Meaningful Activities?

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Meaningful Activities?

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Hi! I’m looking for easy activities that my husband might engage with at home or at dialysis. He has mobility, memory, hearing and sight problems. Plus, he’s often too tired to engage much. He goes to dialysis 3 days a week and hates it. Everyone needs to feel needed and have things to do.

I recall an expert on this site, Carol, had written about activities she set up for her father... But I can’t find them! One activity involved something like him sorting the (junk) mail each morning. It takes guts to tell a grown man that the junk mail is important for him, so I’d like to find out more how she pulled it off and made it meaningful.

Does anyone have advice or ideas for activities? Thanks.

Hearing Low Vision Memory Loss Mobility Senior Activities

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Usually the day of dialysis is a wash. From being a dialysis RN for years I know from patients telling me that between getting to dialysis, having treatment, and returning home after treatment the person is exhausted. That’s 3 of the weekdays. He probably comes home and goes to sleep.

Isn’t your hubby a doctor? Is he still interested in keeping up with the current pandemic or other medical issues? I am trying to think of an activity that would stimulate his brain enough for him to feel he is still able to contribute in some way. Can he read sites like “MedPage” via his laptop where you can enlarge the print? Not long arduous articles but general topics like current events.

I imagine it is very difficult for you. Unfortunately by the time he feels better it’s time for him to go back to dialysis and the cycle begins again. As you already know.

What were his interests other than medicine? Can he play Solitaire on the laptop? Using a laptop will keep up his skills with dexterity. Nothing too difficult for him however, to prevent him to abandoning it due to being too frustrating.

Or as stated, let him rest. Sometimes he may be just too tired to do otherwise.

Also please make sure that the dialysis staff aren’t pulling too much fluid off him to cause him to feel more tired. Often the staff are so focused on fluid removal they run the person dry. In that case your hubby’s BP may be too low for him to feel like doing anything.

I hope some of this helps. Good luck to you!

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Shane, thank you for your post. You’ve seen what dialysis is like. When he first started hemodialysis, we would sit in his reclining wheelchair in the park after his treatments, and he could easily sleep from 2pm until 11. He liked sleeping there. (One time someone called the police to check up on us!) Now, I’ve timed the treatments so he falls asleep after dinner. Much better for both of our sleep schedules. (He did peritoneal dialysis for 4 years before hemo.)

Thankfully, he has a good nephrologist who advised the nurses only to take off a certain percentage of fluid. He’s never had an issue with leg cramps or nausea. (Knock on wood.) And his BP doesn’t get too low. I stay with him during treatments because he has bad anxiety. (I’m considering being trained so I can do his hemo at home.)

Yes, he is a doctor. Oddly, he lost interest in doing continuing education and reading research articles a few years ago. And, he was never very comfortable using a computer, so keeping up with Corona or other developments usually falls on my shoulders.

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If he's tired, I'd let him rest. Keeping busy might not be that feasible if he's sick and weak.

Do you know his prognosis? I'd try to let him do what he wants, as long as his doctor approves.

If he's inclined, I'd really evaluate what he is capable of doing. I'd evaluate what he is still able to do and go from there. I recall that I used to worry that my LO was bored and wanted her doing all kinds of things. Trouble was that she was not able to do them. Often, she would look away, wheel her wheelchair away or just ignore an opportunity to participate. I had to adjust to what she was able to do and really wanted to do.

You might explore those therapeutic boards/quilts that are designed to keep the hands and minds occupied. I think they are on websites that sell products for the disabled. I wouldn't consider any activity too mundane, because, they are not functioning 100%. What my LO seemed to like the most was just listening to me talk about the good times we shared. What will appeal to him depends on how much he is capable of doing.

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This is hard when someone has the problems your husband has. At home, you can give him towels to fold. Thats what they did with a blind woman in Moms rehab. She would fold them and put them in a basket and the aide would mess them up again and tell her it was a new basket.
The one activity Mom could enjoy in the NH was batting at balloons. They took a pool noodle and cut it in 3rds. The residents were put around a table and the balloon was let go into the air and they batted it back and forth.

Does Dad like music? I think you can still find those portable CD players.
That might help relax him during treatments. Not sure if they still have those old Ipods. An old cell where u can download music?

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It is hard! There’s no reason to get up in the morning anymore because he can’t enjoy the activities he did in the past. His cognitive skills are still high functioning, which makes his physical decline even worse for him.

No, he doesn’t like music. He won’t do arts and crafts or silly things. He was a medical doctor and researcher who loved to travel and give lectures. But now, he can’t read and struggles follow a story line. Partly an introvert, he often didn’t want to go out, but enjoyed meeting people. Now, there’s nothing for him to feel he’s contributing.

He did enjoy signing a few cards yesterday, which is what reminded me of Carole’s experience with her father. Any luck finding where she discussed this more?

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Have you considered signing him up to do friendly phone calls?

This is a service for seniors living alone to have someone call and check on them daily. I think it is a valuable service for seniors, it lets them know that someone cares if they are okay. It could give your husband purpose.

I am trying to get my parents to agree to go to the senior community center, that way they have a reason to get up and dressed. Some how I will pull this off, in the mean time I just keep encouraging them to think about what they would like to do.

Best of luck finding activities that make him feel purposeful.

Edit: what about hooking up with a school and have him do hygiene lessons or something else simple that would be beneficial for the youngsters and him? Charter schools are always needing activities.

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Thanks for the ideas!

If he could hear better and was more social, I’d sign him up to participate in the phone calls. But at this point, he’s not much of a talker, and I have to repeat everything so he hears it.

I recall one of the articles (maybe by Carol or someone else) talking about an elder becoming passionate about fire alarms and protecting families. He did something like pack hundreds of envelopes or put together informational packets for this cause. I’m still trying to figure out what an equivalent activity could be.

But for now, I’m having good luck helping him to recall good memories. Then his imagination takes over and he thinks we are there! Fun change from being so bored.

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Dear Julia, on the Care Topics site at the top of the page, the alphabetical list includes some things that might be helpful. Low Vision is one, and the hints in the second article might help. It was also written by Carol Bradley Bursack, who might even be the person you are looking for. I didn’t go through all the stuff on the topic, but you might like to check. I had a quick look at ‘Recreation and Fitness’ and ‘Exercise’. They didn’t look all that promising, but once again I didn’t check them thoroughly.

Dominoes is a good low vision game if you have a partner, as the best sets have recessed dots. The net has instructions for very simple games and more complex games, and there are probably things you could do alone – eg getting a hand of 7 tiles, matching dots at the end of the line, drawing a new tile if you can’t go, and just seeing how many of the total number you can get out.

There are net instructions in languages where you repeat words and phrases back and try to get the accent right. If your DH learned a language at school, he might get interested in trying it again.

I understand that he is not blind, just low vision, but you might try contacting an association or school for the blind, and seeing if they have any suggestions. I’ll keep thinking, but this might be a start.

Best wishes, Margaret

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I’m not sure if your DH can still read OK. Could a Kindle or the like work for him, with large size type? They usually come with 3000 out-of-copyright titles that you don’t actually want to read, but their older short stories might be worth a try because they get to the point quickly. Modern short stories too often seem to be of the ‘share my misery’ variety, but Somerset Maugham and Kipling might be worth a try. I have just reread my two volume set of Somerset Maugham’s complete short stories, and I was thinking about it and you in the night. I avoid Kipling’s unreadable spelling of just how Irish soldiers used to sound, but most of his other short stories are very very readable. Books that were written as monthly magazine installments can also be a good easy read, because each chapter is pretty self contained. Dickens has too much padding for me, but Uncle Tom’s Cabin is great (and currently vastly under-rated).

Does your DH have any interest in poetry? Memorising a short poem (try Yeats) to recite for you as a treat for you on Sunday morning, might be nice for both of you. I’ve just read about a child who had to memorise a hymn by every Friday or ‘get the strap’ - including for ‘Yes Jesus Loves Me’. It does gives some structure to time, as does ‘a chapter a day’.

When you’ve sorted out your options for your intelligent husband who wants things to be meaningful, please could you consider adding an article to the site. ‘Recreation’ shouldn’t be always about ‘fitness’, and not everyone can enjoy folding the washing. I suspect that I may need your article myself, sooner or later.

Best wishes, and I’ve just sent you a personal message.

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Unfortunately, he can’t read, at least not any normal or enlarged printed book. I wonder how large the font can be on a Kindle? I might have to try it and see. He can read the second largest letters in one eye during an eye exam and the largest letters in the other eye. (This probably qualifies him as blind. Is there any benefit in getting him certified as blind? It would be a blow to his ego.)

Poetry - He loves poetry. I read him poems he’s written, and he asks me of the author. He’s always pleasantly surprised when I tell him it was him. He’s also memorized a lot of poetry, but he doesn’t often share them. I’ll try to encourage him to do this more often.

Thank you for the suggestion to write an article! This appeals to me on several levels. Any idea how to submit it?

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Can he cut old t-shirts into rags using a rotary cutter? You could ask for donations of old shirts from friends and neighbors. He could donate or sell packets of rags. Who can't use rags? I hope you can find something he can do!

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Those cutters are dangerous. I don't think I would recommend one for anyone with vision impairment. You could lose a finger👍.

Just my opinion

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Is the dialysis temporary with hope to cease? Or part of the rest of his life?

JuliaRose, your love for him shines through. I am hoping you have support network for yourself too? Do you have people to discuss the really hard stuff with?

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Thanks for your concern, Beatty. Yes, I think I’m doing ok. This is year 6 of dialysis. I know what’s coming and have at least some support established.

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Julia, I promise I’m not Obsessive Compulsive and will stop, but here’s another idea, unfortunately also dependent on reading at least a little bit. I don’t know if you follow the jokes thread on the site, ref below, but I have been posting once a day to try to get a smile in a difficult time in difficult lives. There are plenty of books of jokes in libraries and OpShops, but often the jokes aren’t very suitable – old Readers Digest don’t seem funny any more, some are too long etc. If your DH could check through jokes books, and find a way to mark the ones he think would be suitable, you could perhaps type a couple on the site every few days. It would be a real help, to me, the readers, and the other people who come up with occasional jokes. He might even enjoy it, and enjoy making you laugh too. I don't know how much free time you have (probably not much), but you could read them to him and discuss whether they are suitable. Are there volunteers in the dialysis area who could read and mark, if you provided the books and followed up with him? Finding things to share with you (and the rest of us) might be the most satisfying thing he could do.
(https://www.agingcare.com/discussions/caregiver-jokes-152323.htm?orderby=recent&page=1�)

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Thanks for all your ideas! He has memorized many jokes, but most of them are inappropriate for general audiences. Your idea of posting them here just might work! At least, I wouldn’t have to be as careful as usual. He has some raucous limericks from his college days in England... 😆

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I’ve just read your reply about reading ability, and I really think it might help to contact one of the Associations for the blind. I did quite a lot of work with people who were technically or totally blind, and one friend used a computer with enormous print. There should be a lot of help there, whether or not you are interested in a ‘diagnosis’. Even with schools, teenagers must surely have activities that could interest your husband. I’ve written a lot of short instruction books (on association management), and I always aim for ‘intelligent 12 year old’ as the reading level, which would suggest that 'special schools' might have some good ideas. I assume that you’ve checked out libraries that stock audio books, which should be worth trying.

I’d be happy to be a sounding board on any article you can write, but I think it would be better to contact the site managers about submitting one, when you have collected up the suggestions that work for you. I'm glad that some of the suggestions you have had have sparked some ideas, and I hope that you are feeling cared about. Yours, Margaret

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