Caregivers, there is a FUN activities box to keep your care recipient with dementia actively engaged. Connectivities.us [6/3/2024 TCV Update: URL no longer available] provides caregivers a box of curated activities. Each Individual Box—the type The Caregiver’s Voice Review received and is reviewing here—contains eight different activities plus a bonus or two, step-by-step instructions, video instructional support, and more.
While caring for my late father who lived with Alzheimer’s, I ran out of ideas for purposeful activities that would challenge him. Television didn’t interest him. He wanted to be involved. He needed to contribute to the household. He desired to accomplish something.
I enrolled him in a nearby adult day center. The activities and socialization were stimulating and left him feeling he had a purpose. (He thought he was going to work.)
If you are at a point where your loved one with dementia needs more activities, consider a Connectivities box of activities co-created by Mandy Shoemaker and Michala Gibson. These two women, according to their website, “have successfully owned and operated group homes for people living with dementia” since 2014. If we consider that during the last few years, we’ve lived through COVID lockdowns, these co-founders have certainly raised the bar on creating and involving residents in diverse activities.
Each Individual Box [5/5/2023 TCV Update: URL to individual box no longer available] features a different theme. The Caregiver’s Voice received a box in August that features activities for fun on the beach, at an amusement park, and even summertime travel. We built a campfire.
No, not a real one.
The bag contains an assortment of stones and rocks to assemble around a fire. The battery-operated candle light serves as the fire. Logs (well, tiny sticks that look like logs), and red, orange, and yellow tissue paper complete the effect. Connectivities includes a QR code to scan to view an instructional video like this three-minute video on how to build a campfire. Set it up on a tabletop. Add a small personal-size fan (not included) and the blowing tissue makes the effect more realistic. Tell campfire stories. You definitely have to read “A Porker in the Family” campfire story included in the Connectivities box. Definitely FUNNY.
A day at the beach includes a “Summer-Fun Tube.” Participants fill a tube with rice and add their choice of summertime objects (such as a bee, sunglasses, or ice cream cone. They can share stories, and then later use the tube for the musical activity.
In addition to the campfire, we tested their “A Day at the Beach” activity. This includes opportunities to reminisce about one’s own beach experiences while seeing and feeling different seashell shapes in the sand.
Included is an opportunity to make one’s own travel suitcase using the Connectivities box. To make it more worldly and adventurous, Connectivities includes travel stickers and a stick-on handle.
Half of the activities in the August box are reusable. The others can be reused, for example, after you buy colored tissue paper to make campfires.
Most of the activities include detailed instructions, therapy goals, and instructional videos online.
You and your care recipient will be happier while actively engaged. These curated activities help people with dementia retain functional abilities longer through socialization and brain agility through cognitive, tactile, and physical challenges.
The co-founders’ experience is evident in each meticulously-thought-out activity.
From the Connectivities.us About page [6/3/2024 TCV Update: URL no longer available]
In 2021, [co-founders Mandy Shoemaker and Michala Gibson] published Now is Found, a book that defines their mission to give back community, connection and control. Their next chapter has led them to creating Connectivities, a creative dementia engagement solution developed by memory care experts with years of experience helping families navigate the unknown.
These are FUN diversionary activities every month for less than the cost of one day of adult day services.
VISIT the Connectivities FAQs.[6/3/2024 TCV Update: URL no longer available] I found the last item (#10) answering how they come up with these activities to be especially interesting.
Click on Connectivities Boxes [6/3/2024 TCV Update: URL no longer available]to order. They come in Individual, Mini, Group, or even a subscription.
