Dementia and Friends: Two Years of Visits

Lady-Links is an organization composed of ladies who visit their friends with dementia, engaging them in activities they can enjoy and successfully complete.  We just celebrated two years of service and acknowledged how our group has grown from visiting one friend to visiting five friends.  It was an Anniversary Party that resulted in love and laughter as we shared memories from our visits.

Lady-Links began when the husband of a person with Alzheimer’s dementia expressed the desire for ladies to visit his wife to help with her adjustment to their recent move to a retirement community.  That simple request sparked the idea for Lady-Links and the friendship visits we make.  Going in groups of two or three to visit our dear friend in her apartment proved to be delightful for both our friend and for us.  Her entire emotional outlook changed, her social skills improved, and she recaptured some of her cognitive skills such as occasionally reading aloud the verses on the cards we made.

During the past two years, we have made over 200 friendship visits to this dear friend, and have followed her from Independent Living to Memory Care where we continue to visit her regularly and enjoy participating in activities with her in that setting.  She enjoyed the Anniversary Party and her Lady-Links are like family to her, as she is to us.

 

In addition to our original dear friend, we have three other dear friends we are currently visiting. All were able to come to our Anniversary Party to celebrate.

The cake and punch helped make our celebration a festive occasion.

During the celebration we had time to share memories, love and laughter as we reflected over the past two years.  Our original intent is the same.  We provide friendship visits to one individual at a time, focusing on her interests and abilities.  We engage our friends in a variety of activities that help stimulate social skills and help make them feel a sense of value and significance.  In addition to  over 200 visits to our original dear friend, we have made over 80 visits to the others.  Each visit is carefully planned and coordinated so that it will engage the dear friend we’re visiting in a meaningful way.

One of the groups is a Music Group that we call the Lady La-Las.  We play hand chimes and sing while our dear friend who used to be a music teacher plays the piano and directs us.

We currently have one craft group, but previously had two until one of our dear friends with vascular dementia passed away.

 

The last group is a Making Memories group.  We enjoy focusing on our dear friend’s answers while we all share memories in response to select questions.

We would love to help you begin a Lady-Links group with your friends who have dementia. You can find plenty of information to start a group by reading through the categories on this website, many of which are “how to” posts.  If you have questions, don’t hesitate to contact us.

Your visits can make a significant difference in the lives of your friends, and you’ll find that you will enjoy the visits as much as they do.  People with dementia deserve to continue to have activities that create meaning in their lives and to find reasons to laugh, love, and rejoice.  You can make that happen, and one day you’ll be celebrating an anniversary of friendship visits just like we did.