Words are powerful, whether spoken or written.  At our Lady-Links visits with our dear friends with dementia, we are careful to use words in a positive, encouraging way including in the games we play.

Lady-Links play Scrabble each week with a dear friend in the Memory Care unit of our retirement community.This is enjoyable for all of us, including our dear friend with Alzheimer’s who requested that our visits include a game or two of Scrabble.  She has played it for years, starting when she was young and has retained the ability to put the letters together to form words quite easily.

When we play Scrabble with her, we modify the game slightly.  We don’t count the number on the board on which the tile is placed.  In other words, all we do is just make words; we don’t score the value of each letter of that word.  The first one to use all her tiles is the winner.  But winning the game isn’t what brings us joy….it is the conversation that is sparked by the words we create.

Each word represents a memory in someone’s mind.  We take our time to share past experiences about the word when it is placed on the board.  On this particular game, we laughed about pets we had when we were children.  We talked about how hens lay eggs and some of us actually have gathered the eggs from the nest.  We discussed our favorite soup, foods we like to eat, and chores we had as children such as using a mop.

Words that inspire conversation of pleasant memories are what we call “winning words.”  This type of interaction is enjoyable and helps with socialization, cognition and emotional stimulation, all of which are beneficial.

What “winning words” can you use with your friends and loved ones with dementia?  Whatever word you choose, if it engages them in positive interaction then you have chosen correctly!

How does one get from Point A to Point B?  Regardless of who you are or what you’re doing, planning promotes success.  That’s the way it is with the Lady-Links visits to our dear friends who have some type of cognitive decline.  We plan for those things that can use structure, then we spontaneously improvise at each visit to make those structured things work.

The planning starts with each Lady-Link being given training on how to best communicate with those who have some type of dementia. Next, each Lady-Link selects a dear friend she would like to visit, then she schedules those visits.

Activities are selected with each individual dear friend in mind.

Some enjoy crafts, others enjoy games or a show and tell activity.

Each visit is carefully planned but with the understanding that love and laughter are the most important parts….and that happens spontaneously!

The end result is success….our dear friends feel valued, loved, and appreciated in a social setting that might not otherwise occur, and our Lady-Links enjoy having fun while adding meaning to both their lives and the lives of their dear friend.

Lady-Links enjoy sharing activities and conversation with our dear friends who have various types of cognitive decline.

Preparation and planning are components of any successful visit.

Here’s two things to keep in mind so that you can look forward to “Good Times with Friends” when you visit someone with cognitive decline.

1.  Have a planned activity.

2.  Let the activity inspire conversation.

That way, the dear friend has something to see and touch to help give her clues about the topic of discussion.

For example, this “Hello Spring” craft has flowers and raindrops.

Providing visual (seeing it) stimulation and kinesthetic (touching it) stimulation help facilitate memories of related activities, especially those that occurred in childhood.   While doing this craft, we have shared memories and events about spring activities, such as holding umbrellas in the rain, splashing in rain puddles, and picking flowers.

Everyone has a good time at our visits.

Lady-Links…bringing love, laughter and “Good Times” to each visit with our dear friends.

Lady-Links hope to inform anyone who will listen that our dear friends with dementia can benefit from engaging in meaningful activities.  To get the “message” out, we write for several publications, maintain a blog website, speak to groups when invited, and recruit volunteers to be a part of our organization.

Our “method” is simple….We are friends visiting friends with dementia or any type of cognitive decline. engaging them in activities that will add meaning, value and joy to their lives.  Sometimes we work on crafts, sometimes we have “show and tell”  and sometimes we play games, bake cookies or dance.

Our “method” is easily duplicated and we hope that this blog will inspire you to visit your friends or loved ones with dementia and try some of our ideas.  Please scroll through our past posts to get plenty of ideas for starting your own group.  You will find a double blessing…you will bring joy to someone’s life and you will enjoy the time you spend with that person too!

Our dear friends with dementia deserve to continue to have meaning in their lives, just as you and I do.  The only difference is that we as their friends and loved ones need to help provide opportunities for them that will foster feelings of achieving what matters to them in life.

After coordinating and/or making visits for over 4 years to a number of ladies who are diagnosed with one of the types of dementia (Alzheimer’s is the type most of the ladies we visit have), I have found that our dear friends with dementia want two things:

1.  They want to feel loved.

2.  They want to feel like they can still contribute something worthwhile to society.

To feel loved, they need to feel secure in their surroundings and appreciated for who they are.   They feel safe and secure in familiar surroundings doing things they can successfully accomplish.  Our dear friends can play Scrabble, card games and the piano, and they can bake cookies.   Now, they may not know whose turn it is or how to keep score or where their music is or how to measure ingredients, but we work behind the scenes to help get everything ready and give clues about how to proceed.  They can accomplish these things because the activities are something they did as a child or a young adult and their brains can still pull up those long time memories. We combine plenty of encouraging words, smiles, and hugs with the activities that we do, helping them feel loved and appreciated.

To feel like they are contributing something to society, they need to be able to give something back.  At our visits we have made crafts to distribute to other residents in our community.  Our dear friends feel like they are a part of a team who gives something worthwhile to someone else.  As a result, they feel like they are still playing a valuable role in meeting the needs of others.  They feel like they are “givers” and not just “takers.”

They help make craft projects that encourage those in our community who are sick or need a cheerful reminder that someone cares about them.  Our friends with dementia understand that “helping others” gives them a sense of purpose which leads to a meaningful life.

 

Making crafts to give away:

Our dear friends are just that….dear, precious ladies with whom we have formed bonds of friendship.  Our lives are rich with meaning just by being with them. It is a blessing that is shared among the dear friend we are visiting and with each Lady-Link who is making the visit.  A great way to add meaning to all our lives.

Our dear friends with dementia aren’t left out of enjoying the fun activities associated with Fall.  During our Lady-Links visits, we enjoy working together to make crafts with a fall theme and engaging our dear friends in conversations about memories associated with this season.

We make sure that our dear friends can actively participate in the craft making.  Often that means some preparation before the visit.  We can complete the sections that require detailed work, allowing our dear friends to add the bigger parts which are easier to handle.  We also use craft pieces with self-stick adhesive rather than glue.  It is much easier to “peel and stick” than to handle a bottle of glue.  Our dear friends feel successful and enjoy being on a team to produce such delightful seasonal projects.

We give away our fall crafts to residents in our retirement community, bringing joy to the giver and the receiver alike!  If you have a loved one or friend with dementia, why don’t you look for some of the fall themed craft kits at a local hobby store or shop online?  They are fun to do and will bring such pleasure to everyone involved!

 

How would you describe hope?  As Lady-Links, we believe hope means that something good that hasn’t happened yet will happen one day.  We know that a cure for Alzheimer’s and other related types of dementia will be discovered. We hope that it is soon.  That’s why each year we participate in an event to raise money for the necessary research that will lead to such a cure.  And we do so with hope and joy!

We rejoice that we have the opportunity to visit and engage our dear friends with dementia in activities that they find meaningful, and it brings us joy to be a part of an event that brings awareness to finding a cure. Hope and Joy!  The two go together as evidenced by the pictures below taken at our 2017 Highland Springs Walk for Alzheimer’s.

It was a wonderful event, filled with hope and joy, love and laughter, and the assurance that we are making a difference!

As Lady-Links visit their dear friends with dementia, we make an effort to create an atmosphere of comfort and security while we’re there.  We are trained to focus on positives and redirect any conversation that might lead to a fearful or anxious topic.

One of the best ways to encourage our dear friends is through sharing childhood memories.  Most of us are of the same generation so we can relate to hobbies, activities, music and games we enjoyed as children.  Those conversations are like a picture being painted before our eyes.  We can “see” our childhood home, our childhood friends, and even our childhood toys as we describe ways we had fun. Often we recreate some of those memories, like playing cards or games or even baking cookies.

 

It is comforting to return to our childhood memories and brings with it a sense of security, especially for our dear friends who often are anxious because they are easily confused by what’s going on around them.

Some of our favorite conversations include how we celebrated birthdays.  In “our” day, having a birthday party was a big deal so it is a natural that we celebrate birthdays with our friends in ways they remember as a child.  When we do this, the rewards are beyond anything we can imagine.  Smiles turn into laughter as we celebrate together, even blowing out the candles as we used to do as children.  We all benefit from this type of activity.

Providing comfort and security through recreating childhood activities is a great way to help a friend or loved one with dementia.  Lady-Links are focused on helping our dear friends any way we can.

Lady-Links have participated as a group every year since our organization in a walk to support the Alzheimer’s cause to find a cure, expand research and to provide hope for those with this disease. This year we will walk on October 4th with others from our retirement community in an effort to bring more awareness to the widespread devastating effects that Alzheimer’s creates.

We make visits to ladies in our community who are diagnosed with dementia, and Alzheimer’s is the type of dementia the majority of our dear friends have.  We have seen firsthand how Alzheimer’s affects their families, their friends and our entire community.  Lady-Links are committed to bringing love and laughter into the lives of our dear friends through engaging them in meaningful activities that they enjoy.  We can’t do the medical research…we’re not trained medical professionals…but we’re friends doing what we do best…spotlighting the need to find a cure and providing hope for families that someone cares about their loved ones.

Enjoy some pictures from our past Walks and be inspired to join a Walk yourself!

 

 

With Lady-Links visits to our dear friends with dementia, we become true friends, not just acquaintances.  We learn about shared experiences, memories and even family…especially grandchildren.  We are in close contact with our dear friends’ spouses and/or children and have their permission to exchange information about special events and people in their lives and our lives as long as it is positive and uplifting.  As a result, many of our families are friends with our dear friends as well.

A special case in point is with one of our dear friends who plays the piano each week for us while we sing and play her set of hand chimes. She calls us her “Ring and Sing Girls” and we have such a fun time with her as together we “make music.”  She is a former classroom music teacher and also gave private piano lessons for many years.

One of the Lady-Links has three grandsons who play the piano and our dear friend was eager to hear them.  There was no hesitation when we asked her if we could visit her to let the boys use her piano to give her a mini-concert.  She was delighted and was “in her element.”  She sat by the youngest (who has only been playing for about a month) and helped him with some warm up exercises.  When he played his memorized short, simple solo piece, she applauded and made him feel like he was an accomplished pianist.  She did that for the older boys as well.

 

What a delightful experience for both our dear friend and us as we watched her “relive” in her memory her piano teaching days and be able to encourage young future musicians once again!