Seniors are known to sit and stay lazy all day especially those diagnose with dementia and other age related disease like macular degeneration.
Gradually going blind is traumatic enough for us younger folks, I certainly understand how much more so for elderly ones, especially if they don't have access to or ability to use technology devices available now a days that give visually impaired/blind ones the ability to function in life more easily.
Even with low vision, the senior can therefore; there is a need for seniors to engage in activities
The elderly need to engage elderly in touch, sound, taste, aroma and movement type activities to all gently stimulate the brain to help the individual to relax.
Remember, there isn’t a cure that can return already loss sight, but exercise is known to help prevent age related blindness and macular degeneration is common among the elderly.
Seniors can’t do the exercise and activities the young do but there are easy and simple activities to keep them engage and active and they don’t need to only rely on their eyes to do them.
If you need something your love can do without them relying much on their eyes" This may be the answer.
41 Easy Activities for elderly with macular degeneration and dementia
Common Indicators of Macular degeneration
How to Make Life Easier and Safer for seniors with Low Vision
17 Tips for communicating with visually impaired people
1. Make or buy a fidget blanket! A fidget blanket has many different sensory items ...easy to just sit on a lap and then it keeps fingers busy. As the dementia progressed you will find often times that they are very restless. Many times simply giving the senior something like this will give their fingers something to work on and keep them settled. Your love one will sit for hours and zip and unzip and play with the beads.
2. Buy a kids xylophone so the senior can PLAY music and record it back.
3. Get a recorder and lessons for 30 minutes 3X a week.
4. Buy an inexpensive keyboard and get lessons for 30 minutes a week so the senior can learn to play it!
5. When holidays are around the corner, learning holiday songs would be excellent focus!
6. Get clay or take the senior to a pottery class.
7. Get a kit that the senior could make potholders and the senior can donate to the assisted living centers, preschools, kindergartens, etc. if they want or keep them... My house looks like a pre-school classroom! Think small toddler activities!
8. Smelling kitchen spices and talking about memories they trigger.
9. If they senior has a favorite scent, Put in scented shower products or a candle the seniors loves and ask their opinion on the scent.
10. Play guessing games on what they can smell e.g. lavender, mint, basil, even basic things like coffee, chocolate, cheese, list is endless! Senses are still there for most people especially their smelling sense.
11. Bubble wrap popping elderly people loves to pop the bubbles.
12. Folding laundry, Small task like this works the memory.
13. Massage, Hand lotion and hand massages Feet massages Nail polish.
14. Give the senior a baby doll to snuggle with.
15. Get a large piece puzzle that have large pieces (2×2) and bright colors. For example child jig saws 12 big pieces.
16. Checkers or dominoes, checkers or draughts is a board game with black and white counters and dominoes are small rectangular pieces with dots on and you have to match up the dots if you Google the rules it will explain how to play.
17. Magna-Tiles are awesome. They are larger building tiles (great for people with limit dexterity/ impaired vision) and click together magnetically so there is no precise lining up. They connect easily and pull apart easily. And the build options are endless. Just need creativity.
18. Fidget cube, they are literally what it says is a cube with a bunch of different things on it for fidgeting.
19. Tea and scones, something English people in particular eat with a cup of tea you can have savory ones or ones with currants in and eat with cream and jam. They’re yummy!
20. Get an echo for the senior if they are into comedies and biographies, sit and discuss the comedies and books. Just normal talking and ask their opinions, even if they are odd sometimes, share a hobby can break this uncomfortable time.
21. Air dry clay can be bought at most crafting stores, but just the manipulation of it with the hands might be appealing.
22. Untying knots in shoe laces.
23. Put Large Lego’s together, the senior can build whatever they wants and will keep them busy.
24. Get a tape recorder or something similar to that and ask the senior to record their history so that future generations will know their story.
25. Get a large prints coloring books with large illustrations, nothing intricate. Preferably seasonal ones so the senior is aware of the time of year.
26. Get oversized playing cards that the senior can plays with.
27. Does the senior like animals? Depending on where you live, you can often visit or accept dog visit for the senior to interact with them. That would be tactile.
28. Play dough slime, good to massage and mess with and good with limited sight.
29. Take walks in the park.
30. Sit outside and enjoy the fresh air.
31. Talking about the old days, reminiscence.
32. Anything to do with shapes or textures such as sorting items or sensory mats/cushions. They are amazing.
33. Watch a quiz channel on the TV.
34. Paint birdhouses and other wooden items.
35. Make memory boards and picture books.
36. Visits the senior’s favorite places.
37. Sing along with sing the senior.
38. Visit family and invite family and friends to visit too.
39. Music the person enjoys - created a collection for the senior with music from the 30 and 40, especially Mozart for it activates all the brain waves that no other music activates slowing the progression of dementia. Any music from their younger days...Watch "Alive Inside" video to see what an impact it has on people who are not engaged in anyway, but who come "alive" when hearing music they know and loved.
40. Audio books, you can get them at libraries, there are various sources for audio books, some free, some not so free.
41. Tell joke if you can, the elderly love it.
Early in this disease you will not witness symptoms but as time gradually passes you will witness disruptions in with your vision. Here are just a few first early indicators for you to suspect Macular degeneration.
When people lose one sense, the other senses get heightened. There’s no universal language, special tips or tricks, but some basics are quite efficient.
1. Blinds people can't see signs, if you know the person enough some touches could have intuitive meanings, for example a gentle touch of the shoulder could tell where you are and the side where they should go, so the person could be quite safe even in a rude environment like work.
2. In a crowded room, say the person’s name when talking to a blind person, otherwise they person might not respond.
3. Use more of descriptive words. For example instead of saying "over there" you can say "over on the right side of the house". The more details the better, it's like painting a picture with words....when talking would help. Ohh and sometimes sound effects are cool....
4. Always tell the person if you are exiting the room. The blind hate talking to someone and they walk off. And they realize they’ve been talking to them self. For who knows how long.
5. Don’t assume that your visually impaired friend can see this or that because they saw such and such another time. Every circumstance is different and there are different variables that combined determine how well a person sees something.
6. When leading a visually impaired person, offer your elbow to them rather than grabbing them and pulling/pushing them everywhere. Don’t grab the cane; blind people need that to feel where they are going. Use Left Right; up down instead of it’s over there.... Ask them politely "so they know how to help, what can you see?"
7. Blind people appreciate being talked to like you would anyone else; they don’t like people to assume that they can’t do something.
8. Always ask if they need help instead of just helping without asking first.
9. Offer assistance but don’t insist on doing everything for them.
10. If you meet a blind person for the first time, don’t just grab or touch them, say something to let them know you are nearby and that you are addressing them specifically. If it’s someone you know and you see them somewhere, don’t automatically assume they can recognize your voice.
11. If you’re in a social situation, blind people love talking to people about things that don’t have to do with being blind.
12. If you want to communicate by writing, make your print large or use adaptive software. Most of blind people can either read large print or use adaptive software to read things on computers or phones.
13. When speaking to a virtually impaired person, eye Contact doesn’t work.
14. Do not talk with a high volume and very slowly. Talk normally; Blind people can understand you just fine.
15. Braille is quite similar to steno writing but with less keys, it could became how anyone type one day, on the opposite, signs could somehow blend with our usual culture, Moss VR game is a good example, with time people might be able to understand quite a load of things with some gestural talk.
16. Low and slow is more helpful than loud, which may be more about the person’s perception than you actually being loud. Listen to what the person says and modify the way you talk.
17. If the blind person is a parent, speak in deference to him/her...parents don’t want to be treated like children!
Above all, remember that blindness is a spectrum, most people who are legally blind will still have some degree of usable vision and it can differ greatly from person to person. The most important thing is that the blind are people and want to be treated like you would anyone else.
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