Navigating the Dementia Journey with Silverado
A loved one receiving a diagnosis of dementia brings a flurry of emotions – sadness, fear, guilt, and confusion to name a few. While the shock of this life-altering news can seem overwhelming, there is help.
Silverado is here to guide and support you at every stage—offering expertise, compassion, and resources that bring clarity and comfort when you need it most.
1. What’s happening? — Recognizing the change
When a loved one’s illness moves from chronic / managed to clearly life-limiting, families often sense things are shifting: more frequent hospitalizations, declining strength, new symptoms, greater fragility.
At this stage, families may ask: “Is this just part of the disease progression?” or “Are we missing something?” Silverado Hospice can provide early education about what life-limiting illness means, what hospice is (and isn’t), and help families mentally begin to shift from curative focus to quality-of-life focus.
Key help includes: understanding prognosis, clarifying goals of care, reviewing current treatments, exploring what to expect next.
2. Living with change at home — Adapting and maintaining hope
Families may still be managing care at home or in a community setting. They may juggle treatments, symptom management, home aides, and the emotional weight of “what’s next.”
At this stage, the focus is on maintaining daily life, preserving dignity and relationships, and making incremental adjustments: more home support, managing new devices, coordinating with the medical team. Silverado Hospice can offer resources on symptom management, caregiver support, advance care planning, and early conversations about comfort-oriented care.
It’s about shifting from “fight it” to “live best we can,” without yet fully entering hospice.
3. Growing burden & caregiver overwhelm — When the strain becomes hard to sustain
This may be marked by escalating symptoms (pain, fatigue, increased care needs), frequent transfers to hospital or ER, or the caregiver feeling unsafe, exhausted, isolated. The “invisible cost” of caregiving becomes overwhelming.
Families may say things like: “I can’t keep up with this anymore,” “We’re spinning,” “I’m worried we won’t manage when things worsen.”
Silverado Hospice can step in to support both patient and caregiver: respite services, education for complex symptoms, emotional and spiritual support, and help the family contemplate whether the current approach is sustainable.
4. Turning point — We can’t keep doing what we were doing
A clear pivot: A hospitalization, a crisis, an exacerbation, a decline, or a moment when everyone acknowledges that “things aren’t safe” or “this isn’t what we hoped” anymore. This is often where the formal hospice conversation begins.
The family may say: “We need help,” “We need a different kind of care,” or “Let’s talk about comfort and meaning now.”
Silverado Hospice’s role: clarify what hospice is (eligibility, what it provides), coordinate care transitions, support honest goals-of-care conversations, align the medical team, care setting, and family wishes around comfort rather than cure.
5. Decision time — Researching, asking questions & choosing hospice
At this stage families are actively comparing options (home hospice, inpatient hospice, hospice in the residential/community setting), asking hard questions about provider capabilities, pharmacy, visits, after-hours support, spiritual care, bereavement, costs.
Silverado Hospice can provide transparency: how our team works, what services we bring, how we partner with the primary/oncology teams, what families should ask (“Who is on call at night?”; “How will pain be managed?”; “What happens when we die at home?”). They can also invite tours, testimonials, and offer comparisons of typical scenarios to help families make an informed choice.
6. Transitioning into hospice care — Mixed emotions & new roles
Once the decision is made and doors shift, families often experience relief (help is here), guilt (we’re “giving up”), anxiety (what will happen next), and sadness. Loved ones may also feel a mix of acceptance, fear, and hope for meaningful time.
Silverado Hospice’s continuing role: support emotional and spiritual adjustment (for patient and family), guide what happens next (care plan, schedule, communication), clarify expectations (what hospice does, when death is likely, signs to watch for), and help families find new identity—from caregiver to supporter/advocate/loved one.
This stage also includes bereavement preparation and after-death follow-up support.