Mindfulness For Family Members Of People Living With Dementia

Caring for a loved one who has dementia can be challenging. This course follows the structure of the Knowledge, Attitude and Behavior model and mindfulness as the guiding principle to support family carers in daily life.

In the first section of 3 lessons, we focus on increasing knowledge about both dementia and mindfulness. We start by talking about some of the main challenges that carers of people with dementia experience. In lesson 2, we focus on sharing basic, relevant knowledge about dementia. In lesson 3, we introduce mindfulness and how it may help.

For lessons 4-6, we focus on people’s attitudes. From becoming less judgmental and more caring to oneself and the loved one, to letting go of striving and learning how to inform others and organise support, and finally to creating a general feeling of acceptance and using that to start focusing on what can be done.

Lessons 7-9 focus on inner and outward behavior. We spend a full session on thoughts, introducing a simple body scan to become aware of how the mind works. Lesson 8 focuses on emotions, how all of them have a function and how to release them. Finally, we focus on outward behavior. Lesson 10 provides an integration of the 9 lessons and finishes with a meditation and final practice.

Lección 1: The Challenges That Carers Face

We start by talking about the challenges that you as a family carer may face since you started to care for a family member with dementia. We will touch on different stages (receiving the diagnosis, carer burden, loss of social network, the decision to admit the person to long-term care facilities), as well as different challenges, including physical, financial, and social.

Lección 2: What You Should Know About Dementia

Most people do not know a lot about dementia, and knowledge is definitely a basis of understanding on what is going on and how one can provide good care. We briefly talk about the most important causes of dementia (Alzheimer’s, vascular). Focusing on Alzheimer’s (as the most prevalent), we talk about how it can present. I also give you some out-of-the-box thoughts that may differ from what you have heard from professionals so far.

Lección 3: How Mindfulness Can Help

In this lesson, we introduce mindfulness, what it is and what it is not, and how it can help. We give emphasis to mindfulness not ‘having an empty mind’, and how undesirable that would be. We will discuss about how mindfulness is becoming aware of our inner and outer worlds, and how we can take a step back to observe before we act. We will also introduce the 7 mindful attitudes.

Lección 4: Farewell Judgment, Welcome Self-Care

Today we go deeper into the mindfulness attitude of non-judging and the importance of judgments, but also where they are not helpful. We will shift focus from being jugdmental - and thus, extremely hard on ourselves and possibly our loved ones - to fostering self-care. We will provide further emphasis on understanding one’s own actions in difficult circumstances; on starting to consider one’s own needs, creating space for those, and not only for what ‘needs to be done’.

Lección 5: Redefining Perfectionism

Perfectionism, as we currently use it, is dysfunctional. We push ourselves to do everything perfectly, and part of this is doing it all by ourselves. Again, we focus on when perfectionism is helpful, but also on how it does not serve us. We talk about how being perfect in one aspect is not mutually exclusive with being perfect in another way (e.g. being the best employee vs. being a perfect parent). We then focus on how we can become more vulnerable, and start involving the people around us in the care for our loved one.

Lección 6: Accepting What Is

Today we zoom out a bit from previous attitudes to a perspective of seeing what is and accepting it for it is. We talk about accepting your current situation as it is, which may involve also accepting that there are things that you cannot accept. When do you stop fighting, and switch to a mode where you focus on what you can do?

Lección 7: They Are Just Thoughts

We take a moment to acknowledge our mind, how important it is, and how helpful it is in many ways, but also unhelpful at times. Our mind is designed to think, to problem-solve. It never wants to stop. We look at the realisation that thoughts are just thoughts - ‘they are not necessarily true, and they are definitely’ not you. Then, we introduce a simple body scan, where we aim to distract the mind.

Lección 8: Honor Your Emotions

Today we will re-evaluate emotions, instead of labeling them as positive or negative, welcomed or undesired, and notice how all of them have an important role as a communication tool. Emotions should be short-lived though, and they become a potential hazard when not expressed and when stored inside our bodies. We do a short version of the inner smile to release some stored emotions.

Lección 9: Observing & Considering

Today we focus on our outward behavior, amongst other responses to the person with dementia. We present an argument for taking a step back in life, as frequently as we can, explaining auto-pilot and when it is helpful and when it's not. We examine how meditation techniques, such as taking some conscious deep breaths, create time to not react, but to stop, observe, and consider, leading to a thoughful, more balanced response.

Lección 10: What We Have Learned

Today we integrate all of the lessons with a 5-minute recap. We finish with an Ikigai writing meditation, focusing on your role as a carer for someone living with dementia. We finalise the course by going back to our list of challenges that we composed on day one.

Reviews

This course covers a wide range of topics. Well done.

Thoughtful approach with practical ideas for caregiving. Thank you.

Wonderful And helpful course

This was such an extremely helpful course helping me deal with my father with dementia, and helping me deal with myself. Thank you so much🙏❤️

I highly recommend this course for those whom have family members, friends or work with people with dementia. So many wonderful resources are given and it helps to know that we are not alone on this journey with our loved ones. Namaste ❤️🌻

Highly recommend to anyone experiencing dementia in their lives