Creative Caregiving: Another Year of Fabulous

Post #11

I've recently adopted the slogan "another year of fabulous" both for my blog and for my personal life. As you can see on my new advertising postcard, this phrase comes from a balloon I bought my mom on her 80th birthday. Mom loved this balloon. If I'd gotten her a balloon that said "Happy 80th!" or a similar phrase, she would not have understood it at all. In her later years, she could never accept it when I mentioned her age, but she could believe (most of the time) that whatever age she was must be fabulous.

I really tried to keep Mom believing that life was good. That wasn't easy with Alzheimer's-- between her anger at needing to change clothes or bathe and the wandering of sundowners. To accomplish my goal of making her life fabulous, I concentrated on the things she enjoyed and tried to come up with new activities that I thought she might find fun.

My inspiration for enjoyable activities came from different sources. Primarily, I considered what Mom had enjoyed doing in the past; secondarily I talked to others who were caregivers of someone with dementia; and thirdly I was continually on the look out for written ideas online or in print. When one activity wasn't working, I waited to try again later, or if it was definitely too difficult, I put it aside to share with someone else. When I seemed to have tried everything the experts suggested, I learned to adapt preschool materials to suit Mom's enjoyment.

Being attentive to Mom's mood and reactions became essential for knowing which activity would help her enjoy the day. If she was upset because I wouldn't take her to her parents' home (which, of course, no longer exists), then church music was always the best way to soothe her. I would let her watch the words to hymns on YouTube and she would sing along. Before long she was back to being the gentle, loving spirit that she had expressed during a healthier age. (Music has been found to be very beneficial for the brain, so the key is to find the music each care receiver enjoys.)

Whenever we visited Mom in previous years, she always had a jigsaw puzzle laid out on the table, but of course 500 small pieces became overwhelming. I learned that she could work a 250 piece puzzle with a companion or a 100 piece alone. Eventually the numbers decreased until she was working very simple puzzles for preschoolers. Yet the joy she experienced was the same. She had also loved games, so I found ways to adapt them. In her last couple of years she needed someone to help her play BINGO, and towards the end she wasn't focused enough to enjoy it at all, but there were other things she could still do, such as coloring with non-toxic liquid pencils.

Other activities that entertained her were watching Andy Griffith, the Lucy Show, and many other oldies, as well as listening to Perry Como and similar crooners. We read increasingly easier books, made simple crafts and played with colorforms, lacing cards, and dominoes (eventually using the tiles for counting and matching.) Because Alzheimer's steals a person's present memory, we focused on the past--both by adapting the activities she had enjoyed and by looking at old photos and talking about them.

Although every caregiving situation is different, the necessity of finding ways to bring joy into a person's life is the same. And the need to exercise both brain and body is there for all ages and abilities, even if the exercise is minimal or a matter of stimulation, such as massage. Mom found exercise difficult because the arthritis in her knees grew progressively worse, but I took her on mini-walks, and she participated in low-energy chair exercises. Sometimes she we sat on the deck and played catch with a very soft ball or a large textile frisbee.

Soon after she came to live with us, we purchased a Wii and she enjoyed bowling. (She had been on a team with my father when I was in elementary school.) One thing that really surprised us was that her muscle memory of Ping Pong remained, and she became the 2nd best player of real life Table Tennis at the adult day-care center.

Occasionally Mom would dance. This was a new development, because before her dementia she had always been too shy (and she claimed "too clumsy"). In fact, the last afternoon I spent with her was at a concert in her memory care unit, when she asked me to dance around the room. She was very happy, and I was thrilled that she had lost her inhibitions and was enjoying herself--Another fabulous memory that I'll always hold close to my heart.

Looking back I see that it wasn't only the activities that Mom enjoyed, it was the fact that I spent time with her, interacting on her level. Doing quiet activities with Mom was a de-stresser for me, and those were the times I felt closest to who she was at that moment--still a fabulous person in spite of all the physical and cognitive limitations she was experiencing.