Alzheimer’s and S’mores: Tips for Getting it Just Right

What can be better than a s’more with all its chocolate creamy deliciousness?

 

The answer… s’mores shared with friends!

We knew that celebrating National S’mores Day at one of our visits could be lots of fun.  But first, we had to be sure it would work by running it through our model for choosing and implementing activities to do with our friend who has been diagnosed with midstage Alzheimer’s Dementia.  The five P’s in our Process are:  Plan, Prepare,  Purpose, Presentation, Persevere and Praise.  Here’s how we did it:

We carefully planned what we would need and what we would do at the visit, including how to best fill and then distribute the baggies containing the ingredients for making individual s’mores.  We knew it would have to be broken down into several steps and we would need to determine the best order for those steps to occur.  We decided to make s’mores as refreshments for us to eat, then place the stickers on the baggies and fill with the ingredients.  The last step would be to distribute the baggies to our neighbors.

There is always necessary preparation before each visit.  In this case, we had to locate background information on the s’mores recipe (it first appeared in a 1927 edition of the Girl Scout Handbook), design a sticker with relevant information to place on each baggie, and measure and wrap each ingredient for a single serving to make it easy to stuff into each baggie.  We needed to locate an updated recipe for using a microwave since we didn’t plan on building a campfire (lol) and include that information on our sticker as well.  The fun part was that we needed to try it to see that it would work.

 

 

 

 

The preparation process continued with making the stickers and wrapping the individual ingredients to place in the baggies at the visit.

 

We had a purpose for this activity…actually several purposes.  The purpose we explained to our friend was that it was National S’mores Day and that we wanted to celebrate by making s’mores to share with our neighbors.  We emphasized how much our neighbors would appreciate receiving our s’mores baggies and how it was so nice to have the opportunity to share such a delicious surprise.  A second purpose was that we would each make a s’more to eat at our visit, serving as an example of what we were doing.  We always begin our visits with refreshments which our friend’s husband usually has ready to serve.  However, today we wanted to experience making the s’mores ourselves so our friend would be reminded of what was involved.  Of course we had such fun doing this and there was great conversation that occured as we shared our Girl Scout and Camp Fire Girls experiences,  and of eating s’mores around a campfire when we were children.

We always present  an activity at our visits by modeling what we want done.  The Lead Lady-Link began by building her s’more and the others followed.  After we ate, then it was time to assemble the baggies.  We had a completed baggie as an example to show how it should look so that the sticker would be in place and the correct ingredients inside.

 

We know that our friend has several levels of engagement and our goal is to actively engage her in whatever we’re doing.  If she becomes passively engaged or disinterested, we are flexible  and change what we’re doing to meet her needs.  We persevere  by modifying what we’re doing or sometimes we transition to another activity.  Our friend wanted to dance to a Perry Como song that was playing while we were filling the baggies.  That was our cue to take a break and dance!  After one or two songs, we returned to the table to continue and so did she.

The final step in our process is praise.  Throughout the activity we encourage our friend on her participation and help her see that her contributition to the project is valued and an important part of the process.  When we distributed the baggies with the s’mores ingredients, she preferred that we handed the baggie to our neighbors as she watched.  You can see by the smile on her face that she was enjoying being a part of the experience.

 

 

 

This was such a valuable experience on many levels.  It provided opportunities for cognitive stimulation, physical activity, emotional delight (have you tasted a s’more lately?) and spiritual growth (sharing).  And all of it was done with plenty of love and laughter so typical of all of our Lady-Links visits.