Engaging Activities for Seniors with Dementia: How to Improve Mood and Keep Busy
Everyone would prefer to be engaged rather than bored or frustrated during their day. Intellectual stimulation and partaking in practices that keep our spirits up are beneficial for our mental health, and this is especially true for individuals with Alzheimer’s disease or another form of dementia. Activities that support mental engagement, social connection, and physical fitness bolster cognitive health in turn, and caretakers of those with a memory or cognitive condition should keep these principles in mind when scheduling the day for the person under their care. Knowing how to keep an older adult with dementia busy during the day also means knowing what’s best for that person’s mental and social needs.
At Town Square, our innovative adult day centers across the country offer our members varied, stimulating programming and vital socialization with an emphasis on therapeutic reminiscence, learning, and fun. We help seniors with dementia find meaning and fulfillment in connecting with peers and our highly-trained staff and taking part in varied, specially crafted, and joyous activities during the weekday, allowing their regular caregivers peace of mind during the all-important working hours. Contact us today to learn more, find a Town Square center near you, or continue reading to find out more about how to keep seniors with dementia engaged in the daytime.
Understanding the Importance of Engagement and Mood in Seniors with Dementia
Dementia affects different people in different ways at different times, and although all forms of dementia are grouped into stages of progression, these do not rigidly define symptoms and levels of functioning. Nor is the condition the end of an enjoyable, fulfilled life – individuals with dementia may have good and bad days like anyone else, and the right approach can help to make sure the majority of those days are good.
Caregivers can employ a whole host of techniques, but they all come down to engagement and mood, achieving creative and intellectual stimulation, and fostering a positive outlook. In fact, engagement and positivity provide huge benefits during care.
Studies have found that engaging and positive experiences improve activities of daily life (ADL) for those with dementia and enhance overall quality of life. These experiences also counteract the boredom, depression, loneliness, and apathy that may arise because of the disruptions that dementia causes. Seniors with dementia need this meaningful engagement, and the results can be life-changing.
Strategies for Keeping Seniors with Dementia Busy
But how can this engagement be achieved? What can medical practitioners and carers do to deliver positive experiences to seniors with dementia? There are a number of different strategies that can work here.
Structured Daily Routine
Research from the Alzheimer’s Project has concluded that a well-planned and well-structured daily routine is exceedingly important for people with dementia. Sufficient structure increases feelings of familiarity, easing anxiety and stress.
Of course, this does not mean offering a monotonous, unchanging experience for seniors with dementia. Caregivers can build engaging activities into each day. Puzzles and word games can exercise cognitive function, while arts and crafts – such as painting, drawing, or making models in clay – offer a valuable creative outlet. Gentle physical exercise in a controlled environment supports broader well-being.
With Town Square, our members’ primary caregivers can be assured that their loved ones are able to participate in structured daytime enrichment focused on whole-person health (physical, mental, social, and cognitive) that also offers freedom of choice and plenty of fun, laughs, and chances to reminisce.
Memory Stimulation
While memory loss is one of the most visible and characteristic symptoms of all forms of dementia, it may be able to be mitigated through memory stimulation activities. Simple memory games – card games such as Go Fish, for example – support the mechanics of memory and recall. A number of brain training apps are also available that offer fun and engagement along with cognitive exercise.
Sensory Stimulation
Whether we realize it in the moment or not, our senses can always influence our emotional responses. We all know how we feel when we listen to a great piece of music or encounter an aroma that takes us back to a comforting place and time. This is as true for seniors with dementia as it is for people who are in good cognitive health – providing sensory stimulation helps seniors forge direct connections with memory and cognition, enhancing concentration and relaxation while supporting interaction with the environment on a fundamental level.
Sensory stimuli can be delivered as part of a memory exercise, perhaps by exploring familiar music, movies, and artworks that trigger positive responses. While aromatherapy, for example, may not have scientific backing as a remedy for specific conditions, the sense of smell does have strong emotional valence.
Tactile therapies – in the form of both massage and touch-based sensory activities – are also proven to have benefits. Simple tasks such as popping bubble wrap and more complex, memory-based activities like coin sorting may help increase engagement in daily life.
Social Interaction
Caregivers can provide agency and a sense of stability to their loved ones simply by asking appropriate questions and including them in decisions when able – an approach that has become known as an ecopsychosocial intervention. But social interaction is not limited to those between individuals with dementia and their primary caregivers. Seniors with dementia can also benefit from joining social gatherings, spending time with friends and family, and participating in group activities with peers.
Planning these activities requires care and consideration – they should be built into the familiar routine, and they should be organized with consent and consultation, drawing upon the ecopsychosocial intervention model discussed above. With the right approach, social interaction eliminates feelings of isolation and opens up possibilities for more purposeful and fulfilled living.
Enhancing Mood in Seniors with Dementia
Mood provides a window to the soul, offering insight into the general well-being of those we care for. If we can help seniors to achieve a positive mood, we are taking major steps towards supporting a great quality of life for longer.
Promoting Emotional Well-Being
Some dementia research has focused on the concept of emotional safety as a key factor in well-being. Emotional safety consists of social togetherness, personal condition, health, physical environment, and society. However, other researchers have advocated for more complex frameworks that are less symptom-oriented. Positivity, meaning in life, sense of self, activity levels, and human relationships are common metrics that caregivers can use to measure emotional well-being.
Purpose-oriented tasks and artistic expression can provide meaning and a sense of self, while physical exercise can boost overall health. Gatherings, events, and interactions support the human relationships side of well-being while making time for relaxation and reminiscence within the daily schedule helps to foster positive emotions.
Therapeutic Approaches
While focusing on the regularity of the schedule, caregivers can vary the therapeutic approaches they use. Music therapy is excellent for sensory stimuli and memory, while art therapy provides a sense of accomplishment and purpose while offering a valuable creative outlet.
At Town Square, our approach combines a number of proven ideas in dementia care, particularly reminiscence therapy, in order to help our members achieve their best health and life satisfaction.
The Role of Caregivers
As caregivers consider how to help their loved ones improve their mood and well-being, they should keep in mind the need to adjust their approach, as people with dementia don’t have the same mental flexibility as people without a cognitive condition in most situations.
Understanding Individual Preferences
The important concepts of ecopsychosocial intervention and emotional well-being both underscore the need to take individual preferences and needs into account when providing care.
Devising a familiar and regular schedule is certainly crucial, but this is not a one-size-fits-all approach. Instead, the specifics of the schedule and the nature of the activities involved will need to be tailored according to the desires and abilities of each individual. Bear in mind also that these desires and abilities may change over time.
Patience and Flexibility
Scolding a person with dementia, rushing them, or forcing them to take part in activities they do not enjoy simply adds to the feeling of stress and anxiety. Instead, caregivers need to work with their loved ones to achieve a more supportive environment.
Observing ability level and enjoyment is important here. It may be necessary to adapt activities, making them easier and simpler if they are causing frustration or making them a little more complex if the senior is not challenged and engaged. At Town Square, our highly-trained team takes these concepts into account at all times, making sure our programming is suitable and enjoyable for people of varied interests, backgrounds, and levels of cognitive health.
Engaging Senior Care Services from Town Square
Town Square is dedicated to helping people with dementia and their primary caregivers in locales across the country through providing the best, most therapeutic, most socially engaging, and most enjoyable adult day enrichment services available. Find your nearest Town Square location or contact our team to find out more about what we do for our members, their loved ones, and the community.
