11 Faith-based Activities For People with Dementia

Faith-based activities that involve repetition, motor movement, and are simple in meaning are likely to be more engaging for someone diagnose with Alzheimer’s or any other related dementia disease. 

Religious activities have an emotional component that makes such activities comforting and motivating to the person engaging in them.

Most religious ceremonies and rituals have procedures that have been repeatedly practice over a lifespan thus for such extensive practices, they have automatically become nature and require no thinking abilities to do them.

Attachment and reverence to one’s religious traditions and belief can remain strong during cognitive decline.

Emotional attachment to religious cuing and corresponding activity can be an implicit source of comfort and joy for the participant with Alzheimer’s disease. 

For example, spinning a dreidel amy produce feelings of fun and excitement for an elderly Jewish man who did this in childhood during Hanukkah. 

Though he may not consciously recall the event, the activity itself can cue the emotional response associated with the task.

What are faith-based activities?

These are regular self care activities that are done to address the needs of the body, mind and spirit. 

Planning a faith-based activity for dementia patients 

• Personal history of the participant needs to be developed. 
• Identify which religious and faith-base activities would be appropriate for the mental condition.
• Behavioral programs and behavioral prescriptions for example religious activities can be used to abate or mitigate agitation and facilitate active involvement and mobility. 
• Religious activities can be used as a part of environmental design. 
• Faith-base activities that require explicit memory skills, attention and concentration should be avoided for someone with Alzheimer’s disease. 
• Activities such as tense scriptural study, elaborate storytelling and deep meditation are Inappropriate since they require good working memory and concentration. 
• Activities that focus on damage skills or are modified to account for damage abilities are apt to be used more effectively in adults with Alzheimer’s disease. 
• Other activities like pilgrimages, such as Hajj (i.e., pilgrimage to Mecca) are obviously rigorous endeavors for someone who is well and would be extremely problematic for someone with Alzheimer’s disease. And exposure to such intellectual activities may confuse or frustrate participants with Alzheimer’s disease. 

11 Faith-based activities for people with dementia

Image by Myriam Zilles from Pixabay

Reciting the rosary 

Reciting a rosary is effective given its repetitive, calming nature and executing the motor skills of moving the beads. 

Religious Music 

Being soothed by a familiar songs or hymns brings strong memories they sang when they were kids.

Childhood memories are a common topic for someone with Alzheimer’s disease because of their continued ability to recall information from this period. 

For this reason, an activity like music can focus on memories from the past may have a better chance of being utilized that activities that focus on the more recent past. 

Recitation 

For someone in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, reciting favorite verses or prayers, familiar scriptures (e.g. the Beatitude; the Lord’s Prayer; the Ten Commandments) are all appropriate activities.

Ritualistic Prayers 

Ritualistic prayers can be incorporated, given the highly familiar nature of the task, thus those in the early stages of the disease can conduct a perpetual novena, a ritual involving lighting a candle and focusing a prayer on a particular request.   

Chanting the name of a deity or Om for short 

This can be a simple activity for someone given it is well practiced and possesses deep spiritual significance. 

Yoga 

The movement component of yoga, if the person is well practiced can be applied given that this well rehearsed and does not require explicit memory; however given demands on attention and concentration, prompts during this particular activity may be necessary. 

Create an alter or shrine 

Building a shrine out of reverence and servicing the shrine with appropriate offerings of incense and food depending upon the tradition would be an appropriate activity for the Alzheimer’s patient. 

Religious artifacts and rituals 

This can be done with many other religions, using arts and craft to focus on a particular belief is appropriate. For example, religious coloring books and looking through religious artwork can be implemented with ease. 

Emotion salience and repetition 

For a Muslim with Alzheimer’s disease, facing towards Mecca to pray (a.k.a. Salah), singing of sacred songs or hymns, and holding of religious symbols or icon such as the Koran are appropriate.   

Religious services

Attending churches or other religious ceremonies can lift the person’s mood and give more meaning to their life. 

“A study, published in the journal American Sociological Review, showed that 28 percent of individuals who attended a religious ceremony every week were “extremely satisfied” with their lives, as opposed to the less than 20 percent of people who did not attend services” source 

Holding Religious objects

Holding a sacred object (e.g. scriptural book, artifact, and symbol) Feeling secure performing a religious ritual and being awed by holding an item associated with one’s faith can have a powerful important to the person’s mental health.

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