If your elderly loved one has dementia, as a family caregiver, it is helpful to know what activities are best for them. The first thing to note is that many people with early-stage dementia can still do activities they have always enjoyed. However, as the disease progresses, there may be fewer activities that your elderly loved one is able to do. With this being said, there are some dementia activities that you and home care providers may want to do with your elderly loved one.
Doing Arts and Crafts
You or home care providers may want to start doing arts and crafts with your elderly loved one. There are so many creative arts and craft projects that you can work on together. You can make wreaths, paint pictures, draw funny faces, sew, make clay figurines, and much more. You can look online to find easy and fun arts and crafts ideas. If your elderly loved one is still in the earlier stages of this disease, they may want to help you pick out one of these projects.
Playing Games
Your elderly loved one might want to play games with you or one of their home care providers, too. There are so many great games that people with dementia can play. While they may not be able to play complicated games such as Monopoly, they can often do jigsaw puzzles, checkers, dominos, connect four, and other simpler games. You can even lookup games for people with dementia to see what other ideas you can find.
Cook Together
Another great activity for you to do with your elderly loved one if they have dementia is to cook. While you shouldn’t leave your elderly loved one unattended in the kitchen when cooking, you can make meals with them. This can be fun. You can have your elderly loved one mix the vegetables in the bowl after you cut them up. This is just one way that they can help during the cooking process.
Conclusion
Have you been trying to find activities that your elderly loved one can do if they have dementia? Depending on the stage of their disease, there may be fewer activities they can participate in. However, the activities mentioned above are a great start. You can begin with one of these activities to see if your elderly loved one can still do it. If not, you or their home care providers can try something a bit easier with them.
Sources
https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/adapting-activities-people-alzheimers-disease
