Do you remember the days when you played board games with your friends and family? Back then, a “screen” was something to keep out bugs, not a portal to digital paradise. As “primitive” as a game of chess or bingo or Monopoly may seem, those neighborhood bridge tournaments were honing your thinking and memory skills, according to a recent study by the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.
We may try to avoid it, shut it out, ignore it, and minimize it, but we can’t escape this COVID-19 pandemic. We may not contract the disease, but reminders are all around us: masks, closures, constant updates, and isolation. Thinking “happy thoughts” about it won’t make it go away, but our thoughts (and attitudes) have a lot to do with how we cope with this new, unexpected life.
Here are some things to think about that may lift up and refresh your spirit during down times.
When dementia strikes an older family member in the Lehigh Valley area, the effect on children can be overlooked, especially when the children knew “Grandma and Grandpa” in earlier, more “normal,” days.
Small-house senior living may be well-suited to handle the disruptions of the Covid-19 era. This may help boost the model’s… Read More »“Smaller is Better”: COVID-19 Primes Senior Living for Rise of Small-House Models
During these unsettled and unsettling times, many of us are losing sleep over the ramifications of shutdowns, lockdowns, masks, social distancing, financial woes, empty supermarket shelves, disease, and whatever other worries we hear about or even manufacture ourselves.
Although the average person can lose sleep for various reasons, research has shown that Alzheimer’s patients have a greater tendency to experience altered sleep patterns that can keep them awake at night. It seems Alzheimer’s affects the brain in some unknown way.
Memorial Day is an American holiday, observed on the last Monday of May, honoring the men and women who died while serving in the U.S. military. It has its roots in the days shortly after the Civil War, the war that cost more American lives than any war in history. Originally called “Decoration Day,” “The 30th of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land” (May 5, 1868, General John A. Logan).
For many dementia and Alzheimer patients, this day may or may not mean anything. Survivors of World War II are few and are slipping away, as are their memories and the culture’s memories of their sacrifice. Every generation has its warriors, and they deserve at least a moment’s notice and recognition for their place in America’s history.