You will find in this category activities that will provide your residents with visual, auditory and tactile experiences. These are to be done step-by-step and in a non-competitive way. All these exercises can help maintain some cognitive functions but can also help improve daily living skills such as eating, buttoning, picking up objects, etc.
 
You will also find different products that can reduce and sometimes eliminate disturbing behaviors like anxiety and wandering, both symptoms of dementia that can occur every day with some of your residents.
 
Every person is unique and what triggers disturbing behaviours differs from one resident to the next. There are no miracle recipes. These have to be dealt with on a case by case basis. Disturbing behaviors can occur daily at a precise time or following an external trigger. We have gathered together different tools that are successfully used by recreationists and caregivers in nursing homes as well as at home. You have to be patient and try to discover through each person’s life story what tool will work best to decrease and even eliminate one or more disturbing behaviors.
 
Supporting literature shows that nursing home residents have nothing to do during 60% to 80% of their waking hours. In addition, the more advanced the course of the dementia, the fewer visits the individual has from family and friends.
 
It is during this time of boredom and inactivity that most disturbing behaviors occur. (Cohen Mansfield, 1998) It appears that certain disturbing behaviors are an attempt by residents to create their own activity, since nursing facilities often do not have funds to supply residents with social recreational items. (Dementia Practice Guideline for Recreational Therapy, Linda Buettner and Suzanne Fitzsimmons / ATRA).
 
A lot of the material in this category can be used as Montessori-Based activities. American researchers have demonstrated that the Montessori approach with people suffering from Alzheimer or related dementia was successful. People who no longer wanted to engage in any kind of activities responded positively to Montessori-Based activities. Montessori principles are very simple: progress from simple to complex, from the concrete to the abstract, from largest to smallest and from more to less, and allow learning to progress in a sequence. Use as little vocalization as possible, make the materials and activities self-correcting, minimize the risk of failure and maximize the chance of success.
 
This step-by-step approach has also shown to be very positive during intergenerational encounters. Residents had the chance to show "how to do things" to young children and it made them feel very enthusiastic because they could again feel like parents or grandparents. Visit the “Resources” category of this Website or click here to get acquainted with the 3 Montessori-Based Activity manuels.