Lots of you often ask what is the best type of activity to use with people at varying stages of dementia or other conditions and one activity overlooked or not given much thought is reading out loud to people.
- inform
- entertain
- alleviate anxiety
- alleviate boredom
- alleviate a sense of being isolated
- provide a connection with others
- provide a topic of conversation
- enhance visits in which neither person knows how to proceed
- enhance self-worth, when the elderly person realizes someone cares enough to read to them
Some elderly people have the desire to read as they have always done, but the ability to do so has eroded over the years.
- Their vision may not be as acute (and print in books is generally tiny, as is that in magazines).
- They may not have the physical strength to hold a large-print book for long. (Try it some time. They’re heavy!)
- Their cognitive abilities may have dwindled, making understanding the printed word more difficult.
- They may be dealing with dementia, which complicates many aspects of the reading process.
Reading aloud can answer so many challenges that elderly people face. The Reader Organization in the UK has found that using their shared reading model with people with dementia “shows
- improved mood
- improved concentration
- improved recollection
- greater levels of social interaction”
An article in The Lancet, by Carolyn Banks, a strong advocate for reading aloud to the elderly, states that “to most of the people, the act of reading itself had a soothing effect.” She also found that “Being read to … seems to be as welcome as a touch, whether or not the listeners had been readers or the words have literal meaning any longer.”
Try this, keep residents abreast of current affairs by reading the newspaper and discuss what is happening in the world.
Create reading circles , help stimulate conversation and inclusion of all.
How to Find Suitable Reading Material
Books chosen for read-aloud activities should be mainly literature-based, however other types of reading material is also necessary to attend to individual tastes.
Ask clients what type of stories, news, and poems they enjoyed reading and make a plan for the group session.
For clients who were never interested in reading books, see if you can spark their interest with books about hobbies, politics, current news, religion or cooking.
Suggested reading material:
- Poems – known and unknown poems
- Newspapers columns – Gossip & Gardening columns for example
- Short Stories – Covering a range to topics; Humour, Mysteries, Fables
- Historical tales
- Biographies – Presidents, scientists and other famous people
- Religious passages – Bible, Quran
- Personal letters and Celebration cards
- Catalogues – Clothes, furniture, pets
- Plays – Hamlet, Silas Marner, A Streetcar Named Desire
- TV Programs – Choose what to watch in the coming week
- Travel Brochures – Find places that clients visited
- Magazines – Specialty magazines: boats, fishing, motor-houses
- Comics – Borrow old style comics from libraries
- Recipe books – Very popular with some clients
Give it a try. Also audio books are useful.
And also.......................
Online FB Group Support
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Wishing you all well and a very merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
Love,
Ann Marie xxx
