Josephine

Hi Jennifer, yes we have an activity with floor bobs with our residents and they quite like it. We use the light bocce balls that you get from a children's set - it has water in it, made of plastic and light. Sometimes I will add different balls, such as golf balls plus the bocce balls for the different dimensions. I have put numbers above each hole to score by - outside and inside so that I can see the score behind - we bring out the whiteboard, then write everyone's name & write their scores down, everyone gets a minimum of 2 rolls and sometimes 3. We tend to go around a few times. From there we may have a play off - at times I have put our residents into teams to play off one another. My residents are loving the challenge of getting the highest score. Our group is up to 15 people and it works fine, just have a lot of fun with it. Hope this helps. Cheers Jessie

Hi Coral, I have put one together for our budgies - send me your email address to [email protected] and I will send you a copy.

HI Debbie, I have never heard of this product and will look it up. We do have an aromatherapist/clinical masseuse who visits once per week and uses and electric aroma therapy diffuser, even in our higher dementia area and we have not had a problem with this. I guess the first place to start is that you would need to speak to your OH&S officer to ensure that it meets the guidelines of the facility you work at.

Hi Kymberly, just gave your comment a thought - what about funny ties for the men and maybe a large lapel ornament of some sort to make. Cheers

Hi Kymberly, I am looking at doing something like this, I have scoured google and they have some templates with one page profiles, have a look around in that. I saw one that I will be modifying as I do not need all the categories at - One Page Profile / My Living Well with Dementia Support Plan. Good luck with it - sounds wonderful.

Hi Donna, I am not permitted to do this in our facility and wish I could, however my mum is living with dementia in a facility and they encourage family to put up lovely pictures of residents in their younger days on their doors which are tasteful. The majority of the residents recognise themselves in their younger days, not how they look now (my mum is late 80's and thinks she is only in her 50's - hence a picture of her in this age for her). You may not be able to assist all of your residents as their spatial awareness wanes. Hope this helps somewhat.

Hi Sandy, I had a loan of one from St George's for a couple of our high care residents living with dementia. The blanket was also tactile, with various different fabrics sewn onto it, the blanket was made of corduroy material on top with a smoother fabric underneath. I found that the reaction was positive and have used it a few times with success.

HI Sam, seems that you have been quite creative already, why not put the call out for little donations for prizes, highlighting it needs to be something fun even from those $2.00 shops, this may help in some way and also the budget too. If you have some budget - why not look at shopping there or even at op shops for little trinkets. Hope this helps you Sam.

Hi All, just an update - we have run this activity with a mixture of residents and students. All I can say it went far better than expected, there was a lot of buzz in the room, this activity facilitated a lot of chatter in the room, and laughter and was a great ice breaker for students. Our residents are keen to hold this again and they have let me know they wish to hold this activity each fortnight. We put teams together with each team representing a color and created certificates for the team. Thank you for highlighting this activity, the suggestions assist in creating various activities for the residents !

Hi Naomi, this is quite tough, but we have worked with the following: gentle massages of hands (if able to), scalp - scent therapy using aromatherapy and foods - find out from family what type of music the person enjoyed listening to and play for them, maybe the family would have some CD's already to give you. Pet Therapy if the person likes animals. We also have budgies and will take the cage around to the person, if they are non responsive will leave the budgies there for some time as ours sing / whistle / complain. Who knows what the non responsive person (on the outside) is taking in. Is the family able to bring in a DVD Player and then play some of their favorite movies / documentaries etc, or some gentle DVD's too. We have created posters to hang around their room with favorite things / scenery / family photos. On lovely days we sit in the courtyard just taking in the fresh air, whilst we sit with others reading and discussing books / poetry etc. Floral arranging for some who are bed bound but able to use their hands, we use artificial flowers in winter. We also set up for some to paint / color in - we use mandela's and other images we download from the internet and also from Golden Carers. From there we laminate their creations to give to them. Hope this helps somewhat.