At 6:30 in the morning, in our home, the dementia area of Beijing Friendship City Community, the indoor lights gradually turned on - like an elongated sunrise, softly and slowly, from dim to bright.
Behind this detail is a "new force in the workplace" that is increasingly needed: dementia caregivers. They are using their professionalism and warmth to do a job that is unimaginable to ordinary people - walking into a group of people with distorted senses and acting as "translators" between the elderly with dementia and real life.
Early morning: waking up is a technology
At 7 o'clock, the caregiver started her busy day. They need to use a set of procedures to wake up the elderly with dementia: open the curtains to let in natural light, greet the elderly in a gentle tone, call the elderly by their accustomed names, and help the elderly confirm that "this is my room, this is a new day."
During breakfast time, caregivers guide the elderly to eat in the neighborhood space. In this space, many inconspicuous details correspond to the needs of care: the sideboard is placed at a higher position to reduce the risk of the elderly taking items by mistake; there is a set of abacus beads under each elderly cup slot. After drinking a glass of water, the caregiver will dial one to record each person's drinking status on the day. A brain-healthy diet emphasizes eating small amounts, frequent meals, and balanced nutrition. Caregivers take care of the elderly to "eat well," which in itself is an intervention to delay decline.
Morning: Hide therapy into your daily routine
The morning is the prime time for activities, and the caregiver’s job is to “hide therapy into life.” In the craft area, the caregivers organized the elderly to put together puzzles, build magnets, make handmade flowers, and draw and color. Behind each of these seemingly recreational activities, there is a goal of intervention and treatment: jigsaw puzzles exercise visuospatial ability, manual maintenance of fine motor skills, and coloring activate color perception.
In music therapy classes, caregivers cooperate with professional therapists to guide the elderly to listen to songs, make associations, and draw pictures. As the treatment progresses, the paintings of the same elder can gradually change from scattered lines and chaotic images to complete compositions and rich colors. The improvement of the elderly's cognitive ability is not limited to data, but also to the brushstrokes.
Afternoon: "Behavioral Translation" that tests your skills the most
What truly tests the professional skills of caregivers is dealing with the mental and behavioral symptoms of elderly people with dementia. This is also the biggest difference between dementia care and ordinary nursing care.
In our home, Hangzhou Shengli River Chengxin Community, a caregiver accompanied a 78-year-old elderly man with dementia through the most difficult stage. When the elder first moved in, he lost control of his mood every evening. This is a typical "sundown syndrome": as the sky gets darker, the elderly with dementia's perception of light changes is distorted, and fear and irritability ensue.
The caregiver's countermeasures are meticulous: turn on the lights and close the curtains before it gets dark to avoid sudden changes in light that may cause uneasiness; arrange a variety of activities during the day to consume energy, limit drinking after dinner, and leave a night light on at night. When the elder wanders around at night, the caregiver does not force him or her to stop him. Instead, he walks slowly with the elder, or goes to the living room to sit for a while. At the same time, he carefully checks whether the elder has urination, pain or environmental stimulation. When the elder has emotional outbursts or verbal conflicts, the iron rule followed by the caregiver is "no talking back, no confrontation" - first accept the emotion, hold the elder's hand after the emotion calms down, accompany the elder to water the flowers in the gardening area, and use touch therapy to let the emotion land.
Afterwards, the caregiver had to "review": When did the elderly man's attack occur? What are the triggers? How long did it last? Every emotional fluctuation of the elderly is recorded, handed over and analyzed by the caregiver, which becomes the basis for doctors to adjust the plan and the team to optimize care. After a few months, the elder's temperament became gentler, he could sleep peacefully at night, he would nod his head when he saw other elders, and he would ask the caregiver if he had eaten yet while doing handicrafts. At that moment, all the caregiver's hard work had an answer.
This profession deserves to be seen
The biggest misunderstanding that society has about elderly care workers is that they equate them with "servant work"; and for dementia care workers, this misunderstanding is especially deep. In fact, dementia care is not just simple care, but one of the most in-depth professional directions in the nursing field: it integrates complex knowledge systems such as neuroscience, psychology, rehabilitation, nutrition, and environmental science.
In our home city heart medical nursing community, all members of the dementia care team have passed the HCA dementia care training and assessment. 100% of the national nursing team is certified. More than 70% of the national nursing team has more than 5 years of experience, and the proportion of graduates from professional schools is not less than 30%. The most special lesson in our home dementia care training is the VR immersion experience: caregivers put on special equipment and "see" themselves broken in the mirror, "step on" the undulating ground, and "experience" door locks that cannot be opened. Only after empathizing with each other can the nursing staff truly understand the fear and help behind every "abnormal behavior" of the elderly.
At the same time, our home dementia care team also has a clear self-positioning: to be informants, empathizers, collaborators, connectors, and listeners for the elderly with dementia and their families. They adhere to the "zero restraint" commitment - in the face of abnormal behavior, they use gentle intervention instead of restraints and respect the personal dignity of every elder. They practice the "familiar face" principle and do not change caregivers frequently, because for the elderly with dementia, a familiar face is a source of security.
In 2022, our home will be the first dementia-friendly community with a brain health theme in the country. It will refer to international authoritative care standards and implement international mainstream non-drug intervention methods such as neurostimulation, social activities, Montessori, music therapy, and pet therapy. From this starting point, our home dementia care capabilities began to extend across the country. As of July 2026, our Home City Heart Medical Nursing Community has deployed 12 operating communities and 1 demonstration area across the country, covering core cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Wuhan, Changsha, Nanchang, Hangzhou, Zhengzhou, Jinan, Hefei, and Shenyang, all of which have professional dementia care capabilities and are equipped with nearly 500 dedicated dementia care beds. Each urban medical community of our home also combines local culture to create a unique memory healing scene.
Data show that my country's supply gap for elderly care workers reaches 5.5 million, and the attrition rate of new elderly care workers is 40% to 50%. As my country's population aged 60 and above with dementia continues to grow, the talent gap in this field is still widening. It is foreseeable that dementia caregivers will become one of the most important new professional forces in the aging era - they protect not only the memories of a group of elders, but also the possibility of tens of millions of families not being destroyed. This profession deserves to be seen again.
One caregiver described her job this way: “What we do is to turn on the lights in advance when the elderly’s world is about to get dark.” Turning on the lights at dusk, accompanying her late at night, and catching every fall in the emotional storm - dementia caregivers use professionalism and love to build bridges in the ravines of memory. They are the real new forces in the workplace in this aging era, and they are the ones who make "the elderly protected and protected with dignity" a reality.
