Alzheimer’s and Birthdays: Simple Yet Significant

Our friend’s birthday was approaching and we had to decide how to celebrate.  She has been diagnosed with mid-stage Alzheimer’s dementia and we didn’t want to overwhelm her, yet we wanted her to be fully included and engaged in all that we did at her party.  We decided to incorporate two key concepts in her birthday activities: (1)  Keeping them SIMPLE, yet  (2) Making them represent SIGNIFICANT events in her life.  Our phrase was “simple yet significant” as we planned for her special day.

We chose to make the celebration simple:

We asked each Lady-Link to send a birthday card (rather than a gift) which we collected and placed in a basket decorated with balloons and flowers to give to her.

We used refreshments that she could easily handle like chocolates and coffee (two of her favorites).

We celebrated during a Lady-Links visit which happened to fall on her birthday (our friend is used to our routine of refreshments and activities).

We limited the guest list to 6 of the 12 Lady-Links (our friend is very much at ease with us but all of us at one time is distracting and overwhelming for her).

We chose to make the activities ones that were significant to her:

Birthday Book

Birthday Bingo

Birthday Cards (we opened them and read them to her).

The results were fantastic.  She enjoyed the celebration and participated fully and understood that it was her birthday. And she had lots of fun!

 Birthday Book 

We used clip art we found on our computer to represent things in her life that are significant to her such as church, music (Perry Como is her favorite), chocolates and coffee,  dancing, and others such as her birthday month, places she lived, and activities she enjoys.  There were 12 clip art pictures that we used in several ways. The first was a Birthday Book.

We wrote a simple story of events in her life to go along with each picture and created a document that looked like a book.  It was written in paragraph form and had space for the illustrations that we would add during its presentation.   For the Birthday Book game, we gave our friend and each guest one or two of the clip art pictures and, as I read the story, the person with the picture corresponding to the information that was being read taped it in the book.  Our friend was delighted to hear “her story” and could present her clip art picture to me at the appropriate time when she heard the picture she was holding being described.  We helped her tape it in the appropriate place.  When we finished, she had a Birthday Book to keep. Using tape worked well, but after the birthday celebration, I got a machine to make stickers, and making those pictures into stickers would have been even better.

The Birthday Book had 6 pages, plus a front cover. The Birthday Book was given to her to keep and we were told that she proudly showed it to her family at a birthday celebration they had for her.

Birthday Bingo

We used those same clip art pictures to make a Birthday Bingo game which we played after the Birthday Book activity.

We made six Bingo cards, each having the 12 clip art pictures.  For the caller, a large copy of each of the clip art pictures was used to announce the item to be located on the Bingo cards.  She could look at the caller’s copy and match it on her Bingo card, and cover it with a chip.  A straight line, horizontally or vertically covered with chips was a winner.  The prize…chocolate of course!

The Birthday Bingo set was laminated and we have used it numerous times since her birthday celebration.  Our friend realizes that it is not her birthday each time we play the Birthday Bingo game, but she enjoys playing it because each of the clip art pictures represents something significant in her life and she loves being reminded of those special times.

 Birthday Cards

We ended the celebration by opening and reading aloud her 12 cards which were presented to her in a basket with balloons.  After I read each card, I handed it to her and she looked carefully at each one commenting with words like “pretty” or “ohhhh” or “nice.”   For the ones that were humorous, she laughed.

Although we think of the traditional birthday party with blazing candles on a big birthday cake, lots of people, a mountain of gifts, and loudly singing “Happy Birthday”  as great choices for all birthdays, those activities may not be the best choice for your loved one or friend who has dementia or even a mild cognitive impairment.  Our friend with Alzheimer’s dementia enjoyed every moment of her birthday celebration, participated fully, and seemed to understand what was happening.  We think it was successful because we kept it simple and the activities we chose to do represented significant activities in her life.

Just because our friend’s celebration was based on the concept of keeping it simple yet significant, that didn’t diminish the fun and all the love and laughter that flows freely at every Lady-Links visit.  Quite the opposite…because our friend was so alert to her surroundings and engaged in all of the activities, she didn’t lose interest or withdraw in any way.  She had a great time and so did we!