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Planning Activities for Someone With Dementia
September 23, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Planning Activities for Someone With Dementia
This series of articles has come about after having spent time with Activity Co-ordinators working in all different types of nursing and residential homes with all different levels of support, budget, training and time.
All of you have been an inspiration to me because you have all shown a commitment to the importance of activity provision and all have spent your own time at home preparing, planning, fund raising.
I wanted to publish a series of articles that may help you with you activity provision.
The first one is Planning:
Here are a few ideas to help you plan appropriate activity for someone living with dementia.
Divide an A4 page in to four equal squares by folding it down the middle both ways.
In the left hand square write ‘Life History and Biography’: Do some detective work. Talk to the resident about their memories and experiences. Talk to family and friends and build a picture of the person’s experiences. What caused them feelings of well- being in the past? What activities are familiar to them? Note ideas down.
Putting together a life story book is an activity in itself. You will need to encourage families to supply information and is a lovely way to get involved and really learn about someone.
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Once you have an understanding of the persons history you will be better placed to be able to find objects that are likely to trigger good memories. For instance someone who has spent her life weaving (and enjoyed it!) may feel at home and happy handling thread and fabrics.
You can create a memory box of lots of objects that create feelings of well-being. Don’t forget to use as many of the senses as possible. Is there a smell that evokes good feeling? (My mother has always worn the same perfume and whenever I smell it I feel good. I would have it sprayed on a silk hanky in my memory box.)
In the right hand corner write: ‘Engagement and Support’ you will need to find out answers to specific questions: How do they communicate? How will you know if someone is enjoying an activity or not? What are the signs of discomfort or pleasure? How do they relate to objects? How do they relate to the world?
In the bottom left corner write ‘Personality‘ by talking to family and friends and from your experience, what are they like? What are their characteristics? What motivates them? What influences their mood?
In the bottom right hand corner write ‘Current Interests’ here you need to determine what delights them now. Pay attention to what brings them to life in the home environment. Do they laugh or show great happiness? If so when and what is happening at that time?
This is a great quick tool which should help in finding out what information you need to gather and give some ideas about what might work well for a person. If a resident seems to be happy and bright and seems to come to life at meal times, you might want to look at all the things that happen at meal times that could be recreated at other times. E.g. is it because they are sitting closer and opposite people and therefore it is easier for them to communicate with others? Is it because they love food? Do dinner times bring back good memories? Be a detective and don’t be afraid to try different things: Food tasting, mixing a cake, a sociable tea dance.
If you notice someone becomes particularly alive and bright, try to recreate elements of the activity at different times.
Remember for activities to be successful you do not need an end result. You do not need a beautiful flower arrangement or a painting that’s finished. It is all about the process. The trick is to notice when someone is experiencing well-being and to make that happen.
Laura Michael is a Registered Mental Nurse and director of Memory Matters South West; a social enterprise with the sole aim of improving the experience of people living with dementia and their carers in the South West of England.
Memory Matters South West offers consultancy and training to residential and nursing homes to ensure good therapuetic activity provision in the care home environment. www. memorymatterssw.co.uk