Senior Health: If you are caring for a senior parent or loved one that has been recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s or is in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, there are lots of activities that you can do together to help them keep their cognitive skills strong.
You can do these activities with them or have a senior care provider do them with your parent on a regular basis. Engaging your loved one with brain boosting activities will keep them interested in life, let them enjoy better senior health, and eliminate boredom as well.
You may have to try several different activities before you find one or two that your parent likes to do, and you also may need to adapt everyday activities to help your senior loved one do them. A senior care provider at home can also help adapt daily activities to your loved one’s skills and abilities. The five more recommended activities for seniors with Alzheimer’s are:
House Chores
Many seniors with Alzheimer’s like the routine and busy work of doing household chores, even though doing those chores is more challenging than it used to be. Your senior parent may enjoy helping you or a senior care provider with chores like washing dishes, folding laundry, sweeping, or dusting. You may need to make minor modifications to help them, like separating laundry into separate baskets that are easy to carry, but your senior parent will have a sense of purpose doing these chores.
Puzzles
Puzzles are fantastic for helping seniors strengthen their brains. Board games, puzzles, Sudoku, crossword puzzles, and any other type of brain game activity are fantastic things for seniors with Alzheimer’s to spend time doing.
Listening To Or Playing Music
The power of music is astonishing. Research has proven that music is connected to memory in the brain and listening to music or playing music can unleash memories in people with Alzheimer’s. The cognitive task of reading and playing music can also help seniors with Alzheimer’s keep their ability to process instructions and sequences.
Cooking
Cooking serves a dual purpose for a senior with Alzheimer’s. Cooking is a way to make delicious meals to eat, and that’s something seniors need to pay attention to since many don’t eat enough healthy food. Cooking also helps retain cognitive skills for people with dementia. Your senior loved one may have stopped cooking because it’s no fun to cook for one. Or because they have a hard time getting to the grocery store to shop for the nutritious and delicious foods they used to like to cook. A senior care provider can cook with your loved one and then share the meal with them to make the experience more fun. And home care providers can also help seniors shop and get all of the foods that they like.
Senior Health: Gardening
Being in nature has many proven mental and physical health benefits. Gardening is a gentle activity that will help seniors reap the benefits of spending time in nature and the benefits of physical activity as well as having the added benefit of helping them keep their brains healthy. Following the tips above will help in gaining better senior health for your elderly loved-one.
If you or an aging loved-one are considering hiring Senior Home Care in Lake Oswego, OR, please contact the caring staff at Integrity In-Home Care. Call today (503) 660-3755