An activity that is often done in a nursing home, a residential care center or in day care with elderly people with dementia, for example Alzheimer’s, is brain gymnastics. The activity is also called brain fitness, brain gym, in short a quiz that functions as a brain trainer. The aim is to activate elderly people with a form of dementia, to provide these seniors, who often have Alzheimer’s, with a pleasant activity and to retrieve existing knowledge through a question and answer game. Which topic is suitable? As an activity supervisor / quiz master or volunteer, how do you prevent the question quiz from becoming a memory test or a competition? How do you, as a welfare employee, further implement the ‘brain fitness’ program for these elderly people? A suitable topic, for example, is a quiz about famous fairy tales.
Which topics are suitable for brain exercises with elderly people with dementia?
As is known, one of the abilities that is first affected in elderly people with Alzheimer’s disease is short-term memory, then medium-term memory and then long-term memory. That is why it is important that the subject of brain gymnastics is linked to knowledge from the youth of the elderly. Especially when it concerns elderly people with advanced dementia, where more brain damage has occurred.A suitable subject, for example, is fairy tales. The elderly person with Alzheimer’s most likely heard the fairy tales in his youth. He has read them himself or the fairy tales of, for example, the Brothers Grimm, have been read to him. There is also a chance that the elderly person with one of the many types of dementia (for example Vascular Dementia or Lewy Body) has read fairy tales to his children or grandchildren.You can read more suitable topics in the article Themes to retrieve memories in dementia. If you would like to know more about the combination of fairy tales and elderly people with brain damage due to dementia, please read my article Stimulating the memory of people with dementia by reading fairy tales .
How do you prevent brain fitness from becoming a memory test for people with dementia?
These types of quizzes should not give the elderly the feeling that it is a memory test that they could fail like an exam. Above all, the activity must be enjoyable, because that motivates the elderly with dementia to participate. The brain gym may use questions and answers to draw on knowledge from their school years and thus function as a ‘brain trainer’. You use the quiz questions to recall this knowledge from their youth.You can avoid that feeling of being tested or having to take an exam by asking the questions in general instead of directing a quiz question to a specific person. This does entail the risk that none of the seniors will respond, because they feel unsure about the correct answer. If there is no response at all, you can simplify the question or suggest the answer.You can read how to suggest an answer with a question in the article: ‘Open, closed and leading questions for people with dementia’. If you know the participants of the brain exercise group well, if you do not get an answer, you can ask the question again to a senior who you know or suspect knows the answer to the quiz question.
How do you prevent this ‘brain training’ from becoming a competition?
You can prevent brain training from becoming a competition by not asking the question to anyone in particular, but to the entire group of elderly people, many of whom have Alzheimer’s disease. Another tip is not to label a wrong answer as wrong. If you get a wrong answer, you would rather say something like almost right, or that would also be a good answer, but I actually meant something else. Be positive if an answer is correct, but don’t overdo it as you might embarrass the older person or make the others who didn’t respond feel less smart.
How do you further implement a brain exercise program for the very elderly who suffer from Alzheimer’s?
It is quite conceivable that you will quickly get through your quiz questions. For example, provide spare questions or read one or more fairy tales. You can also show the very elderly with dementia a number of images of well-known fairy tales such as Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood and the Bad Wolf, Tom Thumb, Hansel and Gretel and the Wolf and the Seven Goats.It would be very nice if you could find a number of pop-ups of these well-known fairy tales and show them. These are intended for children, but may still appeal to the elderly. Also make sure that, as a quiz leader, you yourself know about the fairy tales that are discussed in the questions before you start this quiz.This makes it easier to help the elderly with an answer and you can spontaneously tell more about the fairy tales in question. For example: ‘Cinderella, that story about the girl who lost her glass slipper at the prince’s ball…’
Fairy tale quiz or brain exercise about well-known fairy tales
Below is an example of a brain train session for elderly people with, for example, Alzheimer’s. Quiz questions about familiar, well-known fairy tales that the seniors may have heard in their youth were chosen.
Fairy tale quiz for people with dementia: questions
- Which fairy tale character was as small as a thumb?
- What words do many fairy tales begin with?
- With what words do many fairy tales end?
- Name a fairy tale character. Or: who are fairy tales often about?
- Name a famous fairy tale.
- Who ate Little Red Riding Hood?
- Complete: Nibble, nibble, nibble, who…
- Complete: Mirror, mirror on the wall…
- Complete: the wolf and the seven…
- Complete: Snow White and the Seven…
- Who wouldn’t let her evil stepmother go to the ball?
- Who lost her glass slipper at the prince’s ball?
- Fairy tales are often about good and evil. Is the wolf in a fairy tale benign or evil?
- How was Sleeping Beauty awakened?
- Andersen is a writer of fairy tales. Is that true or not true?
Fairy tale quiz for people with dementia: answers
- Tom Thumb
- There was once..
- …And they lived happily ever after.
- Prince and princess, king and queen.
- For example, Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, Hansel and Gretel, Snow White
- By the wolf.
- …is someone nibbling at my house?
- …is the most beautiful thing in the whole country?
- …goats.
- …dwarfs
- Cinderella.
- Cinderella.
- Evil.
- Sleeping Beauty was kissed awake by a prince.
- That’s true.
Tip: invest in good storybooks
If you regularly do activities with elderly people with dementia (whether it is a quiz or a reading activity, for example), it is certainly worth purchasing one or more storybooks. Choose quality: a book with a hard cover, with a fairly large font, with images that do not seem childish and language that is simple, but not childish. Also be careful not to choose the Disney versions of the fairy tales: these sometimes differ considerably from the original versions, as these elderly people know them from their youth.NB: You can read which criteria images, pictures or photos must meet to be suitable for people with dementiain the article about making a photo book for people with dementia.
Tip: Look for the three famous fairy tale collections
- the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm
- the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen
- the fairy tales of Mother Goose by Perrault
NB: the collection of the Mother Goose fairy tales, written by Perrault, is the smallest. This fairy tale collection overlaps somewhat with that of the Brothers Grimm. If you want to know more about Perrault, you can find out more about the fairy tale writer in the article about his life.An affordable fairy tale book with all Grimm fairy tales has been published by publisher Lemniscaat. The language is flexible and contemporary, the illustrations by Charlotte Dematons witty and beautiful . It is a hardcover book that can take a beating. Also from Lemniscaat is the publication of all the stories and fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen. This fairytale book is also bound and richly illustrated by various illustrators, including Charlotte Dematons.
Conclusion
Provided you choose a good topic for a question quiz with elderly people suffering from dementia, and adjust the level of the quiz questions to their capabilities, you can give these seniors an enjoyable time and stimulate their existing knowledge.
read more
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