Creating a home environment that’s both comforting and stimulating can increase the joy in your loved one’s life if they live with dementia. When choosing activities, make sure you work within your loved one’s abilities to focus on joy and reduce frustration. Finding ways to be creative, reminisce, or bolster cognitive health through sensory experiences can be a great way to connect with your loved one. Each of these activities can be tailored for any senior with dementia.
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One way to keep dementia patients engaged is to delve into their past interests or talents. Niki Gewirtz, a Senior Living Advisor at A Place for Mom and former executive director of a memory care community, recommends gaining a deep understanding of your loved one’s hobbies and strengths so that you can tailor activities to their interests and abilities.
Explore the following activities that can stir up a loved one’s former passions and strengths.
Painting and drawing are ways to express feelings safely and with creativity. Encourage using bold, bright colors on big surfaces. Rolls of butcher paper enable seniors with dementia to create without encountering the stress of defined spaces. These activities for the elderly with dementia are not only fun but also can be therapeutic, as they promote emotional expression.
Activities involving different textures, such as playing with clay, offer tactile stimulation for dementia patients. Crafting with these materials or even exploring different shapes and sizes can be beneficial and enjoyable.
Cut out images from magazines, or print old ads and articles. Choose subjects that fit your loved one’s interests, like cooking, cars, or fashion. Another idea is to scan and print old family pictures. Let your family member with dementia arrange and rearrange the elements to create pictures or scrapbook pages.
Engaging in reminiscence therapy activities is a delightful way to help your loved ones recall cherished memories and exercise their cognitive abilities. These dementia activities utilize sensory and visual cues to gently guide seniors through their past, making them both meaningful and comforting.
Keep dementia patients engaged by arranging nostalgic movie nights. Whether they were fans of westerns like Gunsmoke or adored musicals like The King and I, watching these old favorites can provide both entertainment and memory stimulation.
“Music can awaken the brain, and with it, the rich trove of memories that are associated with familiar songs,” according to the nonprofit group Music and Memory. Stream classics or sing memorable songs like holiday carols. Sing-alongs and music classes were more common in mid-century schools; you might be surprised at how many songs your loved one remembers from childhood.
One of the most heartwarming activities for dementia seniors involves revisiting old photo albums. These albums, filled with images from their younger years, can help to reignite treasured memories. You could also digitize these pictures and create virtual memory books to make this more interactive.
Before the era of modern shopping, catalogs and magazines played a significant role in staying informed about trends. Finding copies or reprints of magazines they once enjoyed, such as Life or Cosmopolitan, or even the Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalog, can be one of the most engaging things for dementia patients to do.
Read more: Music Therapy for Dementia
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Fulfilling activities can significantly contribute to a senior’s quality of life, fostering feelings of achievement and self-worth. These dementia activities should be tailored to the senior’s cognitive level, ensuring they feel engaged and productive without being overwhelmed.
This routine task is one of the most calming activities for seniors with dementia. The familiar process of folding soft fabrics and the scent of classic detergents can evoke comforting memories. Start with uncomplicated items like hand towels and T-shirts for this simple yet fulfilling task.
For people who enjoyed do-it-yourself projects, suggest activities that yield visible results. Painting wooden boards or assembling PVC pipes are ideal things for dementia patients to do, particularly for seniors with good motor function. For people with more advanced dementia, wooden or plastic play tools can offer a similar sense of achievement.
This is one of the tactile activities for dementia patients that can keep them engaged. Tie loose knots along a durable, comfortable rope. The act of untying can provide both cognitive and physical stimulation without causing frustration or discomfort.
Puzzles for seniors with dementia, such as large-piece, color, or shape puzzles with tactile pieces, can be both entertaining and cognitively beneficial.
Board games like Guess Who? and Battleship are ideal because they stimulate memory and cognitive skills in a fun and engaging way while being straightforward enough not to cause confusion or frustration. Guess Who? can help with facial recognition and memory, while Battleship encourages strategic thinking. Even more playful options like a remote-controlled pet can bring immense joy and engagement. These toys can stimulate a sense of caring and provide amusement as your loved one controls the pet’s movements.
Read more: 5 Best Puzzles for Dementia Patients
The following dementia activities can stimulate the senses and evoke fond memories, leading to a more fulfilled and engaged life for your loved one.
Scents can trigger stronger emotional memories than visuals, as they’re processed in the brain’s memory control areas. Surrounding your loved one with familiar smells, like fresh-cut grass or the aroma of warm bread, could evoke joyful memories and emotions. It’s crucial to avoid smells that could cause distress, like diesel fuel or gunpowder, which can be triggers for older veterans.
Engaging in tactile activities for dementia patients can stimulate reminiscence. Even if they can’t recall specific events, touching familiar objects, like keys or hand-embroidered beads, can trigger memories.
Like smells, tastes can elicit emotions and memories. Your mom’s famous chocolate cake could bring back birthdays; a sip of instant coffee could recall quiet, early mornings at home.
Experiencing different textures can be a fulfilling dementia activity that provides sensory stimulation and memory cues. Consider things that align with their interests: soft animal fur for pet lovers or damp soil and leaves for seniors who enjoyed gardening. Create an activity around this by making a bag of varied textures to be sorted by touch.
Technology can offer stimulating, engaging, and mentally nourishing experiences for seniors with dementia. Here are some innovative ways technology can facilitate dementia activities and keep seniors living with dementia engaged at home.
A wealth of global attractions, from zoos and nature preserves to museums, offer live internet streams. Whether your loved one has a fondness for animals or an appreciation for art, they can experience ever-changing visual stimulation without leaving the comfort of home.
Google Earth offers a virtual exploration experience like no other through user-uploaded photos. Whether your loved one cherishes memories of their childhood hometown or dreams of the Sahara Desert, Google Earth can offer them a gateway to explore these places.
Video calls and chats can keep families connected, and technology can offer comfort even when a conversation isn’t possible. Creating a collection of videos featuring family members, beloved pets, and memorable moments on a tablet can be an ideal activity for dementia patients at home. This personalized tablet can provide solace during restless times or assist with sleep. If a tablet is too complex, consider transferring these precious videos onto a classic videotape or DVD.
This guide has explored a variety of engaging activities that were designed to enhance cognitive health and emotional comfort for seniors — from revisiting past interests and delving into creative expressions, to reminiscing about cherished memories and fulfilling everyday tasks.
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When choosing activities for seniors with dementia, it’s important to consider their current cognitive abilities, their interests, and the stage of their dementia. Activities should ideally be simple, enjoyable, and familiar to reduce frustration and anxiety.
In the early stages, individuals retain much of their independence and their cognitive abilities, though they may have trouble remembering recent events or managing complex tasks.
Good activities for this stage might include:
Activities can also include learning new, simple skills, as this stage of dementia is often marked by a desire to continue personal growth and development.
As dementia progresses into the middle stage, individuals may begin to have difficulty recognizing familiar people and places, and they may struggle with tasks that require multiple steps.
Activities should be simplified and broken down into single steps during this stage. Simple tasks, creative arts, and craft activities like these may be suitable:
In the late stages of dementia, individuals often have significant memory loss and may have difficulty communicating or recognizing loved ones. However, they can still benefit from sensory and emotional experiences.
Simple tactile activities like the following can be comforting and soothing for individuals with late-stage dementia:
Remember that everyone is unique, and the progression of dementia varies significantly among individuals. Always tailor activities to the person’s individual abilities and interests. The goal is not to challenge them with difficult tasks but to provide comfort, stimulate their senses, and create opportunities for meaningful engagement.
If it’s becoming difficult to care for your loved one with dementia at home, you may want to consider memory care.
However, if you’re not sure whether memory care communities will be able to fulfill and engage your loved one, here’s some internal data on how many communities within A Place for Mom’s network incorporate different types of activities:[01]
If you’re not quite ready to move your loved one but still want help around the home, you can look into home care.
To help you learn more about care options, reach out to A Place for Mom’s Senior Living Advisors. They can offer advice and help you find local care options that meet your loved one’s unique needs and preferences, all at no cost to your family.
You can make an activity blanket to keep your parent stimulated by choosing fabric and attaching items of different textures, like buttons, zippers, or ribbons, to it.
You can buy activities for dementia patients online. Some vendors specialize in toys and games for senior with dementia. You can also make activities from items you have at home.
Yes, fidget blankets keep dementia patients stimulated and give them something to do with their hands. It can ease symptoms of restlessness and anxiety.
Key Takeaways
[1] A Place for Mom. (2024). A Place for Mom proprietary data.
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