Improving Mental Health
(Elderly Edition)
Nurturing Minds: Enhancing Mental Health in Elderly with Dementia
Dementia, a progressive neurological condition, has a significant impact on an elder’s mental, emotional and psychological wellbeing. With cognitive deterioration as its distinct feature, elderly with dementia are often posed with mental health challenges such as forgetfulness, confusion, aggression, depression and personality changes. Our article “Decoding Dementia: Unravelling the Secrets of the Mind”, has encapsulated the hows and whys in tackling these issues as a caregiver. This article focuses on strategies to adopt for elderly with dementia to stimulate mental brain health, in hopes of reducing the pertinence of mental health challenges from surfacing.
SYMPTOMS
Damages in parts of the brain can lead to several progressive mental impairments depending on the location and extent of damage. Mental deterioration in elderly with dementia can surface through a variety of symptoms that significantly impact their cognitive abilities, daily functioning and emotions.
Forgetfulness
Expressing difficulty in remembering recent events or recognising people, and retaining information
Social Withdrawal
One’s interactions are limited due to the inability to read the room, control emotions or follow conversations
Personality Changes
Damage in frontal lobes causes sudden drastic changes in behaviour, resulting in deviations from the norm
Imparied Judgement
Making poor decisions leading to risky actions due to the loss of perceiving and understanding abilities
Confusion
Disruptions to connections and signals in the brain result in persistent struggles in understanding instructions and disorientation
Apathy
Losing interest in the things they used to enjoy and having a general lack of motivation
Hallucinations
Misinterpretation of stimuli due to neurological and sensory impairments
Difficulty in Language
Damage in areas of the brain responsible for language results in struggles in effective thought expression
Wandering & Getting Lost
Past moments may trigger aimless roaming and being unable to trace back to one’s original position
Aggression
Loss of ability to repress emotions and hence, expressing verbal or physical aggression
Sleep disturbances
Damage in the hypothalamus, Sundowning, coexisting sleep disorders and cognitive decline interfere with quality sleep
Difficulty in Problem Solving
Damage in frontal lobes also leads to a loss in problem-solving, organisation and thinking abilities
COPING MECHANISMS
Given the negative repercussions dementia brings to an elder mentally, we encourage you to engage your elder in mentally stimulating activities that can improve cognitive functioning and alleviate stress from your elder with dementia. Here is a non-exhaustive list of suggested activities:
Brain Training Games
Arts & Crafts
Reading
Nature
Social Interaction
Physical Activites
Unique Support Programmes
BRAIN TRAINING GAMES
Brain Training games keep the mind active and stimulate cognition. They serve to improve overall brain health through single-player activities and social cohesion as well through interactive games. Upon completing each game, it provides your elder with a deep sense of accomplishment and satisfaction.
Puzzle Games: Activities such as Jigsaw puzzles or Word Search puzzles help improve critical thinking skills, problem-solving abilities, memory recall.
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Jigsaw puzzles enhance visuo-spatial awareness, resulting in quicker reflexes and greater perception of their surroundings.
Word games like Word Search or Scrabble broadens one’s language repository and improves communication skills. It also lowers blood pressure due to the game’s relaxing nature.
Sudoku maintains one’s logical thinking and decision-making skills
Snakes and Ladders stimulates the brain mathematically and memory recall.
Chess is a strategic game that trains problem-solving skills and one’s mental thinking capacity.
Card games are versatile and compact, improving memory, concentration and attentiveness.
It enables your elder to play many different games such as matching and other traditional games like Poker, 21 and Taiti. Ensure that the games are played safely, preferably with no money involved to prevent gambling.
Bingo is an effective game for social integration and mitigating loneliness while training one’s sight to search for numbers, listening skills to catch the numbers announced, and dexterity in using hands to write or dab out the numbers.
Mahjong is a traditional Chinese tile-based game that promotes social interaction, hand-eye coordination and attentiveness. Due to the speed and intensity of the game, mahjong is an efficient yet fun game to stimulate the brain.
Online Games
Some of the abovementioned games can be available in App stores such as Sudoku, Word Search and even Mahjong. With the immense amount of novel online resources available, online brain stimulating games are easily accessible and beneficial too. Your elder does not have to be well-versed with technology but is a good platform that provides multi sensory engagement, customisable difficulty levels and social interaction through multiplayer options. However, it is important to note the harms of overuse of technological devices and the potential scams there are online. Try to limit your elder’s screentime to no more than 2 hours per day, depending on your elder’s condition.
ARTS & CRAFTS
Arts and Crafts can promote creativity, self-expression, and a deep sense of accomplishment. Not only does it stimulate the mind, it keeps the hands moving too. This engages many areas of the brain, and maintains dexterity. It provides your elder with space to clear their mind which may help in recovery of lost memories. You could simply provide your elder with a blank canvas to work with for their creative juices to flow. If you want more guidance and direction, Paintbynumbers is the perfect option for simpler matching of colours to paint a beautiful picture together - or even a customised picture of yourself and your elder.
READING
Encourage your elder to read from various resources such as books, magazines, or newspapers. This enhances their communication skills, focus and memory. It also brings them new insights and experiences providing emotional comfort and relaxation. Choose materials that align with your elder’s interests or give them the autonomy to choose a book they enjoy. Choose materials that align with their interests or preferences. If they are unable to read independently, read aloud to them with gestures or find recordings such as book recordings. If the small font size is an issue, there are many e-books and e-newspapers available with adjustable font and screen sizes. Do note the risks of using technological devices as mentioned above.
Alternatively, engage in storytelling where your elder can share their own stories or participate in creating imaginative narratives. This enables your elder to be creative, actively engaging their mind in their thought process.
NATURE
Fresh air from a change in environment instead of being cooped at home, stimulates brain health. If your elder is resistant towards going out, have some plants in the house to evoke the same calming effect.
Engage your elder in simple gardening tasks, such as watering flowers, or tending to a small indoor garden to maintain mobility and attention. The serene environment of nature offers a therapeutic setting for elderly to relax and engage their senses and positive emotions. The break from the hustle and bustle of life or mundane at home and taking a step back to observe and identify the flora and fauna around them, reduces anxiety levels and maintains mental sharpness. Exposure to natural light in the day can help regulate the body's internal clock and improve sleep patterns.
Loneliness is one of the contributing factors towards poor mental health in elderly with dementia. Organise small gatherings with friends and family, or with people of similar interests. Sometimes all your elder needs is companionship with their loved ones. They may not be able to engage in coherent conversations, but one’s presence does make a difference and brings warmth, belonging and familiarity to the heart.
PHYSICAL EXERCISE
Engaging in physical activities is an excellent way as it not only improves one’s physical health but also elevates one’s mood. It releases endorphins which are brain chemicals that evoke pleasure and stress relief. Physical activities also play a crucial role in regulating sleep patterns and having better quality sleep which are essential in improving one’s mental health.
UNIQUE SUPPORT PROGRAMMES
If you are looking for more personalised and unique programmes to boost your elder's mental health, we have a list of less commonly heard therapies for your elder. They include Music Therapy, Reminiscence Therapy, Animal-Assisted Therapy and more. Find out more through this article.
It is essential to consider your elder’s abilities, preferences, and comfort level when engaging in brain stimulating activities. As seen, there are many activities out there available for your elder. Adapt the activities as needed and create a supportive environment that fosters a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. Additionally, remember to remain patient and empathise with your elder's condition as there may be fluctuations in mood even in the easiest of tasks. Be with your elder through these activities to enable your elder to have a peace of mind as they journey through their dementia years.