Activities for brain health

[Leap87]

Hi.
I was wondering if anyone has any good tips of what I can do to help improve my mother's brain health? She is soon turning 70 years old, and her mother had alzheimer's when she passed away. I am worried my mother will also get this disease. Does anyone know of any good activities that I can do with her to sharpen her memory? I have looked at some online game and she does fine with them, but I am more interested in tips on activities that me and my dad can do together with her.
Thanks for any advice!

[skydnsr]

Anything that keeps her brain active, that engages her with other people, that involves physical activity, and that is pleasurable will be of benefit.  The more of those things that happen as a result of the same activity, the better.  Dancing has been rated very high as a brain-friendly activity, because it does all of those things at once.  But a person can also do separate activities for the different benefits.  The worst thing that can happen to a brain is for the person that owns it to be mentally and physical inactive, to be socially isolated, and to be unhappy, unfulfilled, or depressed.  All of this is very individualized.  And nutrition does play a role in brain health, as it does in overall health.  A diet made up of good whole foods, including a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables, is beneficial for anyone.

[ChitChatNine]

Thanks for your post.  Very helpful info, indeed!

C~

[Leap87]

Niko,

First of all, I am very sorry to hear about what happened to your mother. I can not imagine how difficult that must have been.

I am very thankful for you replying to my question.  My mother does not have any signs of alzheimer's yet, but I would like to keep her mentally stimulated as much as possible to prevent any memory loss and keep her brain health up as much as possible. I also would like to spend time with her and do things with her, so your ideas were great! I am definitely going to use this! Thanks again and I appreciate you taking the time to answer my question!

[TheLightSeeker]

Hi Leap87.

You ARE a beautiful Soul my dear, full of Love and so caring in regards to
being concerned with your Mom's mental health.

The first thing that I would suggest is to sit down with your dad and make a list of all the things that your mom likes and dislikes and her limitations.
Then you can work with this information to come up with the appropriate
games for HER.

For example, my mom who passed away last year-God Bless her-
was very religious and spiritual.and  because she had suffered from traumatic brain injury - following a nasty car accident caused by an intoxicated driver- I had to be creative and sensitive to the way she was.
So I gathered a number of religious icons -from the greek orthodox faith-
portraying saints and the holy family.
I would ask her for example the significance of each saint and what he/she was patron of. We would assign points for the correct answers.
Another question would be to describe the details of particular icons
without looking at them, just from memory.
Another one would be to match saints and churches in our area.
(Greece is one of the countries with the highest number of churches per capita and the town Pyrgos in Santorini has the most churches per capita of anywhere in the world! )
Each story connected to any of these churches would get huge bonus points. And so on so forth.
So these games would engage us for hours at the time, day in and day out, providing her with a platform of mental challenges combining geography, theology, math, history, dreams, imagination, spatial elements, art, metaphysics, with great social interaction and fun, despite her cognitive
limitations!
Naturally she was the winner most of the time. lol!

This is just one idea that I implemented successfully.
It just takes a little creativity.

Please visit the Alzheimer's Community as well as the Memory Loss
Community for a lot more ideas.

Best wishes!
Niko