Playful Activities Bring Joy to Dementia Patients

When my Dad and I talk about the activities we do with people with dementia every week with our foundation, the Carolyn L. Farrell Foundation for Brain Health, many people do not understand that playful activities are important to successful management of dementia.

Our activities are simple, based on Montessori methods, but some people think that this is "too childish." However, it is reality that people with dementia slowly loose cognitive abilities and have a more childlike brain. This may sound sad upon first glance, but really it means they are more free to be imaginative and have fun with playful activities like wooden blocks, stacking materials, and abstract art activities.

If someone likes an activity and it brings them joy, who are we to judge if it is "childish" or not worthwhile? 

One year old Jeffrey joyfully playing with his blocks.

My husband and I play the same videogames as our son. I love to paint, draw, and create with paper. As a family, we build things with the wooden blocks my Dad helped us make for our son for his first birthday. I think all of these activities are worthwhile because they bring us joy and bring us together as a family.

Here is a great blog post from the Alzheimer's Reading Room about the importance of play for people with dementia: How Important is Play for Alzheimer's Patients in the Late Stages? It is also a fantastic example of how caregivers can advocate for and insist on good care from nursing homes and in-home caregivers.

I encourage us all to be more imaginative, have more fun, and embrace the joy of our childhood spirit.

Blessings,

Rev. Katie

ArtCare In Practice

It is hard to describe what ArtCare is, which we use for our programs of the Carolyn L. Farrell Foundation for Brain Health. ArtCare is not art therapy. Our goal is not to cure an illness because so many of the diseases of the brain can not be cured. Particularly with dementia, there is no cure. What people really need is socialization, joy, and the feeling that they can still contribute something beautiful to the world. For our friends with dementia, this is what we are using ArtCare for. For our other programs for mental illness, ArtCare can help in the treatment process, but again it is not a cure. ArtCare is used to bring focus, purpose, and meaning into people's lives.

The art that we have been focusing on for our friends with dementia is abstract art. In the later stages of dementia and people struggling with Parkinson's or arthritis, detailed art that looks like an object is too frustrating to create. Art where you can let your imagination soar is the aim of our program. However, it is hard to get people to let go of thinking art has to look like something, be something, and just have fun like they probably did when they were little. However, as people get used to the process, they see the beautiful things they can create just by using their imagination and letting go of any art "rules" they thought existed. We always say in our programs that there are no rules and you can't make a mistake. Whatever you do is exactly right just the way it is.

Here are a few examples of the art they have created which will be auctioned off at the Alzheimer's Association Cleveland Chapter A Celebration of Hope dinner on April 26, 2012 :

Zentangles art practice. Calligraphy by Mike Gold, CLF Foundation Board Member.

Papercrafting. Individual collages made with patterned paper, cut to create one piece of artwork.

Blessings,

Rev. Katie

Everyone Is An Artist

We have expanded the ArtCare for Dementia program that we run from the Carolyn L. Farrell Foundation for Brain Health to include other forms of art besides just the TimeSlips storytelling. Today we had our first papercrafting session and it went really well.

I have been scrapbooking for years and know how fun and meditative working with paper can be so I wanted to bring that to our ArtCare participants. I also needed to think of something that would be simple to do no matter how well your organizational skills were working or your manual dexterity. I wanted everyone to know that we are all artists.

Today I brought different scraps of colored and patterned paper and let everyone tear the paper up and glue the strips onto a white background. Then I cut those collages up in squares and mounted the squares on colored notecards. When you describe the project, it is hard to imagine the beautiful artwork that will be created out of the collages, but just look at these pictures to see what everyone made. The collages turn out to be mosaic and kind of a stained glass effect squares that can be set off wonderfully by a colored background.

The best part of all this was to see everyone have fun with the collage and really see their smiles once they saw their notecards. Projects like this really show how if we just let our imagination go, we can all create beautiful art. The purpose of our ArtCare programs is to bring joy into people's lives, and I think we really did that today.

This is a project you can easily do at home with your loved one with dementia. Then they have cards to send people for birthday's, anniversaries, etc... or put them into stacks of 5 cards with a bow around them and you can give them away as presents.

Blessings,

Rev. Katie

Zentangles: Meditative Art Practice for Dementia

Today in our TimeSlips session, we added in another art form to experiment with. We made some Zentangles, which is a meditative art practice that enables you to make abstract pictures using different patterns. Simply put, it is meditative doodling. You take a blank square, draw in some guidelines, and then fill the square with any patterns you dream up. Then you can shade the finished square in with plain pencil if you want, but today we colored them with colored pencil. I took everyone's finished Zentangle and mounted them on colored note cards so everyone got to take home a handmade card they can use in the future.

This was a really great art exercise as it was accessible to the people in different stages of dementia and their caregivers were able to create as well. I think it was a relaxing and fun process for all of us.

There are many different art forms to be used in helping people with dementia, the key is finding things that are easy and abstract.

Zentangles are a great meditative art practice no matter your artisitic ability. Try it out, you will really like it! Then you can use your Zentangles for handmade cards, tags for Christmas gifts, or take a bunch and frame them in a large frame.

Blessings,

Rev. Katie 

The Story Continues

Each week something new happens at TimeSlips. What was really interesting to me this week was how the second story became a continuation of the first story, even though the pictures were very different! Here are our two stories from this week:

"Boy and Perfume"

Photo from the TimeSlips curriculum

It looks like he is playing a game. It looks like he has been there a long time, in quarantine. His dog is sitting in there.

The boys name is Joey. The dogs name is Samantha.

I see a doctors bag. Perhaps he is being visited by a doctor. Maybe that's why he doesn't have a happy look on his face. Joey has chicken pox.

The light is on on the nightstand, it is evening. The drapes might be closed.

He looks happy. Maybe the doctor gave him the game he has and the game makes him happy.

Joey is seven years old. It looks like there might be a bottle of perfume on his bed, maybe Shalimar with the blue crystal top. But I don't know why a little kid would have perfume on his bed. He is going to put the perfume on the dog. There is also a pretty quilt there, he must have a grandmother. His grandmothers name is Thelma.

It looks like there is a glass of milk on a plate on the nightstand. Maybe it had cookies on it and that made him happy. Thelma brought him the cookies. Joey has a blanket with him.

He has been sick for a week. The doctor is there to see if he is well enough to get out of bed. The doctor says he is getting better. He will go outside and play when he gets up. 

"Party"

Photo from the TimeSlips curriculum

This is back at Joey's home, they are having a big party to celebrate that he is out of the hospital and is home. Thelma, his grandmother is there. There are a lot of desserts. Cakes, pies, bars. There is nothing other than gooey desserts there, which is good. I would take the chocolate brownies. Raspberries are good with chocolate brownies, but I don't see any in there. Ice cream would be good on the brownies, chocolate ice cream.

Joey is sitting at the table behind the two ladies. It looks like he is writing with crayons or something. The people in the background are the Ladies Aid Society at church, they are there to celebrate Joeys recovery.

It is early fall because the leaves are still green. The people look sort of dressed up, it might be after church. Maybe his sister is getting married and Joey is going to the wedding.

There is also spongecake on the table.

The woman on the left is Joeys mother, her name is Marie. The woman in the pink is Marie's sister, Joey's Aunt Alice.

There are a lot of different smells at the party-lemon, pineapple, chocolate. Marie is spooning bread pudding. One dessert looks like it is in a cookie jar. The people will eat everything on the table, there will be no leftovers.

So Joey does not get sick again, his mother would tell him "Don't go out without your coat."

The End

Blessings,
Rev. Katie

Creativity Abounds

At our TimeSlips program this week, I noticed just how much creativity exists in our minds, and how dementia affects each individuals creativity differently.

For instance, my Mom has trouble with her eyesight. We have been told that this may be due to Lewy Body dementia, but no one is really sure. When Mom reads, she says the words jump around on the page. When she is watching TV, she will see objects in the show that are not there, or she will think the whole show is being shown in shades of blue or red. This means that when Mom looks at things, her eyes see a myriad of amazing things. You can see this in the story below. The the possibility of the people in the photo wearing stilts or being puppets was from Mom as she saw very different things in the photo than what was technically there. Mom also felt no need to have the story be "right" and this might be because her dementia is a bit more advanced that that of the rest of the group.

It is so great to see this group work together and appreciate everyone's creativity.

"Duel On The Patio"

Photo from the Library of Congress, found in the TimeSlips curriculum

They are in a stance to duel. They dueling with epees. It looks like they are filming a scene because there is a backdrop and maybe a camera behind the man's arm. We think it is a movie. Either it is a movie or it is a husband and wife that are really mad at each other. It is a very serious situation. This might be a costume store and they may have swords.

Maybe it is a class and the others have swords in their hand and are waiting for their turn. There is a tile floor and trees in the background and furniture, it looks like it is a set outside. The guy with the black jacket might be an instructor. All three of the people in the background have swords in their right hands. The three in the back are waiting for their turn. They are learning fencing. 

The guy on the right is Maxwell and he is fencing with Amanda. The instructor in the black jacket is Hans. The other two people are the next pair, their names are Winston and Alice.

One thing that puzzles me is that they don't appear to have chest protection on and normally they do. They are not really going to harm anyone, the swords they have are not dangerous ones. The swords may be rubber, so they are having a friendly encounter. 

The name of the movie is "Duel on the Patio." I notice a urn on the right hand side, they are in Italy. Maxwell looks like he might have stilts on, his shoes look heavy from the side. One shoe is heavy and one is pointed like a fairy slipper, and they are in different directions. They are trying to get their balance.

It could be puppets, maybe the people are not real. There may be strings on them.

Some maid is going to come out with sandwiches and a bottle of champagne and they will relax for the rest of the day.

Blessings,

Rev. Katie

Multigenerational Storytelling: TimeSlips

We had another TimeSlips session today and we just had one couple able to attend. My sister helped me facilitate since my Dad is out of town. The dynamic is different with one couple, but they were wonderful and very willing to participate anyway. We had a great time socializing afterward.

One of the things that was really interesting to me today though was that we had a seven year old in the mix, my son Jeffrey. First Jeffrey helped me pick out the photos we would use and he thought of some starter questions for each photo. I was surprised by how engaged he was in the planning process. This made him excited to then go to the TimeSlips program. (It did help that one of the photos we used was of him from a few years back.)

At TimeSlips, he wanted to help facilitate, so he asked some of the questions, and he also contributed to the story. I was a bit worried that he did like to answer every question, but the couple was very nice about having him participate.

After we finished the storytelling and we were chatting, Jeffrey was playing a game on the iPad. I suggested that he show it to one of our participants, and Jeffrey, who is usually very shy, was quite engaged in showing how his game worked and our kind couple talked to him about what he was doing. It was a pretty simple game and that got us all to talking about the possibility of games on the iPad being accessible to people with dementia, even though maybe they need a caregiver to assist them. Just as Jeffrey was showing what part of the screen to press to make the game work today.

What I loved the best was seeing Jeffrey and the person with dementia laughing at the animal on the screen and really communicating in their own quiet way. I hope our new friend liked the experience as much as Jeffrey did.

Jeffrey said he had a really good time today. This was encouraging to me because he sees so much of the day to day caregiving that sometimes I worry he forgets we can have fun with people who are older than us. I was also heartened because usually Jeffrey won't talk to people and hides from them, but this storytelling brought him out of his shell and got him participating in a larger community.

The other thing that was quite interesting today was how talkative our participant with dementia was during the storytelling, but afterward when we were chatting and asking him about his grand kids, he could not participate. He was often unable remember names, ages, or what the kids were doing. He is a very smart and creative person, so alive during the storytelling, but much more apprehensive later when the conversation relied on memory.

Today again reiterated the power of this storytelling process, and showed me how this might work in a multigenerational setting.

Here is one of our stories from today (This is actually a photo of Jeffrey from when he was little):

 
 "The little boy's name is Jeffrey. He's talking to me. He's going somewhere alright. He's asking me for directions.

He's coming from the store. It is the fall-a kind of cold day. He's got some candy behind him. He's two years old. He's not 21. 

He's wearing flannel pants. It looks like pajamas. His mother took him to the store. He is sitting on the bike. He got to the store on the bike, and he is pulling something. It looks like a wagon.

There is a leaf blower in the basket. He's going home to help dad blow leaves and eat the candy."

The End.

Blessings,

Rev. Katie

Communication Breakthrough

Mom has been having a harder and harder time communicating with us. She stumbles over words, knows what she wants to say and just can't think of the words she needs.

We may be at the dinner table and she wants ketchup for her hamburger, but can't remember the word ketchup. Or she read a story in the newspaper and wants to tell us about it but can't remember what the story said. However, through reading more about the TimeSlips program and alternative, more creative ways to communicate with dementia patients, Dad and I started doing something different.

When Mom is trying to tell us something and she can't find the words she needs, we ask her to either describe it or tell us a story. For the ketchup example, we usually know when she is asking for an item so we ask her describe what the item looks like or what it does. If she is trying to remember the story she read in the newspaper, we ask her to tell us a story. Interestingly in those situations, she tells us a story of something that she remembers from when she was younger but is similar in topic or some way to the current event she is trying to talk about. If we have read the paper or at least have seen the headlines, we can usually guess what she is trying to tell us by connecting her older story to something current that has similarities.

So, if you are talking to someone with dementia and they are having a hard time communicating with you, ask them to describe what they are thinking of, or tell you a story instead. It works wonders by letting you both communicate better, but it also relieves some of the embarrassment of the person with dementia. This way you focus not on what they can't remember and how awkward they sound, and more on what wisdom they wish to share with you.

Blessings,

Rev. Katie

The Power of Imagination: Our First TimeSlips Program

My Dad and I held our first TimeSlips program today and I think it went really well. TimeSlips is a group creative storytelling program for people with dementia created by Ann Basting, PhD in Milwaukee. TimeSlips focuses on helping people with memory loss to be creative and focus on imagination instead of focusing on trying to regain memory. Basically, the participants look at a picture and the facilitator asks some open ended questions which inspire comments that create a story. There are no wrong answers, and everything gets written down. This honors people's individuality, creativity, and ability to still contribute to the world. We love TimeSlips because it gives us a way to help ease the suffering this disease causes by having fun, giving people a way to participate tangibly in their community, and creating a supportive peer group.

A wonderful group of people came to our first session of TimeSlips and we had a great time with them. We hope they received benefits from the program and from being together socially. Mom was quite engaged and it was great to see her excited about creating the story. We did decide as a group to go forward with the program with weekly meetings, so if you are in the Cleveland area and want to participate, email me at katie@movinginwithdementia.com

Here is one of our stories from today based on this photo by George Eastman House from the TimeSlips Storytelling Kit.



We've got a sweet little child there who is looking and thinking "Oh, can I have some goodies here?"

Goodies from Mom. Goodies are from the jar.

The dog would like to have something to do with it. Or, if not, he is going to have something to do with it soon. It's a golden retriever named Murphy.

Is the boy supposed to have those cookies? The dog thinks he should have the cookies.

The young man had a plan because he has a drink with him. He is going to have more than one cookie. His name is Alexander, he is a smart little one.

They are in the kitchen after school, in the afternoon.

Looks like he has a tear in the knee of his pants from playing baseball, climbing trees, and falling while he was running. He has a few treats.

He went into the kitchen and thought "I'm a little hungry, Mom isn't here, but the dog is."

Alexander got there first, Murphy heard Alexander getting the food, maybe he smelled the food too. They smelled peanut butter cookies and a fruit punch drink. He put jelly on the cookies. Murphy is going to pounce and take a few more steps and get the cookie. Golden retrievers love to eat. Alexander will be happy to share his cookies because he has a whole can of cookies so he won't run out.

Alexander and Murphy are not worried about dinner, they probably would like cookies better than dinner anyway.

Alexander is looking at his mother who just walked in, he's been discovered. He is not too worried about that though. They are in the moment, not thinking about anything but what is in front of them. He got some jam on his thumb, which he licks off just as his mother comes in.

The End

Blessings,

Rev. Katie