Planning Meaningful Activities For Those Living With Alzheimers Or Dementia
For seniors living with Alzheimers or dementia, it is important to recognize they still need and deserve a good quality of life. Too often, people with dementia whether at home, in assisted living or a nursing home are under-stimulated and unengaged in life.
With the help of professional caregivers, there are many ways to plan and provide appropriate activities for people with dementia. Staying active and engaged is beneficial for both physical and cognitive health, so its particularly important for people with dementia or Alzheimers disease to engage in daily activities.
Some activities have proven to be particularly helpful for those with dementia such as games, exercise and outdoor activities, and music and art, as well as maintaining day-to-day routines. By providing structure and routine for a person living with dementia, it helps to maintain their cognitive function, sense of security, and can calm anxious or aggressive behaviors. It also helps provide a sense of control over their day and their environment, especially for those in the early stages of the disease. For those in the end stage of dementia, many of these activities are often one of the few ways they can still engage their memories and communicate.
At Unicity Healthcare, Alzheimers and Dementia Care is our specialization. Many renowned healthcare providers and Elderly service providers in New Jersey call on our expertise when dealing with people with Alzheimers / Dementia.
Activities Can Give Relaxation And Pleasure
It is very important to keep enjoying anything that gives meaning to one’s life or provides a sense of pleasure or relaxation. Many people enjoy creative hobbies such as playing a musical instrument, knitting or painting. Others enjoy social contact, so it is important to keep this up as much as possible. A person with dementia may enjoy an outing even if they may not remember where they have been. What is important is that the moment is enjoyed.
Activities To Stay Socially Engaged
- Join a dementia-friendly exercise class.
- Invite friends over for tea or snacks.
- See if there is a memory café in your community.
- Plan a video call with a group of friends.
- Join a book club together or start your own with friends and family.
- Host a family game night.
Learn more about the importance of staying socially connected for health and well-being as we age.
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Having Difficulty With Familiar Everyday Tasks
Not being able to do everyday tasks can be a sign of early Dementia. This includes complex tasks that take lots of focus, such as balancing the checkbook or playing a game with lots of rules or moving parts.
Learning to do new things can be more difficult, especially trying to establish new routines.
Activities For Dementia Patients: 50 Tips And Ideas To Keep Patients With Dementia Engaged
The prevalence of Alzheimers disease and other types of dementia is on the rise, yet the cost of dementia care options continues to grow. For many, family caregiving becomes the most practical and cost-effective solution, at least for a time. Keeping dementia patients actively engaged in everyday activities and cognitively challenging tasks is beneficial for both body and mind and, in some cases, it can even slow the progression of the disease. Staying active and engaged can help to reduce dementia sleep problems, as well.
Weve put together a list of 50 tips and ideas for keeping dementia patients active and engaged through everyday activities, outings, cognitively challenging tasks, and social and emotional activities, many of which can be used throughout most of the stages of dementia. Youll also find a few helpful tips for selecting activities that are appropriate based on the patients interests, abilities, and other considerations.
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Coma Work: An Example
Rosemary Clarke attended a course on coma work and found it to have amazing benefits in her caring role with her mother. In an article for the Journal of Dementia Care, Rosemary describes how she learnt to sit very close to her mother so she could talk into her ear. She would pay attention to what her mother might be doing, for example, she would be chewing or moving one finger a tiny bit or sighing. She would then focus on one of these activities and support her mother to go with that impulse, to give it its fullest expression. She would therefore encourage her chewing with thats good, you really chew it or thats fine, you chew it over.
Sometimes Rosemary would respond to her mothers moving finger by having a finger dance with her own index finger, talking to each other through applying pressure from the finger whether slow and soft or firm and persistent. All the time Rosemary would be giving verbal encouragement What an energetic/busy/strong finger!, This is lovely, our fingers are talking.
As a result of this approach, Rosemary describes how her mother started to speak more often than she had before, sometimes with words and sometimes with sounds. On one occasion, even before Rosemary had sat down beside her, she looked up and said hello darling .
Ideas For How To Stimulate The Senses
A multisensory approach becomes even more important with people with limited verbal communication. Bright colours, playful movements, funny sounds and tactile objects can all catch the attention of an individual in a way that more complicated activities no longer can.
Barbara Pointon gives some specific examples of how she tapped into all the senses in caring for her husband Malcolm:
- Sight: bright colours plenty of transfers between bed, wheelchair and recliner chairs so that the person isnt looking at the same bit of wall all day smiley faces views through the open patio door in summer and mobiles hung from the ceiling .
- Taste: continuing to feed orally even when swallowing is faltering, and trying stronger, sweeter flavours. Cold drinks are more easily sensed in the mouth than tepid ones. Remember to talk to the person about what they are eating.
- Smell: favourite aftershave, flowers, home cooking, aromatherapy oils.
- Hearing: favourite music, care staff singing or humming, people coming in to play an instrument or sing to him, sound of laughter, birdsong, talking to the person often .
- Touch: holding hands, stroking the face, giving a hug, helping the person to feel loved and cherished.
- Coma work: can it help people with advanced dementia?
Some creative work has been tried in relation to applying the ideas of coma work to working with people with dementia. This approach was developed in the United States in the 1980s by Arnold and Amy Mindell.
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Activities For Dementia Patients In Early And Middle Stages
The feeling of having something tampering with your memory is not good, especially when you are told to restrict a lot of activities that you used to enjoy doing. Luckily there are plenty of exercises for those in early and middle stages of dementia with easy availability and low monetary investment. As far as the duration is concerned, many specialists recommend 150 minutes of physical activities per week — a good 30 minutes daily. So lets have a look at the advised activities for such patients:
1. Gardening
There are many people who love being close to nature, and what option is better than maintaining your own garden? Patients get to go outdoors and indulge in gentle exercises that can easily be altered according to personal abilities and knowledge regarding gardening. These activities improve breathing and help strengthen the body’s muscles.
2. Dancing
An amazing activity to help the patients fit and fine is dancing. It is something you need not have expertise in to enjoy yourself. It also does not matter whether you are alone or in a group, doing ballet or freestyle, as long as you are happy and content. In fact, patients can also dance while being seated. Dancing reduces stress, makes you flexible, agile and fit, and improves your balancing techniques.
3. Seated Exercises
4. Swimming
5. Tai Chi
6. Walking
Activities For Dementia Patients In Late Stages
If the patient in late stages of dementia is physically fit enough, doing some exercises can be extremely helpful. There is no specific duration, but when done regularly for a definite amount of time, they begin to show their benefits.
- Patients should be encouraged to move around in the room for a proper blood flow in your system.
- Change their chairs often. Seating in the same position for a long period of time is generally not advised for dementia patients.
- While getting ready for bed, you can try shuffling from one end of the bed to the other, in a seated position. This exercise helps in the proper movement of the muscles.
- Try balancing your body when in a standing position and use support, if needed. This improves your bodys posture as well as its balance.
- Try sitting up on your own without any support for a couple of minutes, several times in a day. But make sure you do it in the presence of someone in case you do require help.
- Lie straight in your bed for half an hour, while keeping a bare minimum distance between the mattress and your back. This strengthens as well as stretches your abdominal muscles.
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Use Times To Suit The Persons Best Level Of Functioning
To ensure maximum success when carrying out activities it is best to consider the times of day when the person is at their best. For instance, sometimes walking is best done in the morning or the early afternoon. However for some people who are particularly restless later in the day, or who have had a particularly long or meaningless day, a late afternoon walk may be better.
Engage Them In Their Favourite Topics
Everyone has different interests and hobbies. It can be hugely engaging to talk to your loved one about their favourite topics or sports teams. To facilitate this, you could even watch YouTube videos with them about their favourite singer, public figure, or sports team. This has many benefits, such as stimulating positive discussion, helping them to reconnect with their youth, and also making them feel like a valued person.
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How Daily Activities Help Dementia Patients
Memory challenges are often the most pressing issue for many patients with dementia. But that doesnt mean its not worth the effort to engage with loved ones or encourage regular activity.
- Activities Offer Distraction from Daily Challenges
While caregivers report that agitation and restlessness are typical with their loved ones with dementia, engaging activities are one way to cope. Adults in the early stages of dementia may resist traditional therapies, as well. But crafts, art projects, and other activities and games may be a welcome distraction.
- Involving Loved Ones Preserves Family Ties
During a time when patients dealing with Alzheimers may no longer recognize family members, low-stress activities can allow them to spend time together. Cooperative activities, where the patient and caregiver or family member both participate, can also help maintain a connection.
- Regular Activities Keep Patients on a Schedule
Maintaining routines is beneficial for people dealing with dementia. Scheduled activities can aid in orienting patients throughout the day. Patients may also look forward to participating in regular activities with caregivers and family members.
Expert Advice On How To Entertain An Elderly Person With Dementia
From playing games and going on walks to watching movies or looking at photo albums, keeping your loved ones active and engaged can help preserve their quality of life and slow down dementias progression.
Regardless of which stage of dementia your loved one is in, there are a lot of good activities for seniors with dementia that you can integrate into your loved ones life.
But sometimes caring for a loved one or knowing how to interact with them can be challenging.
If you need help providing care to a loved one with dementia or want to talk with a dementia care expert about the best activities to do with older adults with dementia, were here for you.
At Stowell Associates, our Care Managers have special training for and experience with caring for individuals with dementia. They can come alongside you and:
We also have a partnership with a home care agency, called TheKey. Our Care Managers can connect you with their professional in-home caregivers and help oversee that process.
Contact us today to talk with a Care Manager and get the help you need looking after your loved one with dementia.
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Sensory Activities For Dementia Patients
#1: Get Cooking
There’s nothing quite like cooking to stimulate all five of your senses. Cooking is the perfect activity for dementia patients at home or in memory care.
Not only is cooking practical, but it also delivers a tasty treat as a reward.
Allow your loved one to do as much of the process as possible, always keeping safety at the forefront of your mind.
Depending on their abilities, your loved one may create the entire recipe from start to finish.
Or, they may only be able to help with a step or two. And if they are unable to perform any of the processes but are interested and engaged, they may benefit from simply watching you cook.
Keep it simple with recipes such as:
-
Garlic bread or
#2: Look at Scrapbooks
Looking through photo albums is a wonderful way to bring back favorite memories and spark meaningful conversation.
Lend a listening ear as the senior reminisces over their photos.
Ask questions to help them remember, or encourage them to create simple stories about what they see.
#3: Do Pasta Threading
Threading pasta is not only a fun activity, but your loved one can wear the end product as evidence of their success.
Simply use colorful yarn and plenty of dry pasta with big holes, such as:
You can easily make a needle by wrapping masking tape around the end of the yarn .
Your patient can even create patterns by using different colors of pasta or varying the types of pasta.
#4: Work in the Garden
Fill the garden with edible plants such as:
Activities And Games For Patients With Alzheimers Disease
As a caregiver of someone with Alzheimers, you can use games and activities to help stimulate their mind and senses.
Alzheimers disease is often known as the long goodbye not only because of its ability to affect someones cognitive and functional abilities, but also their emotions and moods, behaviour, and physical abilities, leaving behind a shell of a once-vital person that family and friends barely recognize. This can be tough to witness, but there are some ways you can continue to engage with the person in your care and spend quality time together.
Alzheimers disease affects everyone differently, so its often difficult to predict how it will progress, the symptoms , and the duration of each stage .
Since there is no cure, people with Alzheimers, and their caregivers, rely on treatment plans prescribed by the doctor, plus lifestyle changes to slow the progression of the disease.
Caring for someone with Alzheimers can be as rewarding as it can be emotionally and physically challenging.
Its difficult to watch someone you know struggling to perform everyday tasks and your natural reaction may be to just take over. However, research shows that people in the early stages of Alzheimers can still acquire and process new information, helping them to learn or improve their performance on cognitive tasks, so its important to let them try the task themselves, as long as its safe for them to do so.
DementiAbility method activities
What you need for this activity:
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Stage : Age Associated Memory Impairment
This stage features occasional lapses of memory most frequently seen in:
- Forgetting where one has placed an object
- Forgetting names that were once very familiar
Oftentimes, this mild decline in memory is merely normal age-related cognitive decline, but it can also be one of the earliest signs of degenerative dementia. At this stage, signs are still virtually undetectable through clinical testing. Concern for early onset of dementia should arise with respect to other symptoms.
Struggling With Sense Of Direction
Your sense of direction starts to become more noticeable with early signs of Dementia. This can include getting lost more often, not remembering certain landmarks, or forgetting how to get to places you have been many times.Following step-by-step instructions can become very difficult in early Dementia.
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Cognitive Activities For Dementia Patients
#1: Play Games
Games come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, such as:
-
Shoots and Ladders
Just remember to keep your loved one’s ability in mind and have another game on hand just in case you need to change the plan.
#2: Work Puzzles
Like games, puzzles are a go-to when youre looking for activities for dementia patients.
Not only do puzzles help stimulate the brain, but they also provide social interactions that can help patients and caregivers create positive emotional connections.
In fact, a recent study found that the onset of accelerated memory decline among dementia patients who regularly worked crossword puzzles was delayed by nearly two and a half years compared to those who did not.
Puzzles appropriate for dementia patients include:
-
Jigsaw puzzles
Icipating In Spiritual Activities
Like you, the person with Alzheimer’s may have spiritual needs. If so, you can help the person stay part of his or her faith community. This can help the person feel connected to others and remember pleasant times. Here are some tips for helping a person with Alzheimer’s disease who has spiritual needs:
- Involve the person in spiritual activities that he or she has known well. These might include worship, religious or other readings, sacred music, prayer, and holiday rituals.
- Tell people in your faith community that the person has Alzheimer’s disease. Encourage them to talk with the person and show him or her that they still care.
- Play religious or other music that is important to the person. It may bring back old memories. Even if the person with Alzheimer’s has a problem finding the right words to speak, he or she still may be able to sing songs or hymns from the past.
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