Alzheimer's and gardening

My lovely mum lived with Alzheimer's for 8 years (she died at Xmas) and found calm and comfort gardening, and being in the garden when she could no longer do any practical pottering.

Anyone else have experience of gardening as a way through this devastating condition?

Would love to hear from you.

Thanks fellow gardeners.

 

We all know that our gardens are calming and comforting places to be, but how lovely to hear that it has that effect on an Alzheimer's sufferer.

 

You were truly lucky Sixtiemax that your mum did find gardening calming. Alzheimers effects folks in a varitey of ways. Some would not find a garden calming, because they would invision the flowers to be something else and be frighten by them, they by wander out of it. They may not be able to cross the barrier from grass to pathways due to mentally invisioning it being a deep hole they might fall into. Some cry all the time, some have screaming moments. Some are violent.
I have worked in the area of geriatrics for over 20 years. A true Alzheimer's person usually confuses an object to be another object, or has not a clue what the object is used for. Example: If you give a senile dementia person a pen they know that the pen is used to write with, if you ask them to write their name they may start writting but stope short because they are forgetting their name.
But, if you give an Alzheimer's a pen, and ask them to write their name, they will not know that the object in their hand is used to write with, they may eat it, throw it, comb their hair with it, etc.
In an Alzheimer's unit, careful planning is had to keep things calm so the clients do not get scared, such as plain walls, flowered wall paper etc, may cause them to think it is bugs, or something else. A simple way to keep a client from wandering into another's room is to put a black mat at the threshold, the Alzheimer's person usually sees it as a deep hole and will not cross it. All my rambling is only a few examples.