Forum Discussion

Hi Heather, I realize how difficult it is to inspire high care residents. I would suggest nail care or Beauty Therapy. Also sensory patchwork, color sorting, picture puzzles and matching shapes. You will find these in the dementia specific section of Golden Carers. All the best of luck!

I play tin ball. Get big fruit tins,screw them to a piece of ply wood. Can paint the tins before hand or decorate them. Each tin has a number in. Use tennis balls to bounce on floor into tins. I start with each resident having one ball each then next round two then Three. I put sweets into each tin. Once ball goes in to tin the resident earns sweet and score. Highest scorer wins the trophy..

Things we do are......sing-a-long DVD's,
Picking something to talk about as you throw a large balloon around your group. Winding wool into balls. Rummage boxes. Reminiscing pictures and asking what do you think is happening in the picture. (They can all see different things in the same picture). Folding children's clothes.
We have books purchased from the UK which can be used with a smalL group or individually which are great for opening up all sorts of interaction. We made ice cream spiders while we talked about summer days yesterday.
Good luck with your programme. It is a very difficult group to keep engaged.

thank you all for your responses I do most of these things, I guess I was needing people who understand our jobs to reinforce that I am still on the right track, so once again thank you. Heather I love the tin ball idea and will certainly put that into our program session variety games which we play balloon badminton, leap frog etc which are ideas from the site. I am going to try some virtual remenicising with them as often it takes so much prompting to get them to talk as they will often say I cant remember. Once again thank you for all your ideas and support I would be lost without Golden Carers... We all do such a wonderful job but often can be very hard and lonely as nurses often do not understand how much work we actually do and what we are trying to achieve for our residents. regards Heather

Matching games for stimulation