What recreational activities or hobbies are you involved in  this summer with your Alzheimer’s patient (parent, spouse, or relative)?  Do you have special projects you do together?  If you have children in the home, too,  you’ll be looking for activities they can be involved in with you.  These also will help build great family memories and carry you over the frustrating times.

Some of these the Alzheimer’s patient may not be able to do too well and may lose interest, but it will help keep them occupied for awhile. Others will be activities for younger children which may be all the patient can handle, too.

1. Wrting down family memories
2. Scrapbooking
3. Making mini quilts
4. Birdwatching around the yard and at bird feeders
5. Cooking foods from the Alzheimer’s patient’s era
6. Playing board games
7. Charades
8. Coloring pictures
9. Sorting and labeling photographs…great memory sparkers
10. Taking short walks
11. Splashing in a wading pool
12. Arts and crafts
13. Playing Bocce ball in the yard

With some activities, the patient may only be able to watch.  However, the entertainment often helps calm them and keep them occupied.

What activities are you involved in this summer?  What works in one situation might not in another, but if we share our successes, we can all encourage one another.

(Amazon images)

(c)2008 Mary Emma Allen

Post from: Blisstree

Thursday Thirteen – 13 Summer Projects for Caregivers, Alzheimer’s Patients & Children