy recipe books or recipes online for their lunch and dinner.