Dementia Assisted Living Kansas City Life Enrichment Activities
When dementia assisted living Kansas City provides life enrichment activities, it helps promote self-expression and brings purpose and joy to a person. Severe memory loss due to Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia often robs people of their ability to speak, making it more difficult for a person to feel productive and relevant. By providing structured activities that are meaningful in a personal way, dementia assisted living Kansas City adds value and purpose to resident’s daily lives.
Because of the inability to use words to communicate their feelings or thoughts, dementia assisted living Kansas City is challenged to find other ways to help promote self expression. Research has shown that introducing the creative arts into their daily activities is key to accomplishing this difficult task. There are many positive results when seniors with dementia are able to communicate and interact with their caregivers. The Alzheimer’s Association suggests the following life enrichment activities:
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Honor Life History: Life enrichment teams in dementia assisted living Kansas City should take time to learn about each resident’s life before they developed dementia. It can help them find meaningful activities for each resident individually and as a group. For example, if a new resident was a math teacher before they retired, the staff can work with family members to create an Activity Box full of items they used in that role. It could be a calculator, lesson plan book, a small chalkboard or whiteboard, graph paper and more. The resident can use it to go to “work” each day.
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Physical Fitness: Staying physically active can help someone with Alzheimer’s reduce agitation, and it also promotes better sleep. Simple activities such as daily walk, bean bag toss or chair Yoga might be appropriate depending upon the person’s current abilities.
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Doing Chores: By giving a person with dementia “chores” to do, it allows them to feel productive. Repetitious activities such as folding towels, sorting silverware, and setting the table can help to boost the person’s mood, and it can also help improve physical mobility.
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Arts & Crafts: Engaging in artistic projects like painting or coloring, for example, also promotes self-expression among people with dementia. Dementia assisted living Kansas City can have classes for people with dementia and have exhibits to showcase their artwork. The key is to keep projects at an adult level and not to engage in anything that looks childish. This is necessary to help maintain self-esteem.
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Music Therapy: Dementia assisted living Kansas City provides another avenue for helping an adult with dementia feel successful through music therapy. Playing favorite songs from their youth can have a powerful impact on people with dementia. Music has been proven to help soothe agitation and reduce difficult behaviors. Further, people who are struggling with verbal communication skills can usually still sing or hum along to song lyrics.
At Clover Care Home dementia assisted living Kansas City we have numerous small group activities for residents to participate in. In addition to regularly scheduled entertainment, exercise classes, and other planned events, there are daily random activities that stimulate memories and cognition and helps seniors to express themselves. Our professional staff encourages seniors to experience the fullness of life in community with dignity, joy and the highest levels of independence their health will allow. Residents get the intellectual, social, emotional and spiritual support they need so they can still feel a sense of accomplishment, success and enjoyment.
