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1- Activities Ideas
2- What to say/do for specific Challenging Behaviors

Thanks for watching! Are you caring for someone in the final stages of dementia or looking ahead to what you may have to do in the future and are not sure how you can stay connected to your person?

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Challenging Behaviors Cheatsheet:
www.dementiasuccesspath.com/behaviors-cheat-sheet

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In this video, I am going to be sharing 4 activity ideas for the final stage of dementia, so by the end of this video, you will be able to use at least 1 of these activity ideas to get a win with connecting with your late stage dementia person. By the way, when you do get that win, comment it down below so we can celebrate you.

What is Late Stage Dementia?
Just so we are all on the same page, late stage dementia or the final stages of dementia look like your person with dementia

-Needing 24/7 physical care.
-They usually need help with everything: eating, dressing, moving around, bathing etc.
-And oftentimes, they will struggle with communicating or taking in information you tell them
-or worse a minority may instead scream a lot

What All Activities for Late Stage Dementia Has in Common
The main theme for all of these ideas is that in the final stages of dementia, when our folks lose the ability to communicate verbally, our folks connect to us and the world through their senses of taste, smell, touch, vision and hearing.

#1: Touch
Having familiar to interesting things to feel with their hands or on their body is a great way to connect with someone in late stage dementia. Some ideas of familiar tactile objects are:

-Items you gathered with them like shells on a beach trip
-Fidget blankets that give their hands something to do
-Brushing their hair or massaging lotion on their hands and calling it a spa day
-Sensory books where they can feel different textures while you describe to them what they are feeling
-or bean bags that can feel soft and comforting to the touch

#2: Hearing
The main idea with sounds are for them to be familiar, not too loud and fairly calm. Some ideas are:

-Playing a familiar song and talking to them about the memories it brings up for you
-or giving your person headphones with calming music can be very helpful in keeping them calm and collected
-How I would choose the music or sounds would be music from their teens, early 20s or even songs from their childhood or sounds like
-Crashing waves or a babbling brook if it is relaxing to them or if it is familiar to them

The key for the best results despite there being significant memory loss that it is relevant to them as a person

Especially if the items your person is touching is sentimental to them or other of you, it is a great opportunity to turn what would otherwise be mundane into a meaningful moment that will give you comfort when they are gone.

#3: Smells
Like with sounds, smells are the most powerful when they are familiar. Having:

-Aromatherapy,
-candles,
-good smelling lotions
-shampoos
-smelling tasty food or treats
-familiar things like perfume or personal smells

#4: Taste
This heavily depends on if your person can eat and swallow but assuming they can, however here are some ideas:

1. Having them enjoy a sweet treat since our ability to detect sweet foods is one of the last things to go according to dementia dietitian Molly Robinson whom we did do an interview with
2. Having them be with you when you make food
3. Have them be the taste tester

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