July 4th memories often entertain the Alzheimer’s parent and help you preserve your family heritage…for yourself, your children and future generations.  Since Alzheimer’s patients like to reminisce, you may be able to do this with them about memories of this holiday.

Record the memories
Jot them down
Pull out pictures and have the patient tell you about them (if they’re able)
Make some scrapbook pages with these memories
Involve the whole family so they can have memories of doing this with  the Alzheimer’s family member
Take the patient to July 4th events if they’re capable
Prepare foods the family member did or enjoyed on these occasions in …read more

Scrapbooking and relating family stories appeal to many Alzheimer’s patients.  Even though they can’t completely follow these activities, whether in their home or a nursing home, they do enjoy the times they are focused.
I’ve taught scrapbooking and family history activities at a local nursing home and enjoyed this experience as much as the patients seemed to.
We made a scrapbook with a page for each resident who attended the sessions.  Using photos taken by the nursing home staff over a period of time, an activity coordinator and I arranged the pictures, chatted with the residents about them, and encouraged each patient to …read more

“You’re not bringing your mother home for Christmas!” a friend exclaimed, after my mom moved to a nursing home. 
“No,” I replied, “It’s too confusing for her.”
After discussing the situation with the staff and assessing Mother’s condition myself, I never took her back to our home from the nursing home.  In her case, she was 275 miles from her home because I had to move her to mine in another state.  Mine never became “home” to her, and she really couldn’t understand why she had stayed with Jim and me for several months.
Living a Life in the Past
By the time she …read more

Tea Parties
My grandchildren and I enjoyed tea parties with my mom when she resided in the nursing home.  They became a ritual, even after Mother no longer really knew what it was all about.  She smiled and chattered and seemed to enjoy the children.  From this evolved memories the youngsters and I shall treasure.
Why not plan tea parties for your family members in the nursing home?  Victorian tea parties can be such fun.
Read about one my friend planned for her mother at Seasoned Citizen Activities.  You may enjoy organizing one for a family member.  Perhaps you can find someone who does …read more

Alzheimer’s Decisions
Moving an Alzheimer’s family member to a nursing home presents a heartwrenching challenge for many people.  Some have made promises that they would never do this.  Others feel it’s their responsibility to care for their parent, spouse or sibling at home.
However, there comes a time, I realized, when I couldn’t care for my mother, and she couldn’t care for her sister any longer   Mother was developing Alzheimer’s when I had to make other arrangements for the sister with Alzheimer’s who lived with her.
Mother finally needed more care than I could give her when I moved her to the nursing home …read more

Word of Week
Assisted Living – This generally refers to a home where residents are fairly independent, but may need help with medications, cooking, and housekeeping.  By living there, they are in a safe environment, enjoy social activities, and have meals prepared and laundry done.
Some assisted living homes are set up to give more help than others.  Some also have a nursing home on the premises where residents can move as they require more care.  My mother-in-law lived in an assisted living home for four years because she was going blind and couldn’t care for herself alone too well.
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AlzheimersNotes.com
WORD OF THE WEEK
Nursing Home – a place that provides care and a residence for people (frequently older ones) who cannot care for themselves or who are extremely ill.
Many people don’t like to say the term, admit to the term, especially if an older person in their family is living there.  However, when I could no longer care for Auntie and Mother, in their advanced Alzheimer’s, I was thankful there was some place where they received excellent care. 

 I was fortunate that the homes where they lived, Auntie in NYS and Mother in NH, provided very good services and care.  I …read more

AlzheimersNotes.com
I discussed individual memory books for Alzheimer’s patients in my previous post.  There also are group memory projects for nursing home groups.
I conducted one of these activities at the nursing home where Mother lived and found it a pleasure for me as well as the patients.  It started out as a scrapbooking project, but I soon realized the residents (most of whom were in the mid stages of Alzheimer’s), enjoyed reminiscing about the photos and sharing with one another.
Sometimes this sharing was a monologue that might jog the memory of the person sitting next to them, too.  But the chatting …read more

AlzheimersNotes.com

Preserving our memories and those of Alzheimer’s patients can lead to scrapbooking fun.  I led a scrapbooking activity for Alzheimer’s patients at a nursing home and think they had as much fun as I did.
With the help of an activity aide, we selected pictures taken of the residents as they engaged in various events at the home.  The patients exclaimed, “That’s me!”
If they were able, they cut out the pictures and selected the colors of the background.  We pasted the photos and embellishments to the pages, one or two for each resident.  Then they shared with one another before we put …read more

AlzheimersNotes.com
 Recently Liz Lewis wrote the post, Alzheimer’s or Overmedicated, which struck a chord with me.  Sometimes, in order to control or address difficult behaviors in older patients, medications are used that could give the appearance of Alzheimer’s.  This doesn’t necessarily mean it’s being done deliberately. Sometimes it could happen because of interaction between medications. However, if someone is taking medication and begins to show Alzheimer’s symptoms, check out what’s being perscribed.
I didn’t have an overmedicated problem with my mom, who did develop Alzheimer’s.  However, medication was described by her doctor to control difficult behavior as she exhibited some of the more aggressive symptoms …read more