Are you laughing yet?  You should be…we certainly did at a recent Show and Tell visit with our dear friends, those ladies in our retirement community with various types of cognitive decline.  All of our Lady-Links visits are designed to bring love and laughter to everyone involved as we engage with our dear friends in activities they enjoy.  This little animated circus monkey caused us to laugh with gusto as he clanged his cymbals together.

This Show and Tell little monkey did what it was intended to do…bring joy and inspire conversation. Talks of childhood circus memories and childhood toys filled our time together…in between the laughter!

Socialization is so important in the lives of those with cognitive decline.  The Lady-Links visits help our dear friends keep the brain active, maintain memory, and enhance communication skills. Our visits are fun and beneficial for everyone, including the Lady-Links.

 

 

Easter is one of our favorite times of the year.  We enjoy seeing the spring flowers and the leaves on the trees emerge reminding us of new life, and we find meaningful the faith-based foundation of the season.  At our Lady-Links visits with our dear friends, those ladies in our community in various stages of cognitive decline, we love to share memories of this time of the year.  From childhood Easter egg hunts to new dresses and shoes to Easter sunrise services, we each have something to contribute to the conversation.  The crafts we choose to make are always a springboard for sharing memories and interacting with our dear friends.  Those crafts are given to residents in our continuing care community, so they serve a dual purpose.  This year, in addition to the crafts we made,  we helped fill plastic eggs for a community-wide Easter egg hunt.  It was a blessing for us to be involved in so many ways to help make the Easter season special.

Happy Easter from the Lady-Links to you!

The Lady-Links and their guests shared lots of love and laughter as they made over 100 valentines to give to the continuing care residents in our community.  With delicious cake and punch, as well as greetings from our Resident Life Director, all felt this was a very special time together. The Lady-Links know how important it is for everyone, regardless of physical or cognitive ability, to feel loved and appreciated.  These valentines will be personally delivered with words of encouragement and kindness. 

Happy  Valentine’s Day from the Lady-Links!

Each year, the Lady-Links have a Christmas Party with the purpose of spreading joy by making ornaments to share.  That joy is evident at the party as we get together as a large group, but joy will also be evident in the next few days as we distribute those ornaments to our dear friends, those ladies in our community in various stages of cognitive decline that we visit on a regular basis. In addition, we will distribute ornaments throughout our continuing care residence to our neighbors there.

Our host for the party is the husband of our very first dear friend.

Sharing memories of her and how the Lady-Links got started in 2013 is a tradition at our Christmas party. Three of the Lady-Links on her original team gathered with her husband for a special picture.

Our Craft Coordinator has all the ornaments ready for us to assemble.  Before the party is over, we will make 110 ornaments that will bring joy to those who receive them.

Our party wouldn’t be complete without a Christmas cake and punch.

There was joy everywhere as we worked together in the spirit of love and giving.

Our finished ornaments filled the table.

Our resident life team brought much appreciated words of encouragement to our group.

We ended our party with a pinning ceremony recognizing some of our newest Lady-Links.  It was a time of joy and rejoicing with love and laughter throughout the event.

Merry Christmas from the Lady-Links.

 

 

Thanksgiving is a time to embrace and acknowledge the blessings of the year.  As Lady-Links, we are thankful for the opportunity to visit our dear friends, those ladies in our community with cognitive decline, engaging them in activities they enjoy.  It is a wonderful feeling to know that we are making a difference in their lives, but what is perhaps surprising is the difference it makes in our lives too.  The friendships that have developed during our visits are seasoned with love, laughter, and shared memories.  We are truly thankful for our dear friends and the blessing of being together through this season of life.

We always enjoy making  Thanksgiving crafts at our November visits and then distributing them to the continuing care residents of our community.

Thanksgiving thoughts…always involve our dear friends and the journey they are traveling.  It’s a privilege and an honor to be on that journey with them and to find ways to connect through Thanksgiving crafts and memories.

Happy Thanksgiving from the Lady-Links

The name of our group is Lady-Links.  Our purpose is to help ladies with cognitive decline maintain important links (social, intellectual, and emotional) in their lives by engaging them in activities they enjoy.  We visit these dear friends in our retirement community on a weekly basis, and we see firsthand the difficult effects that Alzheimer’s has on them and on their families.  Alzheimer’s is a progressive neurological disease that doesn’t yet have a cure.  We’ve been at the start of finding a cure, and we plan to be cheering at the finish line when that cure is found.

By walking to show support for our dear friends and donating to help fund the research necessary to find a cure, we are actively involved in the Walk to End Alzheimer’s each year.  We are part of a retirement community who takes this commitment very seriously.  Our friends, neighbors, husbands, community staff  and local businesses help make this annual event successful.

We are committed to bringing love and laughter into the lives of our dear friends for as long as it takes until a cure is found.

When that happens, we will be there to celebrate but will always remember the years we faithfully participated in a walk that helped us reach that finish line.

 

We all want to make the world a better place, regardless of our cognitive condition.  When the Lady-Links visit our dear friends, those ladies in our community in cognitive decline, we find ways to help them contribute something positive to our time together.  Engaging them in conversation through a Show and Tell activity provides an opportunity for them to share something about their skills and experiences.  When they make a connection to the item we’ve brought to rekindle memories, we listen carefully to what they have to say.  They become equals in our visit, with everyone engaging in shared experiences and opinions.  It helps them maintain their sense of self-esteem and dignity, something that is important to all of us.  The Lady-Links like to think that our Show and Tell visits make our world a better place!

The Lady-Links have discovered keys to make our Show and Tell visits successful.  The item we bring can be anything.  It’s what we do with it that’s important. We use the TALK method  to bring the most benefits to this type of visit:

• Tell about the item you brought.
  • Where you got it.
  • How you use/ used it.
  • What makes it meaningful to you.
• Ask meaningful questions regarding the item.
  • Where or when have you seen something like this?
  • Did you/do you have something like this and how did/do you use it?
  • How could this have been (a) helpful or (b) fun or (c) special to have?
• Let everyone handle the item.
  • Pass it around so that everyone has the opportunity to touch it.
  • Call attention to its size, shape, colors, texture, weight.
• Keep the connection active.
  • Call on each person by name.
  • Listen carefully to what is said.
  • Respond positively and specifically.

 

This “Happy Box” served as a meaningful Show and Tell item at a recent visit.  The Lady-Link who brought it had filled it with items that made her happy.  As she took out each item, she explained why she chose it, prompting the dear friends to share ideas about similar items that make them happy.

One of our Lady-Links has a collection of “green things” as she calls it.  It’s always fun to see what she adds to her collection.  Not only does this spur conversation about something similar from our memories, but it’s a great chance to talk about our favorite colors.

Fun items such as a Barbie doll collection are great for reminding us of our childhoods.  We admit that none of us had Barbie dolls when we were young but we all recognized them as what some of our children or grandchildren chose.  This led to memories of the dolls we had, most of which were baby dolls.

We had buttons and bowls at a recent Show and Tell visit.  One of the Lady-Links brought an antique button collection.  Her Lady-Link partner brought some bowls she made at a local ceramics center.  It was fun to sort the buttons into the bowls and talk about clothing that we wore as children and teenagers.

Sometimes the object for our Show and Tell visits is an heirloom.  One of our Lady-Links brought a christening dress that has been used in her family for generations.

Toys always bring lots of engaging conversation.  This set of nesting dolls came from Europe.

 

From heirlooms to something as simple as a set of tote bags…Show and Tell provides ways to connect, share memories, enhance self-esteem and contribute something positive to the world we live in, no matter how small that world is.

The TALK method works…Show and Tell is a meaningful way to bring love and laughter into the lives of our dear friends and to us too!

 

 

 

The Lady-Links love to celebrate holidays with our dear friends, those ladies in our community in various stages of cognitive decline.  It’s easy to find crafts and decorations with a July 4th theme, and we have plenty to talk about as we assemble them.

The Lady-Links sometimes get together as a group to make over 100 themed crafts to send to residents in our continuing care community.

Other times, we visit with dear friends to make projects together that are used throughout our community including faith-themed crafts for those who attend chapel services.

These patriotic crafts inspire conversations about memories from our childhood…fireworks, parades, ice cream and watermelon!  Our dear friends engage easily when they’re involved with these easy-to-assemble art projects. The Lady-Links have celebrated the Fourth of July with our dear friends for many years, and we always look forward to saying “Happy Birthday America” each time!

The Lady-Links have plenty of love to share with one another and with their dear friends, those ladies in our community with various types of cognitive decline.  This is the 10th year we have had a Valentine Party where we made valentines to give to our dear friends as well as to all the residents in our continuing care community.  It is a celebration of friendship as we lovingly create such special valentines that we know will bring joy into the lives of those who receive them.

We have a craft coordinator who gets everything organized for us with lots of designs from which to choose.

In addition to the fun of creating the valentines, we enjoyed delicious refreshments as well.

The result was 120 valentines created with plenty of love and laughter.

The Lady-Links care about our friends and neighbors, and Valentine’s Day is one of our favorite days to express that in a tangible way.

It’s always a joy to be together as a group to make Christmas and holiday ornaments to give to those who live in our community’s continuing care residence and to our dear friends, those ladies who are in various stages of cognitive decline.  The Lady-Links are hosted every year by the husband of our very first dear friend who welcomes us with a Christmas cake, holiday punch and an array of ornaments to make.  In addition, we visit our dear friends to make ornaments with them that they can have or share.

It was a wonderful Christmas season of joy, and of sharing love and laughter.  A very special Lady-Links Christmas to remember.