It can be very difficult to watch our beloved senior citizens lose precious memories and mental capacity, forget those they love, and even sometimes begin to lose their very unique personalities. How can important memories be kept alive and precious minds be kept active?
Simple Ideas for Everyday Activities to Help with Memory and Recall
- Pictures are indeed worth a thousand words.Make scrapbooks of very special memories and review them with your elder often. Put pictures in frames and ad captions of names, dates and events. Hang them in often-seen areas.
- Save greeting cards and holiday pictures received by your senior, especially from old friends and loved ones. Re-reading personal letters and viewing pictures can jog memories.
- Visit as often as possible Children are a special joy. Read how kids can help seniors for more ideas.
- Write notes to remind seniors who you or others are. If someone is forgetting who you are and they can see well enough, try wearing a name tag like "My name is Sandy. You are my Aunt. I love you."
- When visiting someone you seldom see, try wearing your hair and clothes in a similar fashion each time so you are more memorable.
- For more alert seniors, or those who want to keep memories before they are lost, good reviews are coming in for a handheld game by Nintendo called Brain Age.
- Play the children's game Memory. Buy a boxed game or use a deck of cards.
- Ask your senior questions about childhood pets, homes, games and friends.
- Make or take an elderly friend or relative out for a fish dinner. Eating fish once a week or more was associated with a ten percent per year slower rate of cognitive decline in older people, according to a study posted online in Archives of Neurology (Vol. 62 No.12, Dec. 2005, Morris et al).
- Read Fun Activities for Senior Citizens and Fun Visits with Seniors for more ideas.
- Also see Online Senior Citizen Gift Ideas and Fun Activities for Active Seniors.
For more information about senior living, see this Squidoo Seniors page.
Get a Doctor's Opinion of the Problems Causing the Memory Loss
Memory loss can be caused by many things, such as head injury that causes hemorrhaging in the brain, a reaction to a medication, Alzheimer's disease, strokes, AIDS, high fever, dehydration, hydrocephalus, systemic lupus erythematosus, Lyme disease, long-term drug or alcohol abuse, vitamin deficiencies/poor nutrition, hypothyroidism or hypercalcemia, multiple sclerosis, brain tumor, or diseases such as Pick's, Parkinson's, Creutzfeldt-Jakob, or Huntington's according to the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, College of Medicine. (Oct. 2004 Topic: Dementia)
And remember, above all, to cherish the special moments with your special senior. Senior citizens are a national treasure.
Janienne Jennrich - Janienne Jennrich, Topic Editor for Kids & Teen Parties and for Hair, is an award-winning freelance writer & webmaster.
