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5 Of the Best Games for Dementia Patients
Introduction
Dementia is a disease that is widely affecting the senior population around the world. It is an umbrella term used to refer to a collection of various conditions that effectively impair the functions of the different brain or nervous functions.
Ranging from profound memory loss to basic disorientation and reduced or partially affected motor functions, dementia can be an inconvenient hindrance to optimally going about your daily scheduled routines.
Over the years, scientists and researchers alike have attempted to tame the biting effects of dementia effectively. Medical, as well as physically and mentally engaging techniques, have been developed to manage dementia.
These services have through the years been adopted in various senior living homes and nursing homes. Expertly trained staff has adequately been equipped with effective mechanisms and high-tech equipment to provide your loved ones with the best possible care while conveniently managing their dementia challenges.
Gaming to Manage Dementia
Dementia brings with it a diverse nature of conditions that vary from one elderly person to the next. There are, however, methods that can be employed to relieve the undesired effects of dementia. One of the proven ways is through mentally engaging activities. Different games that can be as simple as the common solitaire card game can work wonders for an aging individual with dementia.
It can be a vigorous and tedious task for caregivers to find the right games for the senior population affected by dementia. Luckily, there is a wide range of possible options to choose from. Specially designed games are available online or otherwise that can effectively serve the purpose of managing dementia.
These are some of the factors to be considered while sourcing for games for dementia patients.
Games for Seniors
Dementia has shown significant prevalence predominantly among the elderly population. It would, therefore, be a relevant prerequisite to base your sourcing needs on games that are senior living friendly. These games encourage more verbal expressionism and mental exercises that improve mental capacity.
Physically and Mentally Engaging
These games provide the much-needed involvement of the various functions of your body. The need to physically manipulate different parts and pieces of the game effectively improves your hand-eye coordination while stimulating the brain into action and keeping it in performance mode.
Recall Trigger
Games that can potentially invoke your memory senses to function optimally provide an effective way to counteract the effects of dementia. The use of pictures and active verbal interactions can trigger memory senses into action, thereby encouraging memory recollection. It is therefore advantageous to get a game that can indulge your memory recollection capacity.
Connection
At this advanced stage of anyone’s life, it is critical to creating healthy and positive bonds that connect you to other people. A solitary life plagued with dementia can result in catastrophic consequences. Games provide an effective social platform in which you and your loved ones can interact with other people that can add positive values to your life. Sharing experiences and creating new pleasant memories with new friends can go a long way and ease the effects of dementia.
Which Games are Best?
There are a lot of games to choose from for dementia patients. Getting just the right one can be an understandably daunting task. From the wide variety of games to possibly choose from, each game provides an experience of its own. Every game requires the adoption of different skills to fulfill the tasks. These skills are the focus of the gaming activity and from which the desired dementia counteracting effects are derived from.
Below is a list of 5 games you can conveniently choose from for dementia patients;
Memory Card Game
It’s amazing what a simple game of cards can do to a patient who has dementia. This card game engages the mind and solicits a triggered memory response from you. Place cards facing down on a surface then take turns flipping cards to find a match. Your memory senses are kept active when you try to remember where a particular faced-down card is in order to match it with a flipped card.
Dominoes
Based on the particular degree of impairment as a consequence of dementia, this classic game can provide the perfect platform to get a good session of mental exercise. The mentally engaging tasks, including matching dots and counting by fives, provides the necessary mental exercise that a dementia patient needs.
Bingo
Bringing large groups of individuals together, this gaming activity can be socially engaging and provides the perfect platform to make friends. Its nature does not strictly require utmost attention or particular focus. There’s a chance to mingle therefore and have a laugh or two all through.
Checkers
Another one that has survived the test of time yet still effectively serves its purpose as a source of enjoyable mental exercise. This engaging game gives you and your loved ones the chance to participate in each others’ life actively and positively challenge their mental capacity. Get into the occasional healthy competition with this game.
Old Maid
This is a game that is bound to draw a good hearty laugh from elderly people. The delightful experience of participating in this game with your loved ones provides you with an effective session of healthy laugh therapy. Dementia can be an unfortunate cause of those problematic moments brought about when trying to have a light moment with those you hold near and dear. With this game, there is a good chance that you won’t be able to keep a straight face when your opponent draws the old maid.
Conclusion
Dementia is an illness in seniors that no one wants for their loved one. It can, however, be easier to live with if you take some simple steps to help the sufferer make the most of their life with activities such as games.
It is for this reason that mechanisms such as the development of games, especially considered for patients affected by dementia, have come up to attempt to ease the consequences of the condition.
However, it is important to put into consideration some of the best games which will appease the elderly. Above is a list of some of the best games for patients with dementia.
