Beating Winter Blues: Helping the Elderly Stay Active and Engaged
When it’s cold, icy and dark outside, it’s tempting to close the door and shelter inside. Keeping active and engaged with family, friends and neighbours becomes a lot harder, resulting in the winter months often being difficult and lonely for elder members of our communities.
It’s therefore even more important than usual in winter months for us all to look out for the older people in our lives, and make sure they are staying healthy and happy. Not to mention ourselves! So read on for some suggested activities to keep older minds busy and connected with the world around them…
1. New and Classic Games
Games are a fun way to engage memory and creativity, and maybe stir up a bit of competitive spirit! A huge range of board games are available, with varying degrees of difficulty – from classics like Backgammon, to at-home versions of TV favourites like Countdown and Catchphrase, to newcomers like the quiz game Linkee. Not that you need any specialist props to have fun – there are more than enough games which need nothing more than some paper, a few pens, and an active imagination. Remember “boy, girl, flower, fruit”?
2. Creating a Recipe Book
Working through old recipe books is another enjoyable (and delicious!) way to stir up memories. Alternatively, if your relative or friend is famed for their culinary skills, what about suggesting they create their own cookbook to pass on to their children or grandchildren?
3. Accompanying them out and about
When pavements are slippery and the air is cold, even popping out to the local shops can be a daunting prospect. If you can, offer to accompany them to the shops, for a walk in the park, or maybe a slice of cake in their favourite coffee shop. If you live further afield and there’s no one close by to help, it may be beneficial to engage a carer to visit once or twice a week. Organisations like SuperCarers can help you find carers in their local community, and can even match based on personalities and interests.
4. Seeing friends from afar
You might not be able to visit your friends and family daily, but that doesn’t need to stop you seeing them! Nothing could brighten a dark day more than a video chat with a favourite grandchild, which is no longer reserved for the tech-savvy thanks to easy-to-use devices like Alcove’s Keep In Touch. Alternatively, if you’re comfortable with technology, you could set up a tablet with Skype and software which allows you to control it remotely like TeamViewer – allowing you (or others) to call them from your own device, then dial in to answer it on their behalf!
5. Participating in Local Events
The elderly can enjoy attending local community events such as plays, fairs or games nights at the local hall with their old friends. Age UK can help you find local social activities including day trips, talks and many more activities for older people.
Connecting people who care
SuperCarers is an introductory service which helps connect individuals and families with trusted, experienced and vetted carers. Unlike a traditional care agency, instead of directing the care itself we focus on finding excellent carers, making personalised matches, and providing you with the tools to make the management of care easier. By cutting out the agency middle-man, we are able to reduce costs while still ensuring carers are rewarded well for their hard work. Meaning everyone can focus on what matters most – caring.
To find out more, call us on 020 8629 1030 or visit supercarers.com
