How Talking And Social Interaction Helps Those With Dementia

Find out how talking and social interaction can make a huge difference to the life of someone with dementia.

By 2051 there is estimated to be 2 million people with dementia in the UK. This means it is more important than ever to be working hard on ensuring the best possible levels of care are available for those with this tragic disease. Someone with dementia can have a good quality of life if the right support is provided. Talking and social interaction is particularly important to ensuring somebody with dementia has a great later life. Here are just some of the reasons social interaction is a priority for those with dementia:

Overall Quality Of Life

According to the Nursing Times, just one hour of social interaction per week is enough to significantly improve the quality of life of a person with dementia. They might otherwise only experience just 2 minutes of social interaction a day whilst living in a residential care home, according to a recent study.

Remembering

Speaking about memories, things they like or subjects they are interested in helps a person with dementia to keep hold of memories for as long as possible. It may trigger special memories and help to maintain everyday happiness.

Keeping The Disease At Bay

The more we use the brain, the more we keep nasty diseases at bay. Yes dementia is progressive, but keeping the brain active with talking and social interaction will help to keep remaining healthy brain tissue as healthy as possible.

Keeping Identity

People with dementia can often lose their identity and essentially become the disease. This does not need to happen, and chatting about their opinions, feelings and thoughts helps to keep that sense of identity well and truly alive.

Maintaining A Sense Of Self Worth

If you only get a couple of minutes of social interaction a day, you're not going to feel very important and your sense of self worth will go down. By getting social interaction either in residential care or in home care and having somebody ask you how you are, how you're feeling, you will feel important and worthy of somebody's time.

Staying Interested

Without hobbies and conversation and life in general, you can get a bit depressed and people with dementia are at a big risk of depression. Chatting about hobbies, the news and everyday life keeps a person interested in engaging with life, helping to keep depression at bay.

These are just a few of the reasons social interaction and talking is so important for everyone. It really does make a big difference to a person's life, especially those with dementia. Those in elderly care homes are working hard to try and provide the kind of social interaction necessary for those with dementia to have an improved quality of life. Within home care however, this kind of dedication to social interaction is already very much a priority. Carers will seek to be a companion to their client, not just a carer. Looking to converse and chat about memories, subjects the client is interested in, and to make general chit chat. Live-in care is an ideal care solution for those with dementia and is a great alternative to residential care. Take a look at the UK care calculator to see how the costs compare for you.