11/15: FCA Safe at Home Video Series: The ABC Method
November 15, 2015
“Changing one’s surroundings is easier than it is to change another person’s behavior.”
That is the message of Family Caregiver Alliance’s (FCA) short, easy-to-follow video tutorials designed to teach caregivers about creating a safe and healthy environment at home for their loved ones with middle and advanced stages of dementia. The series, Safe At Home, includes an overview of the typical symptoms of dementia and describes ways in which caregivers can make minor adjustments at home to prevent the recipients of their care from finding themselves in unsafe situations. The series features recommendations to improve safety in the kitchen, bathrooms, bedrooms, living room, hallways, and staircases. The videos are available on the FCA YouTube channel.
Featured today is Chapter 2 of the FCA Safe At Home Video Series: The ABC Method. In this video, Dr. Lise McCarthy, DPT, GCS, discusses how family caregivers can use a strategy called the ABC Method to identify the (1) environmental Antecedents that cause the unsafe behavior of care recipients at home, (2) the unsafe Behavior of care recipients with dementia, and (3) the Consequences that result from the behavior. Using this method, caregivers can make relatively easy changes to their surroundings at home to avoid accidents rather than struggle to change the behavior of a care recipient.