Acting as their activities director was a critical part of my role.
But many caregivers struggle to find things for their loved ones to do.
Here are some activities gleaned from my experience and from members of theAARP Family Caregivers Discussion Group on Facebook.
Read and share
Help your loved ones pick out a new book or reread an old favorite.
Better yet, dig into a series of books, like Westerns, mysteries or historical romances.
Or they can listen to audiobooksusing a book app.
She is an avid reader at 88!
She also loves doing jigsaw puzzles on her Fire.
I get greeting cards for the whole year.
(I do the envelopes.)
We do this activity as a way to help her maintain sentence structure and writing.
(It also helps me recognize her losses.
It also gives her a way to stay in touch with those family and friends.
Love doesnt stop there.
We did a ‘90 cards for 90th birthday’ event last year,she relates.
Some people sent as many as three greetings!
We set them up in a basket next to her chair so that she can also look through them.
Learn and document their life stories
Addie Cursio found discussing her mothers life history made a big difference.
My daughter gave me a little book calledAbout Momthat has questions about my mothers life, she says.
During our morning coffee, I ask her simple questions about her life.
It has been a game-changer.
Before this, she hardly spoke except about the weather, being cold, etc.
We also go through old photo albums.
I ask gently who folks are and then identify them and we talk about what the picture is about.
I gave my elderly mom and dad projects to do, says Lindalee Singer Provost.
Another project was to record stories from different stages of their lives.
Beth Warriner visits her dad and draws on his knowledge of plants.
I might bring leaves or flowers for him to identify for me, she says.
I also got him a tomato plant to take care of on the nursing home patio.
Lisa Pugh makes it a time for her mother to socialize as well.
Janet Cohen says her dad has Parkinsons, so she plays games to boost his cognitive skills.
We have a go at play Memory (with different card sets) with him often.
Our newest game that he loves is Kings Corner, she says.
He also enjoys Rack-O.
His paid caregivers play these games as well.
We play bingo, which is really simple, says Cursio.
Cards are adapted as she doesnt recall any games, so we cheat.
Scrabble is a good one, and I help with the words.
