By Dick Harkes

How Can Activities Help People With Alzheimer’s Disease?

Everybody needs the feeling of belonging to the group, the family, the club and so on. This counts with no doubt even for people with Alzheimer’s Disease. By stimulating them and creating the possibilities to perform activities of daily living you can help them to retain that experience.

Some doctors are not talking about a

person

with a certain disease. Instead of that, they identify a patient with his or her condition. The risk for us is also to see the illness first and after that the person.

We advice you to keep this in mind and always think and act inspired by the thought of the

person

we are supporting and helping.

Another aspect to keep in mind is: maybe they are forgotten what you did together the day before. Don’t think that it is useless to do these things together. The joyful experience itself for your beloved-one at that moment should be enough to motivate you to go on with these activities. They live in the day and time and you give them the happiness for that moment.

The Benefits of Activities

By carrying out activities they keep on feeling useful in life. Just the simple household tasks can give them a feeling of satisfaction.

You can also play a board game or other games together. Maybe you know a place for Occupational Therapy for people with dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease.

The main goal of activities of daily living is to improve your loved one’s quality of life.

Don’t expect that is will slow down the progression of Alzheimer’s Disease, but they can help maintain motor skills that aid daily tasks.

Activities of daily living also help relieve a caregiver’s frustration by keeping the loved one stimulated and by fostering emotional connection and self expression.

What to Take Into Account With Activities Of Daily Living

There are many things to take into account when performing activities of daily living. We mention a couple of them here.

Choose activities that are failure free.

The goal of the activities is to engage the person with dementia and encourage a sense of success. So don’t correct him or tell them they were more handy with it in the past.

KISS (Keep It Short and Simple).

They cannot concentrate for a long time. They also find it hard to make decisions. With choosing activities for your loved-one keep these in mind. They are also easily distracted. So avoid too many people and noises (like a playing radio set or TV).

Choose the right materials to manipulate.

When the dementia progresses you have to be aware of the situation small objects might be swallowed.

Safety first.

Keep the work area safe, uncluttered and well lighted and use unbreakable materials.

Routine is nice, but you can also try new things some times.

They like to do things they loved to do in the past. Sometimes trying out something new possibly arouses curiosity and can be of great fun for yourself too.

About the Author: Dick Harkes was confronted with Alzheimer’s Disease when his father was diagnosed with this awful ailment. Then he started collecting information about Alzheimer’s. He likes to share this information with everybody. Please visit

Activities of Daily Living

. Or start at his homepage:

All About Alzheimer’s Disease

.

Source:

isnare.com

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