Ideas for activities DM can still enjoy

[ACatCalledPuss]

DM has alzheimers and while still OK living at home on her own, I would love some ideas for things that she could do to make her day seem less long now that many things she used to enjoy are no longer possible given her extremely bad short term memory. For example, she used to love reading but is finding it increasingly hard and can't even enjoy her favourite tv programs. Her shoulders are bad so gardening or anything physical is also out. Are there activities that your loved ones can still enjoy even with dementia?

@ACatCalledPuss

My Mum liked having the radio on in the background.

Audio books

What about colouring books or some sort of painting.

Pressing flowers and making something with them.

Can she manage some sort of felting or cross stitch.

If she enjoys gardening is there a way to have a table set up in the garden for her to sit at and plant some bulbs or plants in posts and they can stay on the table for her to care for.

Jigsaw puzzles

I did my Mum a scrapbook with pictures of everyone and a family tree so when a Carer spoke to her she could tell them about us all.

Would she be interested in making a scrapbook

My Mum when she was really in the midst of Dementia was obsessed with Babies and where her babies were so I got her a doll and some clothes and she really enjoyed looking after the baby, it calmed her down.

Thanks for your suggestions @stopringingme. I might try the colouring idea. I have tried jigsaws but she loses interest quickly. I think the audiobook might present the same issue as the reading as the problem is that she forgets almost immediately what she has just read or in the case of tv, just watched, therefore it is hard for her to follow anything. She has arthritis in her fingers so any needlework is out but the planting idea might work.

Does she like sorting things? Someone on here had a mum who loved being 'helpful' and untangling a load of ribbons and winding them up. Button sorting is popular with some people too.
Folding 'laundry' can be something enjoyed too.
My mum had no interest in those, but enjoyed gardening or more realistically using a little hand fork to weed (really just moving earth around), overwatering her house plants, and trimming the hedge a few mm at a time.
Don't get despondent if she doesn't like something - my mum threw a doll at me when I tried that, but spent hours and hours contentedly stroking a toy cat

What about a bird table/feeder that she can watch from a chair by a window? Especially if it was filled with things that didn't need to be renewed daily, perhaps half coconut shells hung up, or compressed seed cakes, or the dried sunflower heads?
She might enjoy the colours and acrobatics of blue tits.

Another thought is one of those electronic digital photo frames, you could fill it with her old holiday snaps, family events etc. She wouldn't need to be able to recall the plot while watching it.

I hope you find something for her, you sound like a lovely daughter, in fact all the posters on the thread sound lovely.

Thanks everyone. Some lovely ideas. I did get her a new bird feeder and will keep that topped up as well. I just want to make sure she is as happy as she can possibly be given what is happening to her.

My DM used to like looking at old photos
when she couldn’t do anything such as reading, gardening etc.

Placemarking for ideas. My DM is earlier stages than some on here, but she also has terrible arthritis, so she really can't do anything like drawing, crafting or gardening now. The one thing I've done that she absolutely loves is to make a photo album of pictures of her, her children and grandchildren from her childhood to now - she spends hours looking at it. I've captioned it very comprehensively so that she doesn't have to remember who people are.

I've also thought of getting her one of those Relish basic radio and music players, and creating a playlist to go on it. She's not that keen on radio, and she's hopeless with any form of technology, but she loves all the old 60s music, and there's a lot of evidence that music remains very powerful even in late dementia - but at the moment she'd be reliant on my dad putting music on for her.

This post is really helpful. I am looking for ideas for my mother, she seems to have lost the ability to see things to do herself and needs my direction to give her tasks.

Otherwise she just sits.

As above she can't really enjoy TV shows and I think reading is become a little irritating as she forgets the story each time she puts the book down. 😢