Ways to Celebrate Rosh Hashanah With All Long Term Care Residents

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The first activity idea incorporates apples, honey and the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashana. Rosh Hashana(the Jewish New Year) is most often in September, but it depends on the Jewish calendar which goes by the moon. Simply put, Rosh Hashana is a solemn holiday. It is a time for reflection, a time when you examine your life and make amends for all the wrongs that you may have been part of during the past year. Yom Kippur is the "day of atonement" when you ask forgiveness for all your sins of the past year. There are some traditions of these holidays that everyone can enjoy

All Jewish holidays start and end in the evening.

A tradition on Rosh Hashana is to dip apples into honey. If you do this, it is said that you will have a sweet new year. This activity is relatively easy to do. You can have a discussion about the Jewish holidays. If you have any Jewish residents, make sure to involve him/her in the planning process. They may even reveal some more easy to do traditions to you.

Also call on them often during the discussion even if they are lower functioning. You might say something like, "Bella told me she used to(a tradition she told you about or you read about) on Rosh Hashana" Bella is the low functioning resident. It will make Bella feel good.

Sun facts for a discussion with long term care residents( part 2)

Activities directors, caregivers, and healthcare professionals,here is some great information

Here is a great dementia resource for caregivers and healthcare professionals,

Here is information on being the best caregiver you can be

The Sun

The sun is the center of our solar system, and all of the planets in our solar system, including Earth, orbit (travel) around it.

The sun also gives out rays called X-rays and ultraviolet (UV) rays which
are harmful.

The sun gives off heat and light energy which makes it possible for life to exisit on Earth

The sun spins like a top and its gravity holds the planets and other objects in the solar system in orbit around it. The eight planets and their satellites (moons) are the sun's satellite

The sun contains about 98% of the mass of the entire Solar System.

Is just a medium sized star (yellow dwarf). It is about 1.4 million kilometers in diameter.

Is the center of our Solar System. All the planets and other objects orbit around it.

Is very gaseous, and made up mostly of hydrogen.

Contains darkspots that are known as sunspots.
• The planets closest to the Sun are Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars.
• The planets furthest from the Sun are Neptune, Uranus, Jupiter, and Saturn

Make a family tree

Activities directors and other healthcare professionals here is a great dementia resource for caregivers and healthcare professionals,

Here is information on being the best caregiver you can be

Here is a way for nurses administrators, social workers and other health care professionals to get an easyceu or two






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Easter Gifts For Those With Dementia and Other Long Term Care Residents

Activities directors, caregivers, and healthcare professionals,here is some great information


Here is a great dementia resource for caregivers and healthcare professionals,


Your residents will love the Amazon Kindle Fire




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Here is a way for nurses administrators, social workers and other health care  professionals to get an easyceu or two


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The Dementia Caregiver's Little Book of Hope [Kindle Edition]

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Over 5.5 million Americans are living with dementia. Is one of them someone you know or work with? Get him/her or anyone with Alzheimer's disease an Easter gift that will keep on giving long after the holiday is gone.

First on the list of gifts is a book by Susan Berg called Adorable Photographs of Our Baby -- Meaningful, Mind-Stimulating Activities and More for the Memory Challenged, Their Loved Ones and Involved Professionals, This book features baby photographs that seniors with dementia love. This book shares a plethora of ideas and resources for you.

Another gift dementia persons will fancy is a love classic musical video or DVD. They will enjoy watching something from the good old days and singing the songs played throughout the picture. Here are a few suggestions: Singin' in the Rain, Meet Me in St. Louis, or Shall We Dance

Next is a sing a long CD or audio cassette of their favorite love songs. There is a series of these called, Old Time Favorites by Nancy Pitkin

You may want to get a sing a long video where your loved one can see and hear performers singing songs they love and are about love. A good one is, Sing-Along with Phil Bernardi: Songs We Know and Love

Here is another idea. Give a friend with dementia some hand lotion. Any kind will do. Just be aware of any allergies or pain issues he/she might have. If he/she can tolerate it, those with a pleasant scent work well. Give him/her a relaxing hand massage talking about how good the hand massage feels, how much you love this person, and an Easter experience you both share from the past.

If you cannot afford or do not have time to get these gifts before Easter, give the gift of yourself. No matter how hard it is for you to visit a dementia person, he/she will appreciate your company even though he/she may not be able to express it. Take him/her for a walk, sing some of your favorite songs together, or share some messages of love. Just spend some quality time with a dementia person. Both of you will feel better. Do remember to be upbeat animated and excited about visiting.

A phone call or an Easter card will do if there is no way you can visit in person. At least they will know you are thinking of them. Then visit on another day.

So no matter what you do, do not forget the person with dementia this Easter because it will make you and him/her feel good. What could be better than that!

Order any of the products mentioned in the article at Amazon.com.
These gifts are simple, inexpensive or free, and can be enjoyed by all.

Soup Humor

Activities directors, caregivers, and healthcare professionals,here is interesting information
Here is a great dementia resource for caregivers and healthcare professionals,

Here is information on being the best caregiver you can be


It is always good to make those with dementia and other long term care residents laugh. With that I bring you

Soup Humor

• He's the only man I ever knew who had rubber pockets so he could steal soup. (Wilson Mizner)
• You ever wonder if illiterate people get the full effect of alphabet soup? (John Mendoza)
• He found a great way to eat his wife's soup. He pretends it's mud. (Milton Berle)
• I once cut my mouth on my wife's soup. (Milton Berle)
• She loves to make soup--especially cream of yesterday. (Milton Berle)
• I cast my bread upon the waters tonight. Of course my wife claimed it was soup.
• Everything she cooks turns out tough. Can anyone lend me a soup knife?
• A physicist, a chemist, and an economist are stranded on an island with nothing to eat. A can of soup washes ashore. The physicist says, "Let's smash the can open with a rock." The chemist says, "Let's build a fire and heat the can first." The economist says, "Let's assume that we have a can-opener."
• I put instant soup in a microwave and almost went back in time."
• "I make soup so thick that when I stir it, the room goes round."
• "We were eating in this open-air café when it started raining. It took us an hour and a half to finish our soup."
• "She's such a noisy eater that when she started on the soup, six people got up and started doing the polka."
• guy goes into a restaurant and orders soup from a waitress. The waitress goes into the kitchen and the man passes his time waiting by looking out the window. When the waitress returns, he says, "Looks like rain." The waitress says, "Yeah, but it's soup!!" (Thanks to Doug Bonner of Fuzhou, China, for the cite.)

Soup Humor (part 3)

Activities directors, caregivers, and healthcare professionals,here is interesting information
Here is a great dementia resource for caregivers and healthcare professinals,

Here is information on being the best caregiver you can be

Here are more interesting dementia brain boosting activities

It is always good to make those with dementia and other long term care residents laugh. With that I bring you

Soup Humor(part 3)

• I put instant soup in a microwave and almost went back in time. (Steven Wright)
• I make soup so thick that when I stir it, the room goes round.
• We were eating in this open-air café when it started raining. It took us an hour and a half to finish our soup.
• She's such a noisy eater that when she started on the soup, six people got up and started doing the polka.
• Some of the stuff that stares out of gumbo should not be allowed out except for Halloween. (Steve Epstein)
• I don't want to panic, but my alphabet soup says, "Forget about me...just try to save yourself." (Tom Wilson)
• He's so meticulous he eats his alphabet soup in alphabetical order. (Mitch Murray, 60's songwriter turned speechwriter)
• When their little boy wouldn't speak, mom and dad took him to the doctor, who was also baffled. Finally one day the boy said, "My soup is too cold." His parents were ecstatic. "Why haven't you spoken to us up to now?" "Because the soup was never too cold before."



)

Soup Humor (part 2)

Activities directors, caregivers, and healthcare professionals,here is interesting information
Here is a great dementia resource for caregivers and healthcare professinals,

Here is information on being the best caregiver you can be

Here are more interesting dementia brain boosting activities

It is always good to make those with dementia and other long term care residents laugh. With that I bring you

Soup Humor(part 2)

• Why do the New England Patriots eat their soup on a plate? Because bowls make them choke!!! (Thanks to Ryan Campbell for his timely joke on Superbowl XLII, New England Patriots v. New York Giants.)
• You know what's good about sheep's head broth? Its eyes will see you through the week.
• What's Martha Stewart's recipe for chicken soup? First, boil the chicken then dump the stock.
• "How did the cannibal cook respond when complimented on his soup?" "It's all relatives."
• "When is rabbit soup not good?" "When there's a hare in it."
• "Do you like day-old soup?" "Yes, I do." "Well, come back tomorrow, then." (Attributed to the wife of a wealthy Canadian philanthropist)
• "Who is the head of a soup factory?" "Souperman" (7-year-old Californian Marguerite, bless her heart)
• "How you make gold soup?" "With 22 carrots."
• "A bowl of alphabet soup a day is good for the vowels." (Mitch Murray, 60's songwriter turned speechwriter)
• "Wonton disregard: negligently serving hot noodle soup" (L.A. Times, 4/16/02)
• "What do ducks have for lunch?" "Soup and quackers"
• "Never darken my Dior again" (Canadian actress, when a waiter at Buckingham Palace spilled soup on her dress)
• When is soup musical? When it's piping hot.
• On bad movies: "Better films have formed atop day-old soup."
• "At the Olympics, Mormon president Gordon B. Hinckley met with President Bush and the First Lady and declared them both from 'good stock.' Does he mean, like, soup?" (Ron C. Judd, Seattle Times).
• What do you call 2,000 pounds of Chinese Soup? Won Ton.
• You know how movies always have sex scenes and the studios say that is because sex is part of life and movies should be lifelike? So why don't movies have more soup scenes? Soup is part of life; no one was ever too tired to have soup.... (Jackie Mason, in The World According to Me--many thanks to Louis S. for the contribution).
• I went to a restaurant that serves "lunch at any time." So I ordered bean soup during the Renaissance." (Stephen Wright)
• "What's the difference between roast beef and pea soup?" "Anyone can roast beef."
• A retired printer went into the restaurant business. One day one of his customers cried, "This is an outrage--there's a needle in this soup!" "Merely a typographical error, sir," said the printer, "should have been 'noodle.'"
• When Marilyn Monroe was married to Arthur Miller, she got tired of his mother always serving matzo ball soup. "Gee, Arthur," she said after the tenth time, "These matzo balls are pretty nice, but isn't there any other part of the matzo you can eat?"
• Checking the menu, a restaurant customer ordered a bowl of vegetable soup. After a couple spoonsful, he saw a circle of wetness right under the bowl on the tablecloth. He called the waitress over and said, "It's all wet down here. The bowl must be cracked." The waitress said, "You ordered the vegetable soup, didn't you?" "Yes," he replied. "Well, maybe it has a leek in it." (Milton Berle)
• The cannibal wiped his mouth daintily and said, "My wife makes great soup. But I'll miss her."
• "Yes, I know fish is brain food, but I don't care much for fish. Isn't there some other brain food?" "Well, there's noodle soup."
• "Will you join me in a bowl of soup?" "Is it big enough for both of us?"
• "What do you call a chicken in a hot tub?" "Soup."
• Bill and Hillary Clinton were at a restaurant. The waitress asked Hillary for her order. She said, "I'll have the onion soup and the chicken dinner." The waitress said, "what would you like for your vegetable?" Hillary said, "He can order for himself."
• "What is Dracula's favorite soup?" "Scream of tomato."
• "What does a dragon eat with soup?" "Firecrackers."
• "What do firemen put in their soup?" "Firecrackers."
• "Is chicken soup good for your health?" "Not if you're the chicken."
• "What does pea soup taste like when it gets cold?" "I don't know. Who would eat cold pea soup?"

Will your nursing home survive the culture change and MDS 3.0? (part 2)

Activities directors, caregivers, and healthcare professionals,here is some great information
Here is a great dementia resource for caregivers and healthcare professinals,

Here is information on being the best caregiver you can be

Here are more interesting dementia brain boosting activities

Missourian

This conceptual makeover is just one reflection of an ongoing culture change in the long-term care industry. The goal is now to promote senior independence and to ensure that elders spend their final days, months and years more meaningfully.

Improvement is vital, as baby boomers are now retiring in droves, quickly becoming our next generation of the elderly. And average U.S. life expectancy has increased — from 69.6 years in 1955, to about 78 years today, which, to put it bluntly, means more time spent being old.


Elvis has left the building

Thank you. Thank you very much. Did y’all enjoy that trip to Hawaii?” asks Richard Smith, Elvis impersonator.

On this Friday afternoon in March, he is wrapping up his Blue Hawaii set for the residents of Columbia Manor Care Center, one of the smallest senior facilities in Boone County. About 25 of its 50 or so elders, primarily women, have gathered in the living room to watch the King perform.

He is wearing pointy-toed white shoes, a royal blue scarf draped over a studded, light blue jumpsuit, and a Donald Trump-like reshuffling of his own hair.

“Now we’re gonna go back to the Vegas years,” he declares.

An instrumental version of “Don’t Be Cruel” kicks up on the sound amplifier, and Smith resumes crooning into his microphone. The next set includes lesser-known songs interspersed with crowd-pleasers such as “Return to Sender,” “Viva Las Vegas” and “Fools Rush In.”

Whoops and hollers erupt from a huddle of nursing staff wearing multicolored Crocs and cartoon-print scrubs whenever Elvis shimmies or delivers a subtle foot kick on the occasional downbeat.

“Thank you!” somebody catcalls during “Suspicious Minds” after Elvis graces the crowd with a prolonged sequence of gyrations.

The residents are more tranquil. A few women have their eyes closed, and one woman is unable to hold her head up.

But the performance reaches Judith Steffenauer, 64, who remembers owning all of Elvis’ albums and seeing all of his movies, and it delights the thin, attentive woman sitting near the front, who received a peck on the cheek from Smith during a slow song and charmingly declared after his performance that she “wasn’t gonna wash her face” that evening.

There’s a palpable letdown after the show as nurses roll wheelchairs through hallways and into bedrooms for afternoon naps, push sofa chairs back into place, and flip on the TV in the living room.

Some residents stick around to watch afternoon talk shows, and one woman takes out a crossword puzzle book.

The nursing staff return to work, kindly asking residents in the hallways if they enjoyed the performance, and one nurse observes, for whoever happens to be listening, that “Elvis has left the building.”


The ‘B’ word

I think a lot of people think fun is easy,” said Tammie Henderson, who holds a bachelor’s degree in recreational therapy and now works as administrator of a Brookfield senior home. “And it’s very hard to plan fun.”

Sun facts for a discussion with long term care residents

Activities directors, caregivers, and healthcare professionals,here is some great information


Here is a great dementia resource for caregivers and healthcare professinals,


Here is information on being the best caregiver you can be




The Sun


Some people from long ago thought of the Sun as a god. They did not want the god to be angry with them. To keep the Sun happy, they offered it gifts such as gold and food.


People in ancient Egypt, Asia and Greece worshipped the sun.
They thought that an eclipse of the sun, when the moon passes in front of the sun and blocks the light, was the sun god showing anger. The Greeks called the sun Helios. The Romans called it Sol.


The Sun is our closest star. It is a member of the Milky Way galaxy. The Sun is a yellow dwarf star, which means it is a medium size star. It is believed to be over 4 billion years old. The Sun spins slowly on its axis as it revolves around the galaxy.


The center, or core, of the Sun is very hot. A process called "nuclear fusion" takes place there. Nuclear fusion produces a lot of energy. Some of this energy travels out into space as heat and light. Some of it arrives at Earth! Streams of gas particles known as the solar wind also flow out from the Sun.


On the Sun's surface, we can see storms. We call these storms "sunspots" because they look like dark spots on the Sun's surface. The Sun also produces big explosions of energy called solar flares. These flares shoot fast moving particles off the Sun's surface. These particles can hit the Earth's atmosphere and cause a glow called an aurora.


The sun is the closest star to Earth, and is the centre of our solar system.


The sun is a huge, spinning ball of hot gas that glows in the sky. Our sun is a medium sized star. It looks larger and brighter than the other stars because it the nearest star to Earth. It is about 150 million kilometres away.