GiftIdeas for Wheelchair-bound Senior w/dementia

Parent Cafe
1

<p>My grandmother recently moved to a nursing home and sits in a wheelchair for most of the day. She has either dementia or alzheimers (not diagnosed currently) and her awareness fluctuates from totally unaware of where she is to making witty comments/jokes about something you are discussing. She has pretty bad arthritis so she is not particularly nimble and her eyesight is just ok.
I am looking for ideas for things to give her to keep her occupied for some of the hours that she is sitting without visitors or activities. She was doing word search puzzles for awhile but has lost interest. </p>

<p>I don’t think she could operate a handheld video game because of the arthritis, but I was wondering if anybody knew of some other gadgets or games that may interest her? </p>

<p>I am going to put together a small photo album for her to look at when she is bored and I am considering a music device of some sort as well. I don’t think she could operate the controls on an ipod but maybe something else would work.</p>

<p>Any ideas are welcome! Thanks for reading.</p>

2

<p>I know this is a difficult situation, I went through a similar situation with my grandmother years ago. Here are a few items that came to mind:</p>

<p>Game called “Find-It” here is discription from their website: “A creative game that never needs to be put away. Find It is ideal to play anywhere: at home, in the office, in your car. People of all ages will enjoy the hunt for the hidden objects buried within the layer of recycled plastic pellets. Alone or with friends, everyone will enjoy spinning it, shaking it, and twisting it until all the objects are found.” They come in several designs & you can probably purchase one at a better, independent toy store in your area.</p>

<p>Also suggest the series of “Life Magazine, Picture Puzzle” books–can find on Amazon. You find hidden objects in photographs (my teenage sons still enjoy these).</p>

<p>Hope this helps.</p>

3

<p>Thanks ELY - that is so funny that you recommended “Find It” because I was just looking at that on Amazon. It looked like a great idea and now you have confirmed that for me.</p>

<p>If she likes it there are even other versions that we could get when she tires of the original!</p>

<p>I will go look at the picture puzzles now…Thanks for the great reply.</p>

4

<p>My aunt is an activities coordinator at a senior center and they all love “Find It”. Another good thing about the game is that it gives her visitors something to fiddle with (or to engage her in) while they visit.</p>

<p>I’m sure she’ll enjoy that photo album (especially old photos).</p>

<p>I’ll also mention that when my grandmother’s dementia got worse, she had a stuffed bear that she loved to hold. It seemed to give her some comfort.</p>

5

<p>Based on my experience with my mother-in-law with dementia: Essentially, nothing. It’s very depressing, but that’s the case. She lost her connection to things very quickly. One of the first things to go was the ability to operate electronic devices. Even the simplest puzzle was beyond her even when she could still communicate fairly well. She sometimes likes to look at picture books, magazines, or catalogs, but there are no “favorites”, and she quickly lost the ability to recognize anything having to do with her life or her family – vivid advertisements are more interesting to her than her wedding pictures, or her grandchildren. </p>

<p>We get her sweaters, tops, and pants with elastic waists. She does still care a bit about what clothes she is wearing.</p>

<p>Some women with dementia really like baby dolls, or cute stuffed animals.</p>

6

<p>I was wondering about those electronic picture albums. I might get my mother one for Christmas and load it up with digital pictures. She is in a similar condition but is not in a nursing home. I’’ check out that Find IT game, too.</p>

7

<p>My MIL meets that description.</p>

<p>Last year we got her a large open top bag/sack that she could carry things in, and inside we put a small album with family pictures. She likes to tote it around with her and keep her “things” in it…sort of toddler like, the dementia is making her regress.</p>

<p>This year we are bringing her some childrens books with the tactile surfaces and bright colors, etc., because she likes fingering things. She knows my H sometimes, but she doesn’t know any of the rest of her family any more.</p>

<p>It’s hard to come up with ideas. I actually think that giving her presents is more for us than for her because she really has no concept of special occasions or gifts any more.</p>

<p>it’s so sad</p>

8

<p>Would someone put a CD in a stereo for her? You could get CDs of her favorite music when she was young.</p>

9

<p>Some of these comments are really wrong, and I’ll get to that in a minute.</p>

<p>I worked doing activities in a senior residential health-care facility, and let me tell you, there’s hardly anything they’re NOT interested in. As long as someone is engaged with them in a non-judgmental way, they will work or examine things for hours and are never bored – because it’s like they’ve seen the object for the first time!</p>

<p>If she is “sitting for hours in her wheelchair” with nothing to do you need to report this to the manager or go all the way up to the CEO or file a report with the state if necessary. All licensed facilities are required to provide a wide range of activities for all cognitive levels, even the most impaired. They are not supposed to just sit there or sleep the day away!</p>

<p>You might ask the activities director if there’s anything special you can give her that she might share with the floor. Here’s a list of things my wonderful folks with Alzheimer’s/Dementia loved:
Fuzzy pillows in pretty colors
Koosh balls (they’re fascinated with these)
Any kind of tote bag or purse with delightful things inside – old-timey photos, costume jewelry, fake flowers, plush dogs and cats, “beach” stuff – beach balls, suntan lotion
Boxes from fancy stores of different sizes that they stack up, talk about with each other, and wrap as gifts
Nail polish and hand cream! Oh boy do these ladies love a manicure!</p>

<p>And especially, you called it, music. There are CD players with large buttons, make sure you provide batteries and give extras to the nurses station. She can carry that on her wheelchair. I bought lots of iTunes for my seniors, and burned discs for them. One lovely lady loved French Christmas Music, I burned a whole load of Tito Rossi, etc. You may even remember some music she might have liked as a younger person.</p>

<p>Some of the comments here remind me that the biggest problem we had on the job was not with the Alzheimer’s residents – it was with their family members. They would get their Mom all upset by insisting “No you are NOT a girl of 16, you are an 80-year-old woman and I am your daughter. DON’T YOU REMEMBER?”</p>

<p>JHS:
"but there are no “favorites”, and she quickly lost the ability to recognize anything having to do with her life or her family – vivid advertisements are more interesting to her than her wedding pictures, or her grandchildren. "</p>

<p>Yeah, JHS, because she is really good at what she does – which is having Alzheimer’s. But this comment is typical. Family members just upset them by trying to force the issue.</p>

<p>But it doesn’t mean you get to give up! The relationship changes as the brain peels off the layers of years, and it’s actually fascinating to discover this living time machine in action. We who work with Alzheimer’s residents (and LOVE them :)) accept them at whatever level and developmental stage they are in – one day Gertie is 4 and she’s sticking her tongue out at me, one day she’s waiting for her son who will pick her up from work and she needs her purse (son has been dead for decades), you just never know what you are going to get. I just loved them and accepted them at every stage, and sometimes they even remembered me! And even if they didn’t I loved them anyway. That’s why I always had a very full, happy and busy participatory program – people with paralyzed feet kicking a beach ball and laughing, ladies painting pictures for me and trying to write their name on it (ooooh), folks dancing to Glenn Miller (some of them won’t stop dancing), and reading and massaging the hands of those with the most severe decline.</p>

<p>PA Mom, good for you. Your grandma is going through a transition phase. Sometimes they “wake up” and these moments of awareness can be terrifying. I highly recommend:[Local</a> Chapters](<a href=“http://www.alz.org/we_can_help_local_chapters_wch.asp]Local”>Find Your Local Chapter | Alzheimer's Association)</p>

<p>Good luck and have fun buying gifts for Grandma! She will love 'em.</p>

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<p>AnuddahMom, I love your comments. Most of us who aren’t in your profession don’t think about people with dementia as the folks they are now, instead of the ones they used to be. But once you look at it that way, you get a whole different perspective.</p>

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<p>My mom was in a similar situation. She couldn’t operate any electronic “devices” at all…but the nursing staff was very helpful. We got her a CD Boombox and a bunch of “oldie” CDs…think Frank Sinatra, Elvis, Perry Como, old musicals etc. She loved them and would sing along.</p>

12

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<p>I just bought several fun little squeezie-ball-things at Pier I for a couple dollars each for stocking stuffers but I’ll bet the OP’s mom would have fun with them… They are soft plastic and filled with a gel and covered with a net. When you squeeze them, the plastic bulges out in the holes of the netting and (because it got thinner) changes color very dramatically. Purple ball gets these big yellow bumps all over it. It’s addictive to play with. I’m sure other stores have them.</p>

<p>If someone finds a good CD or MP3 player for this group, please post links.</p>

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<p>My husband’s aunt received a travel pillow - the kind that wraps around your neck for traveling. It had an animal head at one end - not sure if the whole thing was an animal or not. But she loved it. She would drift off in her chair, but the neck pillow kept her head from dropping uncomfortably.</p>

<p>She spent most of her adult life in the kitchen, and liked having an apron on, with lots of pockets to keep things in.</p>

<p>This website sells wheelchair accessories - like bags or cup holders.
[Exciting</a> Wheelchair Accessories, Awesome Wheelchair Bags, Handy Mini Packs](<a href=“http://www.wheelchairgear.com/]Exciting”>http://www.wheelchairgear.com/)</p>

14

<p>My elderly aunt has Alzheimers. She is not wheelchair bound, but spends a good part of her day in a rocking chair. She enjoys, as Anudduhmom mentioned, a koosh ball. Playing catch with it. I wouldn’t have thought of it, but her son got us started tossing one gently around one day when I was visiting, and she thought it was a blast.</p>

<p>Another thing my aunt likes is petting animals. So a visit from a calm dog or cat, if it is allowed to visit her facility briefly, might be something she would enjoy.</p>

15

<p>My D worked for a year in a memory care facility before starting med school. Here are some ideas based on her comments from her work. She learned so much working there, and I did too.</p>

<p>The staff really liked seeing photos in the resident’s room of the person’s life before, even if the resident no longer recognized those in the photos. Those photos made the person’s previous life more real to the caregivers and gave them some things to try to talk to the resident about. You could give a few framed photos of key people or places for her walls in addition to the family photo book.</p>

<p>My D was the activity director for about six months and she did a lot of reading to the residents, including poetry. The facility had an inadequate small book collection, with few books that appealed to the residents. I am a former librarian and editor, and this just bothered me so much that there were no appropriate books for these residents. I bought some more sophisticated picture books for their collection (the facility did not allow things that are too “childish”). The residents loved their new books. </p>

<p>I also made about six books for the residents that were a big success. I used calendars with large illustrations or photos, cut apart the pages, and reassembled them as books (so the pages turn as normal book pages turn). I used calendars with Norman Rockwell illustrations, flowers, and two collections of simple Bible verses with pretty scenic photos. These all worked well. You could make a couple of books for your grandmother that reflect her interests. </p>

<p>There is also a three-book series by Lydia Burdick that was written specifically for memory-impaired adults, available from Amazon. I bought The Sunshine on My Face and my d said the residents liked that too.</p>

<p>One woman who had stopped reading was able to read aloud from one of the picture books I sent, and one of the Bible verse books was very helpful to an adult daughter who was trying to calm her father down when nothing else would work. I was so pleased to have been able to send something the residents liked and my D found helpful.</p>

16

<p>Annudah – Excuse me, but I have not “given up”. I also don’t try to “force the issue”. What I have given up on is getting her presents (although the koosh ball idea sounds viable, and I want to check out these Find-Its), or making a fetish of memories. I have a little burn on for the photo albums and memory boxes – those ARE for the benefit of the facility and the families, not the resident herself, to whom they mean nothing anymore. (I recognize the point about the staff, though. It IS important for them to understand that the person they are dealing with was a whole person, with people who loved her. I try to give them that sense by being there a fair amount, and talking with them about her.)</p>

<p>Most of what you describe as working has a common denominator – attention and touching. That’s what they really want. They want people to engage with them on things that they can do and enjoy. They want to be touched nicely, hugged, hands held. Of course they like manicures! It isn’t the nail polish, though. And of course they like making pictures for an appreciative audience! And talking, as long as there is someone listening and not trying to stuff every square thing they say into a round hole of reason. If I hadn’t gotten so depressed thinking about this before, and had taken a more positive tone, what I should have said was that the best present was presence and attention, not things.</p>

<p>Music doesn’t do much for my mother-in-law anymore, although that took awhile to fade. (Very sad though, because it meant lots and lots to her for all of her life until a couple of years ago. Well into her 80s, she ushered for the BSO so as not to miss any concerts.) I will say, however, that last weekend I saw a roomful of dementia ward residents active, electric, and responsive watching . . . a DVD of Lawrence Welk Shows! Talk about painful! The shows were much, much worse than I remembered, and they were just loooooooving it.</p>

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<p>AnudduhMom, what a blessing you must be to the residents and families. And bookiemom, how thoughtful those gifts were that you made. </p>

<p>I’d like to train our dog to visit residents in these facilities. How hard it must be to live there 24/7. I bet these great gift ideas from everyone will help PA Mom’s grandma & others.</p>

18

<p>My mom, who has periods of dementia and memory loss and is wheelchair-bound, loved it when my brother and I bought her Trivial Pursuit this year for her birthday.</p>

<p>Sure, she can’t remember the answers to most of them, but neither can anybody else in her assisted-living community. She says that if anybody is a real stickler for the rules, that they don’t last long in her Trivial Pursuit gatherings. She says that she and her friends have a roaring good time, though, literally, trying to guess the answers to things like “What do they put on their french fries in Belgium?” (Mayonnaise, says Trivial Pursuit. Mussels, say I.)</p>

<p>My mom likes to color, too. We buy the large, intricate posters for her, along with nice sets of markers. She can sit down and work on it a little at a time, and leave when she loses interest in it.</p>

<p>She loves looking at old pictures, too. She can’t remember where any of them are from sometimes, but when she’s having a good day, she’s pretty computer-savvy, and she’ll scan in the picture and send it to me and ask if I remember details. She likes to play with the pictures in Picasa and then print them out and frame them, so we buy her frames.</p>

<p>She’s found that she’s on enough painkillers to dampen the pain she used to have from arthritis that stopped her from playing piano about ten years ago, so we’ll bring her sheet music. She can’t always see it because her eyes are going, too, but she gets by. There’s a piano in the chapel and she loves to play, and the other residents love to sit and listen, and sing along. If you play an instrument, bring it in and play. It’s delightful. The only thing better than canned music is live music.</p>

<p>Movies are no good; she falls asleep and can’t remember them. Books aren’t any good either (though I’ll look for those Lydia Burdick books… those sound interesting). Puzzle pieces just get lost.</p>

<p>She likes to do container gardening, but she could probably resuscitate a burning bush and make it bloom something pretty… She’s always had an incredibly green thumb, and her porch explodes with flowers every spring. The other residents love her flowers, too, and walk by her little garden on their walks. Fresh-cut flowers are great. For Mother’s Day, I also send balloons, which she likes.</p>

<p>She really likes decorating her door, and making her apartment more home-y. We bought her a dried-flower wreath that she loves.</p>

<p>The koosh balls are a great idea. My brother and I are mid- and late-twenties and we can still occupy ourselves for hours with a few koosh balls.</p>

<p>Along those same lines, I’d also search online for occupational therapy supplies. </p>

<p>[The</a> Therapy Shoppe, The extraordinary little specialty shoppe for school and pediatric therapists, teachers and parents too.](<a href=“http://www.therapyshoppe.com/]The”>http://www.therapyshoppe.com/)</p>

<p>Therapy Shoppe has some good things… People talked about neck pillows and koosh balls, and this is a whole store of those sorts of things. Fascinating, easy to use, provide comfort and interest, work on dexterity but aren’t frustrating. They have a whole section of things called “Fidgets”.</p>

19

<p>Jolynne, unfortunately I quit the job for reasons that had nothing to do with the residents, but thank you for saying that. I loved them and miss them (and many of them have passed on), and would love to work with Alzheimer’s/Dementia residents again, in other circumstances.</p>

<p>I apologize, JHS, your comment seemed a little cavalier and that wasn’t your intent. It’s just… I saw some really bad behavior on the part of families – when we saw them at all.</p>

<p>I know this is a little OT, but anyone who is dealing with a loved one’s Alzheimer’s or other Dementias, I can’t urge you enough to contact the Alzheimer’s Association. They are there for you!
[We</a> Can Help](<a href=“http://www.alz.org/we_can_help_we_can_help.asp]We”>Alzheimer's Help & Support | Alzheimer's Association)
They have resources, a 24-hr. helpline, and lots of books, videos, and volunteers.</p>

<p>The memory-type books are great, but please understand that your loved one with A/D will probably NOT have a big breakthrough, or will not “get better” and even if she has glimmers of recognition from time-to-time, it doesn’t last. With Alzheimer’s the damage is permanent. At this point there is no cure. It is best for the loved one to visit with a sense of humor, don’t argue with what she says, don’t insist that she remembers, and be respectful of the caregivers (you would be surprised how some people are, honestly). Take her as she is, at whatever developmental or declining stage. She is not gone (some of them are surprisingly physically strong!), she is just “reeling back the years”.</p>

<p>Of course it is heartbreaking, but researchers are working on the riddle that is Alzheimer’s, and we can only hope and pray they find a cure before we are in that position. (actually, my memory is getting worse every day…)</p>

20

<p>My mother has dementia from a stroke and is now in a wheelchair in a nursing home. She also has macular degeneration, and her eyesight is very poor. Suggestions:
– A bag designed to hang on the wheelchair (go to an online store called Buck and Buck). My mom loves hers, and it has become her “purse.”
– Things to go in the bag: a colorful zipper change purse (for bingo coins!), some small packs of tissues, a lipstick.
– A large-format printed photo album. I haven’t done this yet, but I’m going to gradually replace her 4 x 6 photo albums with a couple of 8 x 10 ones that I make on iPhoto. She can’t see the small photos well anymore.
–Silk flowers. My mom was always a “fake flower” snob, but I have finally convinced her how nice it is to have permanent flowers (still bring her real ones sometimes, too).
–Clothing and accessories: A new sweater, turtleneck, or necklace means a lot.
–Baked goods: Be careful about dietary issues, of course, and consult the nursing staff. But the day I brought a pumpkin pie, they were all in heaven.
–If you are a knitter or know someone who is, a shoulder shawl. It helps keep the chill off, and it looks pretty.</p>

<p>The very best gift is visits from family members and friends. I don’t have the most participatory extended family in this regard, and that is difficult. Anudduamom is right: You really need to be with them where they are, and that means in relation to gifts, too. (My mom is delighted when I show up with a Frappucino, so it doesn’t take much.) From an adult child’s perspective, though, this is the hardest thing I have ever done. We need to take care of ourselves, too.</p>