What is your patient experiencing?
- People with dementia can stop participating in hobbies and other activities they normally do every day.
What is causing it?
- Difficulties initiating tasks can commonly develop in a person with dementia.
- Executive dysfunction can lead to challenges with planning activities.
- Changes in language skills create problems with communication necessary to maintain social relationships needed for various activities.
Advice for the Care Partner
- Caregivers can plan activities they can participate in or just observe.
- Choose activities that can be fun for everyone.
- Monitor to see if the person gets frustrated and help if needed.
- Make sure he or she feels successful and has fun.
- Have him or her watch if that is more enjoyable.
Some examples of appropriate and enjoyable daily activities
- Household chores: Wash dishes, set the table, prepare food, sweep the floor, dust, sort mail and clip coupons, sort socks and fold laundry, sort recycling materials or other things.
- Cooking and baking: Decide what is needed to prepare the dish; measure, mix, and pour; tell someone else how to prepare a recipe; watch others prepare food.
- Exercise: Take a walk with family, caregivers; watch exercise videos/DVDs or TV programs made for older people, use a stationary bike, use stretching bands, throw a soft ball or balloon back and forth, lift weights or household items such as soup cans.
- Music and dancing: Play music; talk about the music and the singer, ask what the person with Alzheimer’s what he or she was doing when the song was popular, sing or dance to well-known songs, attend a concert or musical program.
- Pets: Feed, groom, walk, sit and hold a pet.
- Gardening: Take care of indoor or outdoor plants, plant flowers when needed, talk about how much the plants are growing.
- Visiting with children: Play a simple board game, read stories or books, visit family members who have small children, walk in the park or around schoolyards, go to school events, talk about fond memories from childhood.
- Going out: Have the caregiver plan outings for the time of day when the person is at his or her best, and keep outings from becoming too long. Go to a favorite restaurant, park, shopping mall, or museum.
Information taken from the National Institute on Aging, part of the National Institutes of Health
Reviewed by AlzOC September 2015 NIH October 2012
For more information, read: Daily Activities from Alzheimer’s Orange County.