Boredom and diet.

[Grumpy Gramps]

My two main problems are finding something to entertain Kath and getting her to eat a balanced diet. I'm not the best of cooks but I am doing my best. I think with the food it's little and often seems to be a good bet. But I've got no idea how to entertain her. Any suggestions are more than welcome.

 

[Canadian Joanne]

I found that the problem with my mother's boredom was that it was internal and there wasn't much I could do to engage her attention. She did respond well to animals so if you have a pet, that could help. If not, perhaps walks in the park where you can see animals might work. We would take my mother to a dog park and she seemed to enjoy that.

Music seems to work well for a lot of people.

As for the food, yes, small but frequent offerings are good for people who have small appetites. My mother eats like a shark still (in the late stages of AD) so I have never had had to deal with that and hope I never will.

I would also focus on calories and treats now and not be too rigid about what was being offered.

 

[Izzy]

Have you any contact with your local Alzheimer's Society? I wondered if they had anything you could go to together - perhaps a drop in cafe or some other activity. Bill and I do several things together which are organised by our local Alzheimer's Scotland Centre.

Bill enjoys playing dominoes (sometimes!) and he used to enjoy jigsaws but he can't manage them now. He's recently started to go to an art class organised by the society. If there's nothing like that maybe a sketch pad or colour in book would be useful. I have also bought some word search books which Bill will sometimes concentrate on with one of our carers.

Bill enjoys music. Again he and I go to an Alzheimer's Scotland Music Memories choir but even before we went to that he just enjoyed listening to and singing along with CDs or the ipod.

I'll keep thinking!

 

[Grannie G]

The problem trying to entertain is most people at certain stages have either a very limited ability or a very short attention span.

We used to listen to music and watch music DVDs Andrea Bocelli was a favourite.
I used to read the paper to Dhiren and do simple maths quizzes which were in the paper at the time.
We went for walks.
I`m afraid the television was on most of the day .

I know most of my suggestions were met with `I`ll do it tomorrow`.

 

[marionq]

My husband is in the early stages and I note that his concentration for newspapers or anything factual is diminishing. We swim mainly at my instigation and walk a lot through the woods or local park. He attends an AD group for men who like to talk about football and they show videos etc. We also go periodically to cafe meetings with other AD persons and their partners.

My husband will go with me to the theatre but I don't think he gets much out of it. He likes to go to the pub on a Friday for a couple of beers which concerns me slightly but I let it go since his pleasures are declining. I think getting out and doing some kind of exercise is a top priority and helps with appetite and sleep.

 

[acacia]

My husband is in the early stages and I note that his concentration for newspapers or anything factual is diminishing. We swim mainly at my instigation and walk a lot through the woods or local park. He attends an AD group for men who like to talk about football and they show videos etc. We also go periodically to cafe meetings with other AD persons and their partners.

My husband will go with me to the theatre but I don't think he gets much out of it. He likes to go to the pub on a Friday for a couple of beers which concerns me slightly but I let it go since his pleasures are declining. I think getting out and doing some kind of exercise is a top priority and helps with appetite and sleep.

My O.H. is also in the early stages but improving slightly. We live on a small urbanisation in Spain, a local english supermarket and two nice bars are just 5 minutes away. We never used the bars at all . 12 months ago O.H. had become very quiet so I thought it would be good to go down each afternoon for a coffee and chat, since that time we have got to know alot of retired people and O.H. looks forward to his chats. He loves chatting about football when he played during the 1950s his long term memory is good. Do hope you can find somewhere or something to stimulate your O.H. Getting out of the house was one of the best things to have happened. Good Luck. Acacia.