Mental Activities for Nursing Home Patients

The brain is a muscle. Like all other muscles, it atrophies without regular exercise. Nursing home patients need regular mental activities to help keep their brains sharp. This will help them fight dementia and ward off depression. Carefully choosing games appropriate for nursing home patients will insure they keep their minds engaged.

Word Games

• Many word games work well for nursing home patients. The bed-ridden and the mobile can enjoy them equally. Crossword puzzles require players to decipher the clues. Word searches and word finds sharpen visual acuity and pattern recognition skills as players search for the words.

Sudoku

• A sudoku puzzle has nine columns and rows of boxes. These columns and rows form nine mini-grids. The purpose is for each column, row and mini-grid to contain the numbers one through nine with no repeats. Sudoku puzzles help slow the aging process of the mind through active engagement.

Checkers and Chess

• Strategizing chess moves helps nursing home patients sharpen their memories.

  The rules of checkers are simple and easy to remember, making it a good choice for patients with memory problems. The strategizing necessary exercises the brain. Chess is a good choice for patients with better recall. The strategizing and planning necessary to play chess uses different sections of the brain.

Board Games

• Board games can help patients with memory and concentration. Simple games where patients must match cards based on memory work well. Games that use a roll of the dice to move require patients to count. Stock a game cupboard with a good variety of difficulty levels.

Bingo

• Bingo is a classic game at many nursing homes. There are many good reasons for this. The social aspect of the game helps patients fight depression. Patients must focus and recognize numbers. The ease of the game also makes it fun for people with memory problems -- there are no complicated directions to remember.