Expert: Mary Gordon - 10/15/2011

Question
I am looking for ideas for intellectual activities that might resonate with my wife. She is 85 and has had AD for at least 2 years. Her walking is very shaky and she spends most of the day asleep. While she still sees old friends on occasion, she really gets very little from their well-intentioned visits.

I have tried old comedy movies but they don’t stir any interest. Nor do travel movies or nature movies or opera and ballet movies, activities she used to enjoy.

I wonder whether you have any suggestions or can point me to some relevant links. Has anyone found children's books efficacious, for example? Are there other ideas out there I may have missed?

Thanks.

Answer
Hi WDC

Here are some links to good ideas for activities
http://www.theactivitydirectorsoffice.com/Gina_ActivityIdeasThatWork_Alzheimers.
http://www.alz.org/living_with_alzheimers_activities.asp

My mother in law lost her ability to follow plot lines or dialogue in movies or TV early on - she was often upset by the fact she couldn't keep the threads together or figure out what was happening. She found them boring as a consequence. Another issues she had was thinking that people on the TV screen could hear and see her, and even interact with her - which she sometimes liked, but most of the time found upsetting. When she went into an Alzheimer's unit, they did not allow TVs on the ward, because so many people were unsettled by TV. They also would see things on TV and think they were real - such as war scenes from a film - and be upset by them. It is not uncommon for the person to not really understand what TV is anymore. When they had "movie" nights on her ward, they stuck to old Hollywood musicals that had a lot of color and dancing, plus old songs the residents might enjoy. Another downside of TV was that people might sit and stare at it, or snooze in front of it, instead of moving around and interacting with others.

My mother in law did enjoy pictures books and books of photographs. We did use some children's books, but coffee table books of travel locations, old toys, pets etc. were also something she liked. We would sit with her and go through them. Get her to point things out, use the pictures to try and get her to talk about memories, or comment on. She very much liked old family photo albums. She would often amaze us, even when her speech was going, with what she would come out with. One afternoon, long after she had decided I was her sister Nora rather then her daughter in law, she was looking at some pictures, and suddenly recognized and pointed out my father.

She also very much enjoyed the music of her youth. She would often respond by tapping her hands and feet to the melody, or even singing along, even when her spoken language was almost gone.

You might want to tell her friends if they come to see her, they might want to bring something with them to interest her, or to do with her, like a simple puzzle, or bring some music to play, a pet to share, or take her out in the garden to look at the birds, or push her around the block if she has a chair. They could even bring lotion and give her a hand massage or do her nails. I even had the same challenge with visiting my mother in law, and would bring some nice pudding to share with her, a stuffed animal for her to cuddle, a book to look at, anything to give us some way to interact together that might enrich her days.

Hope the links give you some good ideas, or spark some of your own.

Thinking of you.

Mary