This month has been fun! Not everything has gone as planned when I made my wonderful, themed calendar, but that’s ok. With people who have dementia, it’s good to have a schedule, but at the same time be willing to change it if necessary. Every day is different, moods can change quickly or slowly, or be set and not change. Fatigue can come on quickly or last all day. With age comes aches, and with Wisconsin weather we have plenty of aches most of the year, especially if we are human barometers due to age or sickness. Luckily, we had some nice days for pumpkin painting, but lately has been too cold to go outdoors so some activities had to be adapted into completely different activities! As long as my residents are happy or willing to do what I recommend, the change works out :). Every resident gets an activity schedule, and one is sent to their power of attorneys. They don’t always remember they have a calendar, but that’s why we help them remember. Some of my ladies are on top of me with what daily activities are, and others would rather sit in front of the news all day (we are working on finding a happy medium). I have some residents who don’t care to join in activities, or arts and crafts, or bingo, so I’m trying to work with them to find a happy medium for us all to enjoy. Many of my residents have stated that they have never done arts and crafts, except embroidery or possibly knitting in the past. With each activity that we do I start out very simple and as weeks progress, I find activities that are more challenging to build up their stamina!
These photos are not in order:
Here we were painting wood objects, or paper to go towards bookmarks. The end results will go towards our “bazaar” a facility fundraiser.
Check out my blog this week on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday for more posts and pictures of the October card workshop 🙂