As Lady-Links, we are thankful for the friendships we have formed with the sweet ladies in various stages of cognitive decline we visit whom we call “dear friends.”  Those dear friends are a blessing in our lives as we share activities together and form bonds through love and laughter.  An added bonus is the relationship we establish with the husband and/or families of our dear friends.  We are thankful for their support of our program, and the encouragement they give us regarding the positive benefits of our visits for their loved ones.  Plus, we are thankful for their friendship too!

We’re blessed to have an “extended family” as the families of our dear friends become a part of our lives and our families a part of theirs as well.

 Friends and Family.  A wonderful benefit that’s an outcome of our Lady-Links program.   We are thankful.

 

 

 

 

 

There’s always a feeling of excitement when we start making our fall crafts at our Lady-Links visits with our dear friends.  We know there’s a crispness to the air, the colors of the leaves are starting to change, and several holidays are just around the corner.

We select fall-themed crafts that are easy to assemble, colorful, and ones we think will inspire conversation and good memories.

We enjoyed reminiscing about fall childhood activities such as playing in the leaves, times with grandparents for holiday meals, and trips we took going to see family.  Fall crafts are always fun to make!

Fall is about friendship and family.  At Lady-Links we consider ourselves as both.

One of the fall cards we made expresses our feelings:

 Lady-Links:  Friendships That Enrich Every Day

 

When Lady-Links started in 2013, we had one dear friend diagnosed with Alzheimer’s whom we visited.  Our goal was to engage her in activities that she enjoyed and could successfully complete.  Our numbers both in Lady-Links and in dear friends have grown since then, but our vision has remained the same…helping our dear friends link to life through love and laughter during our friendship visits.  Some of our Lady-Links and our dear friends have moved, others have passed away, others have circumstances that changed but since we began, 79 Lady-Links have been trained serving 19 dear friends.

This takes dedicated Lady-Links, working behind the scenes as well as at the visits, to make our program run smoothly.  We attend training and seminars.

We plan and prepare, scheduling our visits two months in advance.

We work on preparing crafts, making sure that at the visits our dear friends will be able to easily assemble their portion.

We promote awareness of Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia.

We do all of this so that we can enrich the lives of the sweet ladies we call dear friends by helping them keep “linked” to the world around them.  And in doing so, we have found that our lives are enriched as well.

 

We are grateful for the support of our community, our families and our friends.

We’re grateful for the opportunity to share about our Lady-Links program.

Our focus has been on our visits to our dear friends.  Once that was established, we began receiving inquiries about our program.  As a result, we found the best way to explain about what we do was to begin this Lady-Links website.  Our mission for writing the posts has been to provide education about Alzheimer’s and other related types of dementia, and to inspire those with friends or loved ones affected by this disease to continue to engage them in activities which will help preserve skills.  In addition, we hope to encourage other communities to start their own Lady-Links program.  The six years of Lady-Links visits have been beneficial for all of us, and we enjoy our time spent with our dear friends.

Since we began, over 1,975 Lady-Links visits have been made, representing 5,925 hours spent at visits.  This does not include the hours spent in training, scheduling, preparation work or planning.  We view each hour as an investment in love because we place significant value in each friendship we’ve made through our Lady-Links program.

 Lady-Links:  Linking Love and Laughter as we begin our 7th year of friendship visits.  Thanks to all of you who have made this possible.

 

What do you treasure in your life?  For Lady-Links, we treasure the friendships we have with our dear friends who are in cognitive decline.  We visit them on a weekly basis doing activities they enjoy.  With several of our dear friends, we have a double blessing of treasures.  The first,  as mentioned,  is the treasure of the friendship itself.  But the second is the “treasure” from our own lives that we share during our Show and Tell visits.  A collection of treasured bookmarks inspired conversation about the story behind each bookmark as well as a discussion about books that were meaningful in our lives.  We even reminisced about how we learned to read as children and some of the books from childhood that we enjoyed.

Treasured jewelry is always a way to inspire memories and conversation.

Memories of special jewelry pieces throughout our lives were inspired by a collection of beautiful treasures that one of our Lady-Links shared.

Showing something we treasure at our Lady-Links Show and Tell visits is an effective way to engage our dear friends in conversation and shared memories.  It can be anything….and during the conversation that occurs, there will be something said that helps our dear friend “link” to a memory of her own.

Show and Tell visits are great ways to engage our dear friends who have the ability to listen and respond.  Prior to visits using Show and Tell methods, we engage our dear friends in more active projects such as crafts.  We’ve learned that as our dear friends progress in their loss of abilities, we can always find a way to bring joy into their lives through our visits, and as a result we transition to Show and Tell.

We treasure our time with each dear friend and are thankful to be a part of their lives. As their needs change, so do our activities in order to continue to have meaningful, enjoyable visits with them.  Previously with this dear friend, we treasured our time of making crafts together.

Treasured time with friends.  That’s what Lady-Links is all about.  We treasure our time with each dear friend and are thankful to be a part of their lives.

Lady-Links: Enriching Lives (including our own) through Love and Laughter

Our craft visits to our dear friends with Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia serve several purposes.

• There’s the satisfaction of  being a part of a team, completing a project that will bring delight to those who receive our crafts.
• There’s an opportunity for conversation and shared memories inspired by the craft we’re making.
• There’s the ability to maintain fine motor skills while placing the pieces of the craft together.

Although teamwork, sharing, and working creatively with our hands are all very important, perhaps the most meaningful purpose of our visits with our dear friends is this last point:

• There’s the benefit of encouragement that comes from reading the message and applying it to our lives regardless of circumstances.

All of our faith-based crafts are distributed to residents during our vespers or chapel services.  They bring hope to hurting hearts, joy to those in need, and love to those who need a friend.  Messages are meaningful even to those who are strong in their faith as they reinforce their beliefs, providing encouragement to hold fast to that which is helpful and relevant.

As Lady-Links, we want our visits to be encouraging to our dear friends wherever they are in their journey with dementia.  We find ways to apply these messages and to count our blessings.  We let our dear friends know how much we enjoy spending time with them.  We help them feel a measure of success as we create crafts that look good and will be a blessing to others.  We are great listeners, providing our dear friends with the opportunity to share memories that are special to them.   Some of our most cherished blessings are the friendships we’ve made with our dear friends and with each other. 

The Lady-Links add plenty of love and laughter to the messages they bring.  As a result, everyone feels valued, supported and encouraged.

 

Lady-Links, their friends and family as well as some of our dear friends, participated in our community’s Walk to End Alzheimer’s.  It was an honor to be a part of this group to raise awareness of Alzheimer’s disease and to help raise funds promoting research leading to a cure.  Our community raised over $30,000.

We were in good spirits waiting for the walk to begin.

 

 

 

We were off to a good start on a beautiful September day, walking around Bluebonnet Lake.

After the walk, we had fun at the party celebrating all that we accomplished.

It was a special time of visiting with dear friends and others in our community who joined together for this worthy cause.

Lady-Links gave of their time, energy and resources to participate in this walk because “in this family, no one fights alone.”

 

Lady-Links:  Linking Love

 

Lady-Links recognize the importance of friendships.  That’s what the visits to our dear friends in cognitive decline are about…friendship.  We know that having a good friend is something to be treasured, and we truly value the friendship bonds we have with our dear friends.

Recently, we made cards with a friendship theme at our Lady-Links crafts visits. These cards will be distributed in the assisted living and memory care section of our community.    This gave us an opportunity to help our dear friends in cognitive decline realize that they were extending friendship to those residents who needed “a friend.”

The front of the card reads “Friends are like Jewels” and has two “jewels” affixed to it.  With our dear friends, we talked about why “jewels” are valued and how that applies to friendship.  The card was signed “Your Lady-Links Friends.”  Our dear friends know they are a part of our Lady-Links program, and it helps them feel connected to a group effort that benefits others.

The inside of the card reads “They add richness to our lives.”  Then the blessing reads “May you continue to grow rich from the friendships you treasure.”  Part of our conversation while making these cards included memories of some of our treasured friendships that we had when we were children.We discussed games we played, sleep-overs we attended, birthday parties we enjoyed, and secrets we shared with our “best” friends.    Some of us still keep in touch with friends from “back in the day.”

Helping our dear friend realize that she was making a card that would be a blessing to someone else was a way to make her feel valued.   She felt she was contributing to the happiness of others and, in doing so, was being a good friend.

Linking Love through Friendships is what Lady-Links are all about.  May you find ways to encourage your friends and loved ones in cognitive decline by letting them know how much you continue to value their friendship.

Our Show and Tell visits with our dear friends are always so much fun.  “You never know what you’re gonna get” but you can be assured that it will spark interest!  Two Lady-Links visit at a time with our dear friends for Show and Tell, and the Lady-Links don’t coordinate what they will bring.  That makes it a surprise for everyone and adds an element of mystery regarding what will be shown next.

Recently, the Show and Tell visit included a rock collection and a rock ‘n roll collection!

From rocks to Rock ‘n Roll…that made for some very enjoyable comments, memories and lots of laughs.

The Lady-Links incorporate these three tips in our visits when showing an item to a person with any type of cognitive decline:

1.  Safety – Items should be safe to handle and of an appropriate size and weight so that if dropped won’t cause injury.
2.  Senses – Items that appeal to more than just the visual sense will help with cognition.  If possible, the item should be something the dear friend can hold or touch or perhaps even smell or hear.  (Listening to music is a great activity.)
3.  Sentiment – Choose an item that will have possible meaning in the life of your dear one. Think of what might have been popular or of value when your dear one was a child or young adult.

What collections do you have that your friends or loved ones with dementia might enjoy seeing?  You never know what memories or conversation you might inspire until you try!

What kitchen tools did you use when you first learned to cook?  We had a great time with one of our dear friends looking at various items from “then” and “now” and sharing memories of early kitchen experiences.

As girls, one of the first things we did was to make our own pot holders.  We used a loom to weave these colorful creations, saving some for us and using others as gifts to aunts and grandmothers.

Most of our recipes came from our mothers, and some of us still have those treasured hand-written ones from long ago.

Other recipes came from our homemaking classes, a required subject “back in the day.”  Remember when we used to sift all the “dry” ingredients?  Not sure that anyone does that any more!

When we do these Show and Tell visits, we never know what fun facts we will discover.  It was such a delight realizing that our dear friend and the two Lady-Links who visited her that day were all college graduates with degrees in Home Economics.  What a connection or “link” as we Lady-Links like to say!!

What do you have in your kitchen that you might take the next time you visit your friend or loved one with dementia?  You never know what memories you may “stir up” or conversations you may encourage with a little help from your kitchen keepers!

 

 

We enjoy our visits with our dear friend who previously was a middle school music teacher and gave private piano lessons to people of all ages.  Our visits used to include five or six Lady-Links gathered around her Steinway piano playing the resonator bells, using the sheet music she prepared for us. We played old favorites and  Christmas and holiday songs, singing and harmonizing while our dear friend accompanied us on her piano.   Those are wonderful memories for us that we treasure.   However, we’ve realized that sometimes change is needed in the way we structure our Lady-Links visits.  

Such is the nature of Alzheimer’s, a progressive neurological disease that requires change in the way we do things.  With our Lady-Links visits, we have chosen  to embrace change and make adjustments that will continue to enrich the lives of our dear friends.

In her new setting with the necessary changes we’ve incorporated,  we continue to enjoy her amazing piano skills and the variety of music that she entertains us with from the classics to an impromptu rendition of Chopsticks!  We don’t need the resonator bells, their pages of sheet music, and the amount of Lady-Links required to cover the sequence of notes.  All we need is our dear friend, her new electric piano and a few of us to have a delightful musical afternoon.

What matters most is that our dear friend is engaged in an activity she enjoys and can successfully accomplish.

There’s a saying that summarizes how we feel when we visit this dear friend,

“Music is a piece of art that goes in the ears straight to the heart.” 

Music, love and laughter have joined our hearts together and all our lives are enriched as a result.