I am a live in Caregiver for the sweetest lady in the world! She is almost 90 years old and been diagnosed with Dementia. I want her to always be happy, comfortable and live stress free life, if any of you have some interesting ideas on how to continuously stimulate a mind with Dementia write me back!
Thank you,
Deima
Movies: TCM and talking about whether she remembers this movie or that star or the old fashioned telephone, telephone booth, etc.
Photos: let her tell you about the people and places in her photo albums or find old pictures of the area (maybe from FB).
Knit/crochet/adult coloring/puzzles: Depending on where your charge is on the dementia journey, she may still enjoy hand crafts. An extended family member was able to crochet a simple double crochet afghan well into her dementia journey.
Books: Even when the person cannot garden/crochet anymore, they will often still enjoy looking through pattern/project books.
Memory issues mean that if your charge enjoyed something yesterday, they may enjoy it again today or tomorrow because they don't remember they have done it before. My mother has MCI and her short term memory is shot; she has enjoyed the same set of 10 books by her favorite authors for more than a year now. The books need to be short now because she cannot remember the plot in a book that takes several days to read. Puzzles need to have bigger pieces too.
If she enjoys music, I have an app on my iPad called Piano with Songs that mimics a keyboard. The key turns red to show you how to play many songs. It’s quite simple. There’s new songs which even I don’t recognize but they have many folk and patriotic songs she might like. (It’s 3.99 a month, which is worth it to me, but maybe not in your situation, but you can cancel anytime). To me it’s a barometer of Moms condition if she’s good enough to play the “piano game” on any given day.