Give Special Consideration to Family Members with Memory Loss
It’s the middle of October and the Holidays are sneaking up on us. For some people with memory loss and their care givers, the holidays are a challenge. My short and sweet advice is the more advanced the memory loss, the simpler things need to be.
If you are going to take Mom or Dad to your home for a celebration day, tone down the excitement–fewer people, shorter time, fewer things going on. You may want to settle the person into a smaller room, with a limited number of people around and not a lot of background noise. As a disease like Alzheimer’s progresses, some people are reluctant to leave home–their own, an Assisted Living, or Nursing Home. Wherever they are, the familiar is more important to them, even such a simple thing is knowing where their bathroom is and having it close by. At some point you may want to consider bringing a small celebration to them at their residence, if they appear to be apprehensive about going out. Consider trying to incorporate family rituals from the past. They may not remember what happened last year, but because long term memory often is intact, something from their early married years, or even their teen years may be meaninful–singing carols, stringing cranberries and popcorn, baking cookies (even decorating ready made sugar cookies.)
Figuring out gifts for older relatives presents more challanges. Think about consumable gifts–fruit, flowers, healthy snacks packaged in single servings, lotions made with calming essential oils like lavender or chamomile, or using a scent the person had always liked–lilac, lily of the valley, old spice–(with a promise of hand or leg massages.) Useful gifts like a favorite newspaper or magazine subscription (my dad, at one time, logged with a pair of draft horses; he loved his subscription to the Draft Horse Journal and practically wore out each issue,) a pack of birthday , get well, sympathy and “thinking of you” cards stamped and with a promise to help address them when needed. Gift certificates are sometimes a good choice–to the barber, the beautician, for a pedicure, for a concert, a movie, a restaurant, a play (including a promise to take them.) Consider a calendar or picture book. Major book stores always have bargain tables. Look for something of special interest. (Did your parents take a trip to Ireland? Have dogs always played a part in his or her life?) Make a chronological photo album. (It’s a fun project to do with the care receiver–they can help with captions for photos and can direct where to place them on the page. If you want to get fancy, you can even get some scrap-booking stickers to help decorate.) As my Mom’s Alzheimer’s progressed, this photo album was a helpful tool in assessing where her memory was. We could almost experience her memory being erased backwards. At one point, she could not identify my father, my brother or my children, but she could name all the people in a picture of her visit to a farm in Wisconsin when she was a young teenager. (And she felt quite pleased with herself that she could do it.) The photo album becomes an aid to generate reminiscing, and clues to what things are still of interest to the person.
Flowers can be a wonderful gift and impetus for conversation and remembering, even grass and fall leaves–really! My daughter brought a small inexpensive mixed bouquet from the supermarket every time she visited her grandmother. They talked about family gardens, the colors, the feel of the various parts of the bouquet, and of course, the wonderful smells–terrific sensory stimulation. One family brought a shoe box full of fresh grass clippings to Dad in a nursing home. He had been the best lawn maintainer in his neighborhood. He was pretty much bedfast, but you could tell he just loved running his hands through the grass clippings and smelling that familiar smell.
It all boils down to “knowing the person” and adapting articles of interest to where the person is at the time (my mom was a fabulous knitter; as her Alzheimer’s progressed, she could no longer knit, but she truly enjoyed watching me knit, feeling the yarn, looking at the pattern books and remembering some of the projects she had made,)
Keep it simple!!!
Care givers at Seniors’ Choice at Home in Minnesota, can help clients get ready for the holidays. They can help purchase and address holiday cards, bake, help get ready and serve a small coffee party for the client’s friends, help with simple decorating and shopping. Most of the time, errands and tasks are much more fun and doable when you have a good friend with you to help and talk about the task at hand and share good times from the past.
For more information, call Seniors’ choice at Home at 763-546-1599 or check out our website at www.seniorschoicemn.com
–Marilyn
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