Making Your Search for Senior Living Personal and Advocating for Your Loved One in Memory Care
Laundry, board games, card games, gardening, organizing, dancing⊠What does your loved one love to do? Do you know what things bring light to their eyes or even spark conversation? And did you know you can advocate for those things in a memory care setting? In this post we will be talking about increasing your chances for a successful memory care move through activity.
If youâre reading this and youâre a family member looking for memory care, I believe you hold the key to helping this transition to memory care be successful. I believe that because you know your loved one best. Iâm not even talking about caregivingâŠwhich you probably are doing some of that even if you donât think you are or itâs not in an official capacity. What Iâm talking about here is that you know those things that spark joy or calmness in your loved one. A successful memory care move could be as simple as communicating your momâs favorite song or your dadâs favorite movie. But it doesnât end thereâŠyouâre in partnership with the memory care community you find. They must be willing to take that information and incorporate that with their care of your mom or dad. If youâre reading this and you work in memory care, I challenge you to become curious about your residents, learning more about who they are and what they used to love.
There are many variables to consider when choosing a memory care community but in this post weâre just looking at this one area of activity.
When you tour a memory care community, just like assisted living they should show you their activity calendar. Hereâs are some things you might find on a memory care activity calendar:
Music
Arts and Crafts
Singing
Painting
Exercise
Stretching
Balloon Toss
Baking
Brain games
Happy Hour
Reading
Gardening
Movies
The activity calendars are usually packed which is great! But you may already be saying to yourself wellâŠmy mom definitely wouldnât like the arts and crafts activity or my dad doesnât like to bake.
The most important part of this calendar and the question I want you to ask when you tour isâŠ. What happens if the residents donât want to participate? How does the staff handle this? Specifically, how? Are there staff members available to pivot if your mom doesnât want to go to an activity? Is there an opportunity to add or change an activity to something your mom or dad does like to do? With most types of dementia, there will be times when your loved one may not be interested in an activity or want to participate at the time the activity is taking place.
I believe that a successful memory care activity program is more about pivoting and changing than it is about the actual calendar.
Itâs about learning each residentâs likes and dislikes then tailoring the program to the residents. For example, not just music but specific genres of music and not just movies but specific types of movies. I believe this is also how it works in independent and assisted living but memory care will take even more advocating on your part.
If you know your mom loves singing hymns (and weâve seen the research on music and memory) ,itâs ok to ask if they can add hymns to the days they have singing on the calendar.
If your mom loves weeding the garden but doesnât know the difference between real flowers and weedsâŠcan they garden with plastic flowers? If your dad doesnât like to bake but loves to eat sweetsâŠCan they add a taste tester to a baking activity?
If your dad was a mechanic and loves to tinkerâŠcan they add a simple building activity and if heâs the only resident who might like thisâŠdoes that mean itâs your responsibility to do that activity with him or can the caregivers also do activities? If your dad loves action movies⊠Itâs possible heâs not going to like the musical they have planned for movie night or soap operas playing during the day.
One of the top complaints we hear from families is that when they tour memory care, so often the residents are just watching TV and if thereâs something on the TV that they feel their loved one wouldnât like to watch⊠itâs ok to ask the question⊠Can they change the channel?
If thereâs something like that musical playing that your mom or dad really hates? It could mean the difference between a good day or a bad day in memory care. If theyâre required to sit through an activity that they donât like? They may not be able to verbalize that they donât like it but they sure might show it through their body language or even physically become combative.
Hereâs the thing about cognitive impairmentâŠit can change on a dime. What works today may not work tomorrow.
If youâre familiar with the blog and our company, you know that I worked in senior living and at one point in my career I worked in a memory care community.Iâll never forget the day that there was an activity that this gentleman normally lovedâŠ. He was normally a funny easy going guy but on this day? He didnât want to leave his area to go to the active room. The caregivers were trying to get him to go and even I was like letâs go! Itâs time for âŠwhatever it was⊠and he stomped on my foot!!! He couldnât verbally tell us he did not want to go but he sure showed us!!
Many memory care communities have programs designed to gather specific personal information about your loved oneâs likes and dislikes and this is exactly what weâre talking about today. It can feel promising when they ask you these questions or have you fill out a form but how are they actually using the information? Are caregivers involved in the activities? How open is the community to changing or modifying their activities? Can your loved one say no if theyâre not feeling up to it at that time? And does that mean they donât get any stimulation that day?
One of the challenges of a memory care community can be the size of the communityâŠhow many residents they have⊠how many staff members⊠the different stages of dementiaâŠsome early and some more advanced. It can be difficult to meet individual resident needs and this is why itâs so important for you to advocate because finding that thing that brings joy to your loved one can make all the difference in the success of their memory care move.
If youâd like to check out our blog post in podcast form, be sure to take a listen HERE!
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