Tira and Anonymous, my heart breaks for you as I have faced the same difficulties lately after moving my mother into an assisted living facility. She is 86 years old and in perfect physical health. I thought that she would enjoy all the activities offered to her and not only encouraged her to attend, but took her to the activities.
As a nurse, I quickly realized why she disliked almost all the activities. Mother is in the mild/moderate stages of Alzheimers and she quickly became overstimulated by all the noise and the crowd. Also, the Bingo numbers were called at too fast a pace for her to keep up. I praised her for her efforts and we laughed when she made mistakes. I thought she would enjoy just being at the Bingo game for the fellowship, if nothing else. Wrong. I watched her have a major melt-down each time we attended certain activities. Her confusion was remarkably worse for hours afterwards. I felt so guilty for not realizing that I was asking too much of her and I had to rethink MY ideas of what would be interesting and helpful to her.
Mother had lived alone in her home for over 3 years and suddenly she was living in an assisted living atmosphere of constant activity, crowds, strange sights and new noises. I thought she would love the fact that she was no longer living alone. Turns out she was not really lonely in her old home and was fairly content with her solitary life. I was defining her loneliness by my definition and my own feelings.
Dementia causes changes in sights, sounds, perceptions and all the other things I am sure you know about. This is why activities must be individualized and may not be anything offered by the facility. Like me, I am sure you would like to see your parent(s) participate in an activity that is mentally stimulating and, perhaps, challenging. However, this is not always realistic and those activities can create more problems than they are helpful. The idea of taking care of the plant is wonderful! If the idea did not work this time, try it again next week with a different plant, perhaps one with a bright color flower.
What has worked for my mother may not be helpful in your father's case, but I hope it will give you food for thought, so to speak.
Mother has never been a bird watcher, but now she loves it. I placed two bird feeders outside her window, making sure she could see them while sitting in her favorite chair. I visit her daily and my first questions is, "did you have any birds eating today?". This opens the door for her to tell me as little or as much as she can remember. I never ask, "tell me all about the birds you saw today." That type question puts too much pressure on her to describe everything she saw, each bird, and it is part of what you described, Tira, in keeping the questions and conversation simple and easy to follow. She always smiles as she describes the birds as being "big" or "little" and the red, blue or brown colors of the birds.
Also, to help Mother adjust to her new surroundings and meet other residents, I asked her to look in on her neighbor twice a day. I view this as an activity for her. It gives her a sense of being needed and her neighbor loves the visits as she seldom leaves her room. Another resident who has no dementia agreed to allow mother to "check on her" every afternoon. This resident lives at the opposite end of the building so mother gets extra walking exercise making the trip each day. I have a schedule, actually several of them, in mother's apartment to remind her what time she is supposed to "make her rounds."
Another activity I offered mother is to assist with her laundry by folding towels. If she has dirty towels to wash, that's fine. If not, we wash clean ones or simply go to the community laundry room and offer to assist other residents fold their towels. The other residents are happy that we are there to help. While the towels are washing/drying we sit in the hallway and greet the other residents as they walk by. This is a very non-threatening, calm and quiet way for mother to interact with the other residents. On days that I am not with her, the caregive has told me that mother sits in the hallway and proceeds alone with her "meet and greet" activity.
I never thought mother would enjoy the morning exercise class, but she now loves it. It does not matter that she cannot do some of the exercises. What is important is that she attends and does as much as she can. If mother does not show up for the class, the activities director will send someone to find mother and bring her to the class. In the beginning, mother would tell me she was too tired to attend, but she would not use this excuse with the activities director. Perhaps this might be the case with your father. Often times others can get our parent to do something that we cannot get our parent to do.
Mother still has her times of anxiety and agitation, so I keep a photo album handy to redirect her thoughts. Reminiscing works well for her and I am learning more and more about those old photos because each time she looks at the photos she tells me something new.
I have a container of coins at home. Every week or so I take the coins to mother, tell her it's my spare change and ask her to sort it for me. I provide disposable plasic bowls for her to place each type coin. I secure the bowls with putty to her breakfast room table so she cannot move them around or "hide" them. I get her started by placing one of each type coin in a bowl. It might take her hours or days to finish the task, but if gives her something to do if she needs it. This is a good task for the evening and often times keeps her from wandering. If she is anxious, I remind her to sort my coins. No, her sorting is not perfect, but that's not important. I praise her for the job and we use our "fun money" to go out to lunch.
Lastly, mother now enjoys something I never thought she would ever have the least bit of interest in. I bought her a portable DVD player and she spends every evening watching gospel music videos in bed before she goes to sleep. This has been great for minimizing her sundowning and helping her to sleep. Yes, she has trouble operating it most times, so I, or her caregiver, simply put in the CD and when she is ready to watch it she pushes the "play" button that I have covered with a big red dot. When she is done she simply unplugs the cord from the CD player. It does not matter that the CD is still playing when she does this. That poor machine is still working just find. In case you are concerned, I did check that the player is not a fire hazzard even if she forgets to unplug it, which she has not done. So, don't count your parent out if you think he/she is not capable of learning to use this type equipment. I never thought mother could do it. She amazed me.
Tira, you said your father no longer watches television. Could it be that he can no longer work the remote control? That may sound simple, but this is why mother stopped. I was able to solve the problem by purchasing a new remote that had very few buttons and I removed (using tweezers) the buttons that she did not need to use, leaving only the on/off, volume and channel buttons.
I might sound upbeat about all this and sound as if there is a solution to every problem. I know there is not and I am fortunate that what I am doing at the moment is helping, now. Tomorrow I face the unknown and I am dying inside just like you. I cry every day and grieve for the mother that I have lost. Nothing in my life, not even a masters' degree in nursing, prepared me for this and it's the hardest thing I've ever done.
