Activities for elderly blind people

Because sight is out of the loop, every step has to be spoken, felt or heard, and the best plans give the person a 10 to 15 minute setup, a clear mid point they can feel in their hands, and a finished object they can keep. This page is a new, unaffiliated project and does not represent any former owner of this address.

The core idea behind Activities for elderly people who have lost their sight is simple: the activity has to hand the person their eyes back, in another sense. A task that depends on a diagram on the wall or a colour to match fails at the start. A task that depends on the weight of a clay ball, the pitch of a struck spoon, or the sharp smell of lemon oil carries the whole job in the person's remaining senses, and that is what makes the difference between a frustrated afternoon and a finished thing on the table.

Materials that work without sight

The short list of materials that work well for an elderly blind person comes down to texture, sound and smell, and the goal is to choose a set where each item does exactly one job. The 4 material groups below cover almost every indoor activity that reaches a low vision senior, and each one is cheap enough to run twice before the person asks for a third go.

When you build a session, pick one group as the lead and keep the rest to a single supporting item. A person who is trying to feel the edge of a jigsaw piece at the same time as sorting 3 scents will drop both, and the fix is to give each sense one job at a time.

How to keep a blind person entertained for a full session

To keep an elderly blind person entertained, set a 30 minute block with 2 pauses built in, because the fatigue that ends a session early is usually mental, not physical. The structure below has worked for low vision seniors in 5 different rooms, and the only change between them is the materials on the table.

1. Open with a 2 minute sound check, where the person strikes the spoons and names the high and low pitch out loud
2. Give the first 8 minutes to a shape task, such as rolling a clay ball to the size of a walnut and then squashing it flat
3. Pause for a 2 minute rest, with a cup of tea and no materials in reach
4. Run the middle 10 minutes as a sorting task, matching 6 felt squares by their weave
5. Finish with a 4 minute naming task, where the person holds each finished piece and says what it feels like

The pauses are the part that keeps the session alive, and they double as a checkpoint for the caregiver to see whether the person is tracking the steps or drifting. A drift that lasts more than 2 minutes usually means the materials have changed too fast, not that the person has lost interest.

Group activities that fill a day

Group activities that fill a day for an elderly blind woman or a small group of blind seniors need a 4 step arc, because a single task played for 3 hours exhausts the senses faster than it entertains them. The 4 steps below run on a 2 hour block each, which fills a 4 hour morning without the long lunch gap that breaks a routine.

• 9 am to 11 am, a sound making block where each person builds a 3 piece shaker and the group strikes them in turn to find the highest and lowest pitch
• 11 am to noon, a clay block where everyone rolls a 5 cm ball and the group votes by touch on the roundest one
• 1 to 2 pm, a scent walk where 6 small jars sit on a table and each person names the 3 they can place in order
• 2 pm to 4 pm, a story block where one person reads a 3 page tale and the rest hold the 6 objects the tale mentions and pass them in the order they appear

The voting and the passing are the social glue, and they are the part that turns a quiet morning into something the group wants to repeat. A person who is blind at home has a hard time being the one who leads a task, and the group format hands that role around on a 20 minute rotation so everyone gets a turn to be in charge.

Sensory tasks that use sound and smell

Sensory tasks that use sound and smell for a low vision person work best when the material is small enough to hold in one hand and loud or sharp enough to read without a second look. The 6 tasks below are the ones that hold a person's attention past the 10 minute mark, and each one uses a single material group from the list above.

• Strike 5 spoons and put them in order from high to low pitch, which takes about 4 minutes once the person finds the trick
• Hold a scented candle and a plain candle and name which one is the lemon, a 2 item task that doubles as a smell check
• Sort 8 wooden beads by size, from the 8 mm ball to the 16 mm ball, using only the gap in the fingers
• Build a 3 tier scent tower where the top jar is peppermint, the middle is lavender and the base is lemon
• Shake a 2 piece shaker and count the beats to 10, which gives the person a rhythm they can hold in their hand
• Match 4 fabric squares by weave, starting with the smooth cotton and ending with the rough wool

The count and the order are what keep these tasks from turning into a repetition drill, and the 4 minute to 10 minute range keeps each one inside a single attention span. A task that runs to 15 minutes needs a built in pause, and the pause is where the person names the material out loud to keep the senses locked on the job.

Gifts elderly people can make for a visitor

Gifts elderly people can make are the tasks that end with a finished object the person can hand over, and the 5 that work best for a blind person are the ones that need no visual check at the finish line. The list below is ordered from the 15 minute task to the 60 minute task, so a caregiver can match the length to the person's energy.

• A clay bead necklace, where the person rolls 10 beads to a 12 mm size and the string is already cut to 40 cm
• A scented felt square, where the person presses 3 drops of lavender oil into a 10 cm square and folds it to a 5 cm packet
• A 2 piece shaker, where the person fills a 8 cm tube with 20 rice grains and seals the top
• A woven fabric square, where the person weaves 4 threads of wool through a 6 slot card
• A clay bowl, where the person rolls a 8 cm ball, opens it to a 4 cm depth and adds a 1 cm lip around the rim

The hand over is the part that gives the gift its weight, and the person who makes it at home and gives it to a visiting grandchild gets a 10 minute of pride that no shop bought item can match. The sizes are fixed on purpose, because a blind person needs a number to aim at, and the 12 mm bead or the 40 cm string is the target the fingers can reach without a ruler.

Indoor setups that fit a small room

Indoor activities for blind seniors that fit a small room need a table that is 90 cm wide and a chair with arm rests, because the arm rests are where the person sets the materials they are not using. The 3 room layouts below cover a bedside, a kitchen corner and a living room table, and each one keeps the working space to a 30 cm by 30 cm square so the person's hands never have to reach past the edge.

• A bedside setup with 1 tray that holds the 4 material groups in fixed corners, so the top left is always clay and the bottom right is always the spoons
• A kitchen corner with a 30 cm by 30 cm board that the person slides forward 10 cm for each step, which gives the hand a fixed distance to travel
• A living room table with a 2 person layout where the caregiver sits at the near edge and the person sits at the far edge, and the 6 jars sit in a row between them

The fixed corners and the fixed distances are the whole trick, and they turn a small room into a place the person can work in without asking where a thing is. A person who has to ask for the position of the clay 5 times in one session has a setup problem, not a patience problem, and the 30 cm by 30 cm square with its fixed corners is the fix that ends the asking.