Celebrating Baseball Day with those who have dementia

Alzheimer's Activities Expert
Activities directors, other healthcare professionals and caregivers

Spring training has begun. The season of spring is not too far off. A person’s fancy turns to baseball.
In fact we celebrate Baseball Day in April. On my activity calendar, I have it coinside with my home team’s first game. My home team is the Boston Red Sox.

So what can we do to make this day special even for the non baseball fan.

First, we can plan a party.
This is always fun even if we do not do everything we plan.
We can make invitations and decorations.

We can.......read tthe whole post

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Anoother mind stimulating activity for thse with dementia

Activities directors, other healthcare professionals and caregivers here is a mind stimulating, fun activity brought to you by an
Alzheimer's Activities Expert
read her blogs about limericks.

Here are some more suggestions

There once was a pauper named Meg
Who accidentally broke her _______.
She slipped on the ______.
Not once, but ______
Take no pity on her, I __________.

The artist who's working in wood
Must be certain her handtools are ____
For if those knives be ____
It's certain she'll ____
Over blood spilled for her ______.

Describe a librarian's day?
Peaceful and quiet, you___
There is one thing it ____
Back there in the stacks____
And that thing is more decent ____.

The secret of love is the power
To weather the sweet and the _____
Your joy will not _____
With love as your ______
Through sunshine and through _______.

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Facilitating a discussion

Activities directors, other healthcare professionals and caregivers. Here is something you might be interested in from
Alzheimer's Activities Expert
For those with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, you may have to be the facilitator in a discussion.

Today we are going to discuss how to facilitate a discussion about the “good old days” as you talk about United States presidents.

You can start out by mentioning the names of 3 or 4 presidents from the thirties forties or fifties depending on the age and mental abilities of your audience.

Let’s say most of the group members remember the late forties and early fifties. You could say that you remember Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Dwight Eisenhower.

Then you could mention that when (the president most responded to) was president around 1950 I was……

See if they can tell you about.....read the whole post

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Alzheimer's Care: How Copper Ridge Nursing Home Gets It Right

Activities directors, other healthcare professionals and caregivers, here is a story of interest:
aUS NEWS AND WORLD REPORT

At the Johns Hopkins-affiliated facility, residents with dementia get attention and social interaction
By Kerry Hannon
The Hopkins collaboration ensures that staff training is continuous and well above par. Maryland state law calls for 12 hours of ongoing education each year for certified nursing assistants, for example, and Copper Ridge more than doubles that quota. Nurse specialists, neuropsychologists, and neuropsychiatrists from Johns Hopkins teach and brainstorm with staff to assess the right solution for every challenge. "For this population, you need to have a training program that is ongoing and very topic specific to what they are dealing with," Koenig says. "Our staff tells us what most of our training topics should be based on what they are dealing with on a daily basis."

While there are other facilities around the country aiming to provide top-level dementia care similar to Copper Ridge's, they are far from the norm. The most obvious similarity, though, is found in the living quarters and resident-centered care. A growing number of assisted living and nursing homes are offering a homelike environment and are stressing activities and physical stimulation. Few, however, have the extra benefit of working in tandem with a world-class medical team each day.

Not surprisingly, the educated care doesn't come cheap. Copper Ridge costs as much as $113,515 a year for assisted living (from $205 to $311 per day, depending on the level of care) and up to $140,525 a year for nursing home care ($385 a day). Although the facility's nursing home unit accepts people on Medicaid, the assisted living component is strictly private pay. (Some residents have long-term care policies that help foot the bill.) Even at this price, at times there's a waiting period of a few weeks for a bed. In the nation's 100 largest metropolitan areas, dementia care in assisted living averages $56,316 a year for a private bedroom, or about $154 a day, according to the......read the whole story

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Kimberly-Clark revamps Depend line for men, women

Activities directors, other healthcare professionals and caregivers, here is a product that should be of interest to you. It is especially useful for those with dementia

Reuters
By Jessica Wohl

CHICAGO, - Kimberly-Clark Corp (KMB.N) is overhauling its Depend line to offer disposable underwear tailored to men and women as it prepares for an influx of aging Americans who need incontinence products.

Depend has been around for nearly 25 years, but this is the first time it is offering separate versions of absorbent underwear for men and women.

The products, which look more like traditional cotton underwear than an adult diaper, will be available in North American stores in March and appear in Europe later in 2009.

While Depend is a smaller business than other Kimberly-Clark products such as Huggies diapers or Kleenex tissues, it expects an aging population will help boost sales.

Baby Boomers, the generation of Americans born between 1946 and 1964, are heading toward retirement with the oldest set to turn 65 in 2011. Many of them are already caring for parents who may use incontinence products.

Underwear currently accounts for about 75 percent of Depend brand sales.

Six unisex versions of Depend underwear will be replaced by six versions for women and two versions for men. The new products have different leg openings and other changes to fit men's and women's bodies. They offer 28 percent better leakage protection than ......read the whole article

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here

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Another top activity for those with dementia

Alzheimer's Activities Expert
Activities directors, other healthcare professionals, and caregivers....
How do we get folks with dementia or anyone else for that matter interested in square dancing and why would you want to?

Every six months or so I invite a local square dancing group to our nursing home. As you can see by the picture, the members of the group are not young. Yet all are sharp mentally. Why “You ask?”

I have not delved into each person’s background. However I know that when you do activities that stimulate your mind and body at the same time, you go a long way in staving off dementia.

The folks I work with everyday already have dementia. So what do I do?
First let them......read the whole post

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Chicken Soup for the Soul, meaningful films to share

Alzheimer's Activities Expert

Activities Directors, other healthcare professionals and caregivers, fearured here is a meaningful activity that is easy, yet produces wondrous results

Whether your loved one or client has dementia, some other disorder, or you just want to provide something meaningful for him to watch, I recommend this inspirational Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Gift of Love, video. It featuires two uplifting short films.

The first is, “Mrs. Wetherby’s Treasure,” It is about two sweet and innocent 9-year-old girls who befriend themselves to an elderly neighbor. They discover a truly wondrous and unexpected friendship .

The second short film is entitled “Dear Grandmother,” It features a series of unexpected events in the life of a New York fashion coordinator named Celia Davis. In a short period of time, Celia loses her estranged mother and is appointed guardian of her 12-year-old half sister Merry, who is quite a handful. They go on a lengthy cross-country journey together. They start out as strangers but by the time the journey is over, they form a joyous, deep-seated bond.

For those working in long term care this is a........read the rest of the post

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Person centered dementia activities reduce agitation in those with dementia

Activities directors, other healthcare professionals and caregivers read this from DGNews

NEW YORK -- March 11, 2009 -- Both person-centred care and dementia-care mapping reduce agitation in people with dementia in residential care. In addition, person-centred approaches can be taught quickly and should be introduced as standard practice in residential care homes, according to a study released early online and appearing in the April issue of The Lancet Neurology.

Two individually tailored behavioural interventions already used widely in clinical practice, person-centred care and dementia-care mapping, have been shown to improve outcomes for people with dementia, but the evidence is mainly descriptive and observational.

To provide further evidence, Lynn Chenoweth, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, Australia, and colleagues conducted the Caring for Aged Dementia Care Resident Study (CADRES) to examine the effectiveness of these interventions and whether they could improve quality of life, decrease need-driven dementia-compromised behaviours, or reduce the use of psychotropic drugs and rates of accidents and injuries.

The study included 15 residential care sites in Sydney involving 289 residents with dementia aged 60 years or older. Patients were randomly assigned to person-centred care, dementia-care mapping, or usual care,

Carers received training and support in the relevant intervention or continued usual care. The Cohen-Mansfield agitation inventory (CMAI) was used to measure 29 behaviours of agitation including biting, scratching, and hiding things. Patients were assessed before the intervention, after 4 months of the intervention, and then at 4 months' follow-up.

Findings showed that.....read the whole post

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The independent resident with dementia

Alzheimer's Activities Expert
Activities Directors, other healthcare professionals and caregivers. What do you do for the resident, client or family mamber who likes to do things independently?

I just found this book which is ideal for those who are even the least bit interested in history. The puzzles are easy enough that people who like to puzzles can achieve success and be challenged at the same time.

There are so many historical events we celebrate throughout the year. It is nice to have a book that highlights them in an......read the whole post and a link to buying the book

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A neat trivia activity with a twist

Alzheimer's Activities Expert
Activities Directors,other healthcare professionals and caregivers, here is some valuable information
We know those with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias need mind stimulating activities daily.

We also know that persons with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias love trivia because they know the answers

The trick is to present the information in a new format that gives each person a chance to participate.

One activity that I like to do is called Table Ball Trivia.

This activity uses trivia question or statements of your choice, a ball of 16 to 20 inches in diameter, and a table big enough to accomodate the number of participants in your group.

This activity can be done one on one as well.

You also may have to put...read the whole post

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Having A Parent With Dementia May Affect Memory In Midlife

Activities directors, other healthcare professionals and caregivers, this should interest you

EmaxHealth

Posted under: Brain & Nervous System
People who have parents diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease or dementia may be more likely to have memory loss themselves in middle age, according to a study released by the American Academy of Neurology.

For the study, researchers used the Framingham Heart Study to follow three generations of participants to study risk factors of Alzheimer’s and other diseases. A total of 715 people belonging to the second generation of the Framingham Heart Study with an average age of 59 were included in the research. One group of 282 people had one or both parents with diagnosed dementia. The other group of 433 people had parents without dementia. Scientists tested for a gene thought to be a strong risk factor for dementia, called the ApoEe4 gene.

Among people who were carriers of the ApoEe4 gene, those who had parents with Alzheimer’s disease or other dementia had......read the rest of the story

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Activity Program for Persons with Dementia

Elderly Health Service
Department of Health

Carers Corner

Activity Program for Persons with Dementia

Activities are essential for living. Well-planned daily activities that help to provide structure, meaning and achievement have positive effects for the person with dementia.


Benefits of activities for the person with dementia

Enhance physical, mental, social and emotional health;

Develop competence, achieve mastery that promote self esteem and self worth;

To help the person with dementia to realize his/her fullest potential and to help them to rediscover themselves;

Enhance attention and adaptive skills that maximize independence;

Provide opportunities for social interaction, emotional release that helps to delay negative symptoms and promote positive aging;

Experience pleasure, life satisfaction and enhance the quality of life.

Essential elements for appropriate activities

Have specific goal and meaning to the person with dementia;

Able to motivate patient for participation;

Fit the physical and mental capabilities of the person with dementia;

Suitable to the need, interest, age, social & educational background and former life styles of the person with dementia;

Provide opportunities for enjoyment during the process of participation;

Provide opportunities for the sense of control and satisfaction;

Does not pose threat or sense of failure;

The process and content should be flexible and easily adapted to meet various needs of the person with dementia.

Choice of activity programs

1. Self-care activities

A safe and relaxing environment, simplified workflow, and the use of tools or adaptations could help the person with dementia to develop sense of control, competence and maximize independence in self-care activities such as dressing, bathing, grooming and dining etc.

2. Household activities

Participation in familiar household activities encourages continuous life experience. When meal planning, cooking and money management become too demanding for the persons with dementia, simple tasks like folding serviettes, table-setting and sweeping the floor in a safe environment could be considered.

3. Leisure activities

Leisure activities that encourage active participation and social interaction are valuable for the person with dementia. Sing-a-long, listening to radio, playing chess, physical exercise, keeping pets and craft work are common examples of leisure activities that provide opportunity for pleasure and enjoyment.

4. Reminiscence activities

Through a process of....read the whole thing

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What are some good games for Elderly people with Dementia ?

Activities Directors, other healthcare professionals and careegivers here are some activity suggestions you may find helpful

As for Games...it would be fun to play

POKER - (and you could round out that $ per. hour income :)
Musical Wheelchairs
Hide and seek ( do this right before break time)
Board game - Concentration
Board Game - Operation ( maybe not:)
lol

In all seriousness here are some suggestions:

NPR has a Great service called :
"Story Corps"- Listening is an Act of Love.
StoryCorps is an independent nonprofit project whose mission is to honor and celebrate one another's lives through listening.
It is to Record the......read the whole post

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