Exchanging valentines is a great way to let friends know that you care about them.  For the past two years, Lady-Links visits in late January and early February have included making our own special valentines to share with our neighbors in the retirement community where we live.  We’ve created a variety of encouraging messages  and designs to our decorated hearts and cards and all have been enthusiastically received.

 

We added a jeweled valentine to our group of favorites this year, inserted a ribbon of heart designs and made it a door hanger.

We always include a set of valentines with scripture that are distributed at our Vespers service.

 

Working with so many designs can be confusing for our friends with dementia, so we work on one project at a time, complete it and put it away before we begin the next.  Of course, there is plenty of prep work that is done before each visit so that it ready to be assembled.

The valentines with the jewels are packaged in individual kits that we purchased from Oriental Trading Company.  All the pieces are stickers, including the jewels.  However, the small jewels were hard to peel and stick, so we added those before the visit, leaving only large pieces for our friend with dementia to assemble.

We also added the ribbon before the visit because that was a little difficult to tie.  The assembly of these valentines went very smoothly because of our prep work and they look great hanging on the residents’ doors.

 

 

 

With all of our valentine projects, we package all the pieces for one valentine together in a baggie.  That way, everything is ready for assembly.

 

We use stickers rather than glue whenever possible because managing the glue container and distributing the correct amount can be hard for our friends with dementia.  If something has to be glued, we do that in our advance prep work before the visit.

If we can’t find a sticker that fits our design, we use our Creative Station Sticker Machine to make exactly what we want, such as the scripture hearts.

Our friends with dementia had a wonderful time during these past few weeks as we made the valentines.  Much of the success of the project was because we selected an activity that was meaningful to our friends since it brought back such lovely childhood memories,  and it mattered to them today because they knew the valentines we made were to be given to those who needed a touch of encouragement in their lives.  The prep work we did ahead of the visit provided a stress-free activity that was filled with lots of laughter and love.

Did you do any special valentine activities with your friend or loved one who has dementia?  We’d love to hear about it!

 

There are a number of studies that show that people with dementia continue to have feelings similar to those without cognitive impairment.  They need to feel a sense of accomplishment and a sense of purpose.  As their friends and family members, we need to provide activities for them that create meaning in their life.  Lady-Links visits attempt to do just that.  One of our friends we visit has Alzheimer’s dementia.  The other has vascular dementia.  Both ladies need meaningful interaction with a sense of purpose that they are contributing to something more than just themselves.  We have found that making cards to give to others is one way to meet that need.  We seldom  send the card ourselves.  Rather we make cards and give them to groups to use when they learn of someone who needs some encouragement.  There are many groups who welcome our cards.  Most of the cards have scripture because that is the request of one of our friends with dementia.  Some of the cards don’t include scripture and can be used for occasions where just a cheerful message is what is needed.  We have over 30 card designs from get well messages to St. Patrick’s Day and everything in between that have been successfully completed at our Lady-Links visits.

 

 

 

We even make “repurposed” cards.  We have collected previously used cards, cut the front off and added stickers of scripture and pictures to the backside.

Since both of our friends with dementia need to have projects that are easy to assemble, we have found that printing the message on labels or making stickers using a sticker making machine is better than using glue.  They can both peel and stick, so rather than using glue, we use the “peel and stick” method whenever possible. At other times we use double sided tape.

 

We have learned that an uncluttered design is what our two friends need.  When there are too many choices or too many shapes and sizes, they feel overwhelmed.  Some designs that are very artistic in our way of thinking are too confusing for our friends. The following two pictures are beautiful but were too complicated for our friends to assemble.

 

The project must be about meeting the needs of our friends, not us.  Although we have many of the same needs, they must be met in different yet appropriate ways. So we adjusted our card designs to reflect what our friends with dementia can appreciate, understand, and help make.  And the cards have turned out beautifully and are greatly appreciated by those who receive them.

Before each visit, there’s prep work that must be done.  We get the cards to the point where they can be easily assembled when the visit occurs .

 

 

With the parts of the card ready to be put together, our friends can enjoy the process, feel a sense of accomplishment, and know that their efforts will be used to encourage another person’s life.

 

 

 

Feelings of accomplishment help our self-worth.  But even more importantly, accomplishing something that will benefit others fulfills our need to provide  meaningful significance in someone else’s life.   With the card projects, our two friends with dementia get a sense of  having contributed in a positive way to the encouragement of others.

If you have friends or loved ones with dementia, how do you help them find a sense of purpose and accomplishment in their lives? What activities promote an improved sense of self-worth in them?

If you want help or suggestions on how to start a Lady-Links group in your area, please let us know.  We would love to help you get organized and give you ideas for making friendship visits to the one you care about.  Most likely you will see, as we have, improved social skills and an improved sense of self-worth.  It takes such little effort yet it makes a big difference…in their lives and in yours!

 

 

We have TWO reasons to celebrate!

The original Lady-Links group involving 14 ladies who make friendships visits to our friend with Alzheimer’s dementia has made over 130 visits and is still going strong, incorporating new activities to meet the needs that a progressive disease brings. But there’s another reason to celebrate as well.   We are very excited to announce that a second Lady-Links group has formed making visits to a friend who is diagnosed with vascular dementia, caused by a series of mini strokes known as TIAs.

The new Lady-Links group includes 10 ladies who visit in groups of two or three on Monday afternoons for one hour in our friend’s assisted living apartment.  Visits are scheduled a month in advance, with each lady scheduling one visit per month.  Our new friend is an artist who, before her dementia diagnosis, painted beautiful pictures some of which decorate her apartment.  One of my favories is a bluebonnet field, although I enjoy all of them each time I visit.

We are learning that there is a vast difference between our two friends, which shouldn’t be a surprise since they have two distinct types of dementia and are at different stages in their progressions. Our new friend communicates well but short term memory difficulties sometimes affects what she says. Her artistic skills are greatly diminished from what she once could do judging by her beautiful paintings displayed so nicely in her home, but she still has a marvelous eye for color and design.  And she knows what she wants communicated on the cards and projects that we do with her at each visit.

For example,  at a recent visit when we made 15 of these fall banners to share with others, our friend was quick to point out that they weren’t colorful enough.  Plus, because her faith was very meaningful in her life before her diagnosis,  and we found out still is, she wants a scripture worked into the design.  That was good news to us because we organize each group of Lady-Links around one person, meeting their needs in ways that are significant to them.  If she wanted color and scripture added, we were glad to know that so we could incorporate what was meaningful to her into the existing project as well as into future ones.

So, of course we took her suggestion to heart and added color and scripture.

It took an additional visit to get the banners the way she wanted them, and we learned a valuable lesson.  With our new friend, her cognitive skills are strong enough that she can give input on the projects and activities we are planning but she is unable to communicate specifics.   We take her ideas and make them work by turning them into a project or craft she can do and feel good about giving to others.  She feels like she is contributing significantly (and she is) to these projects and to the lives of those in our retirement community or in the post acute care section of our community who receive them.  Once we had an idea of what she wanted, the visits have gone smoothly with designs that meet her goals.

 

 

 

The daughter of our new friend described her mother’s attitude since her involvement with Lady-Links as “the happiest I’ve seen her in years.”   Her daughter went on to tell us that her mother looks forward to each visit with “great anticipation.”  We do too!  The visits are enjoyable and filled with lots of love and laughter as we work together.  Our friend is cognizant enough to engage in conversation about memories that these projects inspire, such as from her childhood or early adult years.  It is a blessing for each of us to be involved in these visits.  We enjoy them as much as she does.

We would love to add “more balloons” to our photo gallery when we hear of additional Lady-Links groups that have started.  Are you interested in organizing a Lady-Links group for your friend or loved one who has dementia?   It takes someone to serve as the coordinator, getting together the people who visit , keeping the schedule of who is to visit on which day, and arranging for activities.  You can look at our blog posts for activity and project ideas or choose your own.  Let us know how we can help you help your friend maintain the important links that bring joy and meaning into their lives during this very critical time.  We’d love to turn our  celebration of “two” into a “three” and then a “four and more” as new Lady-Links groups form.

 

 

 

Our Lady-Links group has made friendship visits for over a year to our friend who has Alzheimer’s dementia, so we have first-hand knowledge of how this disease progresses.  We are committed to encouraging our friend and enriching her life throughout each stage.  What we all hope is that a cure can be found that will one day prevent others from the toll that Alzheimer’s takes on the patient, their family and friends.  Our group was represented in our community’s local walk to help raise donations for continued research that will provide the cure that is so needed.

At the reception following the walk, we celebrated!

Our group helped raise funds for continued research.  Before the weekend was over, this check had to be re-written to include added donations.

 

It was very fulfilling to be a part of a group effort for such a worthy cause.  If you know a person with Alzheimer’s dementia, think of what you can do to help.  You’ll feel good about your decision and your support will be greatly appreciated.  Together we can make a difference!

For more information on how to start a Lady-Links group in your area to make visits to your friend or loved one, just let us know.  We’re here to help you get organized!

A link is used to connect one thing to another.  We find links in every area of our lives: social/emotional, spiritual, intellectual and physical.   All of these are important areas in which we need to make appropriate connections to help us navigate our way through life. When those “links” are in place, the message is clear.

What if some of those links became damaged or destroyed?  The message wouldn’t be so  clear, would it?

Without a clear message, your ability to link people, places, and concepts begins to vanish.  You would probably feel lost, alone and insecure.  You would be thankful for those who helped you find your way in this difficult situation.

Most of us know someone who is unable to make those types of links or connections without some help.  Think of how it might feel if that person were you.  Were you ever in a new situation where you didn’t fully understand what was happening?  Were you ever traveling in new territory and lost your way?  Did you ever struggle with one of your courses in school and think you could never “get it” let alone “master” it?  What if it were like that most of the time?  Now can you relate to the confusion that a person with dementia has?

Perhaps only a small portion of the links are destroyed or damaged in the early stages.  But the amount of affected brain cells continues to increase, destroying those connecting links necessary for making sense of things,  until the person diagnosed with dementia is in a state of confusion much of the time.

Rough, huh?  But confusion/dementia/cognitive decline  doesn’t define the person.  Their character, experiences, faith, and temperament still have significant contributions to determining who that person is.  They are our fathers, grandfathers, mothers, grandmothers, our spouse or perhaps a dear friend.  They have been loving parents,  spouses, and siblings.  They have been college professors, astronauts, homemakers, teachers, professional athletes, you name it.  Dementia crosses all boundaries.    They are still Aunt Sally or Uncle Joe and continue to deserve to have activities that create meaning in their life and to find reasons to laugh, rejoice, and love.

Want to relate to a person with dementia?  Engage in an activity that you both can enjoy.

Plan it in such a way that your friend will successfully be able to participate fully in whatever his or her part is.  It will improve their quality of life by making them feel a sense of accomplishment and contributing to their overall sense of well-being.

You can find appropriate activities throughout this blog that our Lady-Links group has done with our friend who has Alzheimer’s dementia.  Try our activities the next time you and/or your children visit that special person in your life.  You have a wonderful opportunity to help maintain a link to past interests and give that person a chance to be more engaged with life.

 

It was time to celebrate!  We completed one year of visiting our friend who has Alzheimer’s dementia.  During that year, we visited with her over 100 times, doing crafts and activities to help her maintain links to the intellectual, emotional/spiritual, and physical areas of her life.

Lady-Links are loving, kind, compassionate, patient women who make visits to our friend on a scheduled basis.  We visit in groups of two or three offering friendship, encouragement, and special activities sprinkled with plenty of love and laughter.  The schedule is arranged in such a way that our visits are on set days, twice each week.  Each Lady-Link commits to making two visits per month.  We all have become great friends and we think of our visits as “our girl time.”

Our celebration included recognizing spouses and friends of the Lady-Links, our special friend and her family, and those in our retirement community who have given us encouragement and support.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our one-year anniversary celebration was so much fun!  But the best part was being reminded of what the past year meant to our friend, her family, and to us.  We began Lady-Links as a way to enrich her life but we quickly realized that our lives were being enriched as well.  We will continue our visits with our friend and look forward to another celebration one year from now.

If you want to start a Lady-Links group for your friend or loved one who has any type of dementia, please let us know.  We would love to help you get that organized.

At Lady-Links visits with our friend with Alzheimer’s dementia,  we are able to engage her in a variety of activities because we’ve developed a successful strategy for how we approach selecting and implementing activities.  We choose activities that are in some way significant to her and then we simplify them so that she will be able to participate with a sense of fulfillment.  We believe this strategy will work with others as well.

SIGNIFICANCE –

1.  Make it Meaningful for that Person – Determine what they enjoyed before they were diagnosed.

(Church – Family – Holidays – Music – Decorations – Children – Homemaking – Travel – Friends – Volunteering)

2.  Make it Matter to that Person – Determine what will provide a sense of fulfillment now that they are diagnosed.

(Contributing to a group effort – Helping others – Enjoying group activities – Being a hostess – Having fun)

SIMPLICITY –

1.  Plan – Select an activity that the person can successfully accomplish and will enjoy.  Inspiration  for activities can come from many sources including  holidays, special events, local activities, the seasons, music, photographs, family connections and past or present interests.  Modifications may need to be made.

 

 

 

2.  Prepare – Get the activity to the point where it is ready for the person to begin his or her part.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3.  Purpose – Let the person know how the project will be of benefit.

 

4.  Presentation – Model the expected behavior and have a completed example to display.

5.  Persevere – If it doesn’t work or if the person becomes disinterested, make a transition to another activity.  Avoid wait time.

 

 

 

 

 

6.  Praise – It’s not about the end product but about the process. Be generous with your encouragement and compliments.

Activities provide opportunities for emotional/spiritual, intellectual, social, and physical interaction.  When chosen carefully and implemented with the right approach, all you need to add is laughter and love, and the prospects for enriching a person’s life in any stage of dementia are endless.

 

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.

Lady-Links is a very unique concept.  It is a partnership of people dedicated to enriching the life of one person, diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Dementia,  helping her to maintain important links in her life.

When most people hear of our model of friendship care visits, they embrace the idea and wish that such a partnership existed for their loved one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

However, some, when learning about Lady-Links, question why so many of us put so much effort into just one person’s life.

To them, unless we are helping multitudes of people, we are misguided and our time could be put to much greater use.  They don’t see the value of helping just one.

I’m glad our Lord doesn’t look at it that way.  Listen to some of these familiar stories from the Bible:

• God sent a whale to swallow one man to redirect his path.
• God sent ravens to feed one man to encourage and strengthen him.
• Jesus spoke to one woman at the well to show her the way.
• Jesus stopped in the middle of a crowd to heal one woman when He felt her touch the hem of His garment.
• The Holy Spirit sent Philip to explain the Scriptures to one man, an Ethiopian who was out on a desert road.

A favorite Bible story of mine involving one person is about one paralyzed man who was helped by four of his friends.  Perhaps we could call them his group of Lady-Links.  It is found in Mark 2 and tells of four friends who placed their paralyzed friend on a pallet and carried him to see Jesus.  Here’s what was involved:

• Plan – Carry him to wherever Jesus was
• Prepare – Had a pallet
• Purpose – Make their friend better
• Persevere – When they couldn’t get in the door of the house, they went to the roof, dug through it and lowered their friend down
• Partnership – It was a coordinated effort by a group of friends to help just one person
• Precious Process – Mark 2:5 and 11 “And Jesus seeing their faith said to the paralytic, ‘My son, your sins are forgiven..I say to you, rise, take up your pallet, and go home.’ ” Look at the word “their” in verse 5.  It was the faith of the friends that made the difference in the life of one person.

Lady-Links believe that their visits are making a difference in the life of their friend.

She smiles more, looks people in the eye more, communicates more, sings more, dances more, and engages in life more compared to the time before our visits began.

 

 

To us, all the time spent in  planning, preparing, determining a purpose for each visit, and persevering when things don’t go as we thought they would have formed us into a strong partnership of friends  who view our time with our friend as a precious process enriching her life and ours.

We are doing all of this for one friend because we place value on her life and want to help her enjoy a quality of life for as long as possible in spite of a progressive neurological disease for which there is no cure.   Is helping “just one” a worthy cause?  Absolutely!

 

We hope that you will duplicate our Lady-Links model of friendship visits for one of your friends or loved ones who suffers with any type of dementia.  They will be blessed and so will you.

Each Lady-Links visit is filled with love and laughter as we enrich the life of our friend who is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s dementia.  Enjoy watching this video to get a sense of what we do at our visits and hopefully you will be inspired to visit your friend or loved one who has cognitive issues and duplicate some of our activities.

Friends of Highland Springs