Simple routines that keep our residents thinking

There is a board at our Strathfield residence with a single letter of the alphabet written at the top. Residents are invited to call out words that begin with it.

What the team notices is not how many words come. It is who they come from. Residents living with cognitive impairment will often offer something nobody expected. A term from a trade they worked in fifty years ago. A word in a language the room had not heard that morning. The knowledge is still there. It just needs an invitation and a little time to arrive.

That is the thing most families underestimate. Keeping a mind occupied does not take a programme, a subscription or a device. It takes something interesting to do, and someone willing to wait for the answer.

At their own pace, on their own terms

Crosswords and word searches are the most popular activities across our residences, along with Scrabble and jigsaw puzzles. Some residents do them together at a table. Others prefer to work through them alone in their room.

Both matter equally. Not everyone feels like company every day, and a resident who would rather not join a group still deserves something absorbing to do. Treating solitary activity as a lesser option misreads what is actually happening, which is a person choosing how to spend their afternoon.

In the language they think in

Alongside English activities, our team runs Korean-language word games for Korean-speaking residents, with plans to extend this to Hindi and other preferred languages.

A word game in a second language tests the language. A word game in a first language lets a person use everything they know. Dementia Australia advises choosing activities that reflect a person’s interests, abilities and cultural background, and for many of our residents that means the language they grew up thinking in.

Games with a history

Carrom, snakes and ladders, Ludo and card games all have a regular following. So does solitaire on an iPad, which suits residents who like to play without needing anyone else free.

The familiarity is part of the appeal. A game someone has played since childhood carries no learning curve and no risk of embarrassment, which matters a great deal to people who are tired of being asked whether they remember things.

What the evidence actually says

We want to be careful here, because this is an area where a lot is claimed and less is proven.

Dementia Australia describes mental exercise as building the brain’s reserve, and recommends a mix of activities that are interesting, enjoyable and genuinely a little challenging. It also states plainly that there is no guarantee mental exercise will prevent dementia.

The US National Institute on Aging goes further on one point. It notes there is not enough evidence that commercial brain-training apps deliver the benefits they advertise. What its research did find is that older adults who took up something new and demanding, quilting or digital photography in one study, showed more memory improvement than those who only socialised or did less taxing activities.

So the honest position is this. No crossword prevents dementia. No puzzle reverses memory loss. What these routines reliably provide is enjoyment, participation and connection, and there is reasonable evidence that activity with a bit of challenge in it does the mind more good than without.

A good afternoon does not need to justify itself with a clinical outcome.

If you are visiting someone

Bring something you can do together rather than something to watch. A puzzle on the table gives you both somewhere to look, which takes the pressure off conversation on the days when conversation is hard.

Ask questions they can answer from experience rather than from recent memory. What was your mother’s best dish works far better than what did you have for lunch.

And leave more silence than feels comfortable. The word usually arrives. It just takes longer than it used to, and filling the gap for them is the quickest way to end the conversation.