Top 4 Meaningful Activities for Dementia Patients (Activity Planning Made Easy)

In this video, I tell you about the top 4 meaningful activities you should know and teach you in 3 easy steps on how I plan a month's worth of meaningful activities in 30 minutes.

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Step 1:  Organize Activity Ideas into the 4 Categories of Meaningful Activities

The 4 Categories of Meaningful Activities is I learned from Teepa Snow a few years ago 4 distinct categories of activities that make up a meaningful life. When I am looking through the massive lists of activities online these are the categories I will put ideas in so that I know that ALL of my client's needs are being met and that I don't miss anything.

The categories are: 
- Productive Activity
Leisure Activity
Self-Care Activity
Rest & Restoration Activity

Productive Activity

A productive activity is feeling productive, valued , need by others or just doing work in general
This is really critical because the human need to matter to people around us doesn't go away because we lost the ability to organize this for ourselves. Before dementia, your loved one or client did this to make money or they did it to take care of their family or community.

What it Looks Like

What productive activities look like for someone with dementia depends on what they did when they were younger. If you have someone who was a stay at home mom, folding laundry could be work. For someone in an office, filing paperwork could be work. The main idea is to give a task that they could succeed at and get the need of being needed met

Leisure Activity

These are fun, playful or do them because you like it activities. This meets the need of having fun, getting joy and feeling enjoyment out of life. These activities can be passive like watching TV or sitting listening to music from headphones or Active, like dancing, singing, making something yourself like a craft ie engaging in something in using activities as therapy, we tend to focus on active leisure.

Self-Care Activity

These activities are taking care of our bodies and our minds. When it comes to planning activities to fill the day. Things like brain games like trivia or crossword puzzles, or physical activities like chair yoga or arm lifts are important to preserve brain and physical health.

Restoring & Relaxation Activity

These activities are something that is pretty often over-looked with folks who have dementia. It is important that they have time to unwind and relax their minds and bodies. This alone can prevent a lot of seemingly random outbursts because we forget just how much we do this ourselves. This can look like listening to soft music, aromatherapy or sitting outside.

Now that you have an idea of the categories, go online to the many activity idea lists and
start putting them into categories. Stop when you have 20-30 ideas in each category or 100-120 ideas total. Trust me, this is plenty for the month and this will take 15-20 minutes.
Step 2: Schedule the Activities

Now that your activity ideas are in the categories assign an idea from each category to each day. Feel free to repeat an idea that is a big hit to a few times a week or even daily if  your loved one or client really loves it. An example of a day would be a chair yoga in the morning, crossword in the early afternoon, folding laundry in the late afternoon and listening to soft music in the evening

This may sound like a lot, but trust me, it isn't you may be doing a million things, but your loved one or client no longer has the ability to remember to do these things on their own or set these up for themselves.

Step 3: Get Help or Automate where you can

It doesn't matter if you are caring for your loved one at home or work in a facility, you need help and/or automation. As I mentioned at the beginning, you are managing your own life and job
even if activity is your job, there are other tasks you need to do as well. Asking for help from family members, a day program, coworkers or even hired help will help you not burn out and get your loved one's or client's needs met.

If asking for help is not an option, choosing something that you can simply hand over or turn on for 2 or even 3 of the activities will be a life saver. If you can, have them be in an engaged activity at least 2 times a day.

Видео Top 4 Meaningful Activities for Dementia Patients (Activity Planning Made Easy) канала Dementia Success Path