Activities for your aging parent

Mike: Yeah, I think one thing that we see with our parents, and I saw it with my dad especially after he had COVID, but even since then, making sure that he stays active, staying healthy even at the age of 84, because that helps make you happy.

Kim:Absolutely, and it helps you age better. Today we’re talking to Amy Timberly of A Mighty Good Time. Thanks so much for being with us.

Amy:Hi, thanks for having me.

Kim:It’s so important, isn’t it, just to keep our parents aging actively, if that makes sense, where we just want them to be as physically, you know, healthy and mentally healthy as they can be.

Amy: It’s important for all of us to keep moving and keep staying active, and to find things to give us joy and purpose to get up for every day, and I think that gets lost sometimes when we’re caregiving. We worry about, you know, did they eat enough and did they take their meds that day, and we miss those other components of wellness that are so integral for well-being and quality of life.

Mike:To me, I hate to call it a monster, but it’s almost like a two-headed monster that

1. you have to find things for them to do, but
2. you have to make sure that they want to do it or have the willpower, the desire, you know, to motivate themselves.

Amy: Yeah, well, and you have to find things, like you said, that resonate with them, you know, not everybody loves to do fitness programming, not everybody loves to learn something new, or, you know, it’s you have to find those little things and niches that work for them, and particularly when we’re talking about people that might be suffering from dementia as well, is really looking at, you know, what did they used to like to do, and you may need to look back as far as what did they do when they were a kid or a teenager, you know, it’s not necessarily just what was happening in the last few years, and all of us are like that. I’m finding that I’m rediscovering pieces of me as I get older, of things I enjoyed as a child that I haven’t yet re-engaged with as an older person.

Kim:I like what you mentioned about that. We are often so worried about, did you take your medicine?, did you do this?, did you do that?, that we don’t think of, Oh, did you do anything fun today? You know, and so I think that’s so important. I know my mom is great about, there is a standing domino’s appointment every day at three, and she usually has an exercise class at 11:30, and even today she called me while she was riding the bike. I said, “What are you doing?” She said, “Oh, I’m just riding the bike,” and because I not bug her, but I guess remind her often, “Hey, have you gone on a walk today? Have you gone and ridden the bike for 10 minutes? It doesn’t matter. Can you lift a few arm weights?” All of those things are such good ways to be able to keep us healthy, so I think often we think of certainly the physical ways that we can stay active as we age.

Amy:Yeah, and there’s multiple components to that, right? There’s your physical that’s important, obviously, but what about your brain health, what about your social engagement with other people? All of those are so important. It doesn’t matter how healthy you are if you don’t have something to look forward to every day, what’s the point? You know, what’s the point? And so, finding and exploring those options and helping your loved one interact with those is really crucial, yeah.

Mike:To me, the motivation, hate to compare it to having kids, but sometimes you have to motivate your kids to do things that they may not exactly like, whether it has to do cleaning the room or eating their vegetables. And it’s the same thing with our parents. With my dad, I want him to walk every day at his independent living place, and to motivate him, I tell him, Get out there and go talk to everybody. You’re like the mayor there, so go talk to everyone and that gets him kind of like Oh yea, I’ll go talk to people and go walking.

Amy:That’s one of the things we really share with people, too, and in my work, is that one of the most important things that you can do is to socialize. And if you look at that moment when your dad is socializing, he’s walking to meet people, he’s interacting with people, which makes his brain work, right? It’s one of the best things you can do. You’re watching people’s micro expressions, you’re engaging with what’s going on with them, you’re thinking of a response, that’s all good brain health, and then it just improves your mood. Tons of research says that socialization actually helps with lots of different components, including reducing your blood pressure and all of that. So a lot of times, I tell people, if you do nothing else all week, just be sure you engage with somebody and have a conversation. It could be the best thing that you do for yourself.

Kim:I know that we often hear from people in our group that will talk about that their parents just really don’t want to leave home, they don’t want to go out and do some of the social activities, and maybe that’s why they’re not interested in an independent living or a different environment like that, because they’re really happy being at home. What would you say to encourage them to realize that that’s so important to, you know, not necessarily get out there and do all the things, but just to make sure that you’re staying engaging and socializing?

Amy:I think it’s been the gift of COVID that we actually were able to engage in a virtual world, and there are literally tens of thousands of programs that are customized for older adults going on around the world that can all be accessed virtually or by phone. And so, not everybody is a go out and do or social kind of person, and I think that’s okay. I believe it or not, I’m a little bit of an introvert myself, and so I love virtual programming. It lets me travel the world, it lets me learn new things by just clicking into something on my computer. And even if you’re not comfortable in that space, there’s some fabulous phone-based programming going on from nonprofits around the country that literally call you when it’s time for the class, and you pick up the phone and you listen in, and it’s really amazing stuff. So, being homebound is no excuse for not being able to engage with other people, and a lot of these programs have a social component where they want to get you to connect to other people through that process.

Mike:I think those are the types of ideas that a lot of people need, because there are so many of us who may have mom and/or dad living at home with us, so it’s a case of, well, I want mom and/or dad to be active, to be doing something, but that may mean I have to be doing something with them, right, and I’m busy, I’ve got all this work to do. So what do I do there? But if there are things out there that can call you and tell you what’s available, it makes it even easier, come to you, yeah,

Amy: Yeah, you can connect right in, get it set, you know, even if it’s something where you need to log mom into a program because she doesn’t love the computer, she can still sit there and be seen virtually on the camera and talk with people, do a fitness class with other folks. There’s some, honestly, there’s some incredible stuff going on in the world. There’s some travel programs right now that you can travel virtually with a live tour guide. All around the world, all over the place and they will talk to you and you can chat with them you can take postcards while you walk around while they walk you around. It’s fascinating. Virtual travel has opened this whole new world to older adults and caregivers that wasn’t there before.

Kim: Well, I have one friend who very often, anytime she’s doing something cool, she actually just FaceTimes her mom. She’ll, you know, she’s at the beach, she gets her phone out and she just says, “Hey mom,” and we’ll just let her turn the camera so that she can feel like she’s at the beach, or if she’s at her ranch or if she is somewhere else where she’s, you know, in a beautiful mountain, she’ll FaceTime her mom, and that lets her mom feel like she’s part of it. It sounds like some of these programs do the same thing, but that’s something real easy that we can do if we’re out and about, you know, let just call your parent and if they’re able to FaceTime and show them what you’re saying, a cool sunset, you know.

Amy:Yet, there’s so much new technology we’ve been exploring. Virtual reality, actually my husband’s out teaching a virtual reality class right now, and a couple of weeks ago we did one at a retirement community, and a woman came up and she said, “You know, I used to be a scuba diver,” and I said, “Oh, we’ve got this underwater experience that you can do,” and the oohs and aahs from her as she was going through that was just phenomenal. So even just your virtual reality headsets that you can buy through Meta or Facebook or whoever’s Oculus, whatever it is right now, I’m not as good at this stuff, but there’s tons of free stuff that you can download where you can literally immerse a loved one, and even they’re using a lot with dementia as well, for people to help them even go wander around the street of their old house or experience something that they used to experience. So, don’t discount where we’re headed with technology; it’s fascinating to watch, yeah.

Mike: This, I’d say, scary part for me is that, like so much that we talk about with Parenting Aging Parents, we don’t know where to find it. You know, when we’re talking about finding a good independent living place or a good memory care place, we don’t know where to look, we don’t know what we’re doing, finding home care, home health care, etc., you just, you don’t know what to Google [search on the web], you don’t know how to find it, you don’t know where to go, and I feel like so many people are stuck in that situation where it’s like, “Okay, I know there’s lots of stuff out there for mom and dad, but it’s going to take me forever to search for it. I guess I’m just going to give up.” You know, what can make that easier?

Amy: Well, that’s why we built “A Mighty Good Time”. So, amightygoodtime.com, it’s a one-stop-shop website for older adult activities nationwide, and so it has your in-person classes in communities, has virtual, and it has phone-based programming, and it’s all right there for you. We’ve got about 150 providers that have their classes on the site. We vet those for you to make sure that they’re safe, to make sure that it’s reputable organizations that are providing those. There’s a combination of free and paid activities, so cost should not be a barrier, and it is 100% free for you to get on there and search, and you can find categories from fitness to travel to arts and crafts to music and to support programs. We have support groups, caregiving options, seminars, tons of stuff, so you can really find a little bit of everything, and we do the research for you so you don’t have to do that.

Mike: We have so many people around the country. Can you go to your local library or even your local library website, see what’s available in our area, see if there’s something that you know maybe you didn’t know about? Just again, searching on our own, is it easy to do?

Amy:Yeah, it can be easy to do. I mean, I think that the trick is to look, you know, “Google” [search on the web] senior activities and senior living, you know, specifically. It helps. Senior fitness, you can find tons of stuff. But again, that’s why we built our site because it can be hard when you look at the way the internet works and the way it sorts activities. Even some of the top providers are kind of hard to find. And so we do that. But almost every community has a senior center, so search for senior centers. Libraries do amazing programming, there’s tons of stuff out there. Your local YMCAs are getting really engaged with senior program and older adult programming. And then always, if your loved one has dementia, search for adult day programming. There’s so many fantastic new ones that are coming up. I don’t know if you’ve seen the town square that just opened up here in the Austin area, like there’s just so many unique opportunities for people to find things to stay active and engaged, and just again to find that purpose and happiness every day.

Kim: Well, and I think that you just mentioned the purpose and happiness, and I think that as I watch my own mom living in a retirement community, where frankly many days are very much the same as the day before, and I think, you know, frankly it can be hard to remember what day is it, what month are we in, because it is literally, I mean yes, she has that standing appointment, but she does that, she does a lot of the same things every day. How do you help them find that purpose, that sort of component, if you will?

Amy: Yeah, I think there’s multiple ways to find purpose in your life, and that can be done in a myriad of different ways. Just because you’re aging or just even if you’re experiencing dementia or have a disability, it doesn’t mean that you can’t engage in things to help others. There’s some fantastic ways to volunteer from your home, writing cards, talking to kids on the phone, there’s just different things that can be done that way. So volunteering is a really great way to find purpose in your life.

Again, finding those things that give you joy, if you like to garden, if you like to read, if you have a hobby, and again helping your loved one access that and remember what those things were and then offering opportunities for them to engage with those things.

And then also, you know, always, spirituality is really important for a lot of people, and so how do we bring, you know, if they’re homebound, how do we bring the church into them, how do we connect them with their faith, that can be really important. And again, we get so caught up on the medicine and the nutrition and, you know, “did they get a bath today?”, and sometimes that’s the least important thing, you know, sometimes there’s another thing we need to think about that day, and it’s, you know, “What did you do today and did you have a good time?”

Mike: Healthy, happy, and active, that’s just the key. It sounds simple, but it can be done.

Amy: Yeah, and you have to make a plan for it. You think about when, how you want to do it, and how many times a week, and then actually plug it in and you’ll make it happen, yeah.

Kim: So you make it part of your regular life so that it is not just a, it becomes just this is just the routine that we have like “three o’clock dominoes”, but, you know, something like that where that way it just happens and so that way it does become a way to enrich their life.

Mike: Think about their personality and fit it into that, yeah.

Absolutely, Amy. Thank you so much. I love the tips that you gave, and it’s going to help so many people. We really appreciate it.

Amy: You’re more welcome. Thanks for having me.

Mike: Thank you. Something that I guess you need to talk to mom about and talk to my dad.

Kim: Interesting ideas.

Mike: Even my mom in memory care, you know, she doesn’t like sometimes doing the drawing or the coloring or other activities, but give her some towels, and she loves folding them because that’s what she loves to do, and she’s a great mom, right? So just find their personality and let’s keep them healthy, happy, and active,

Kim: find them fun things to do, and make sure that they are having a little bit of fun, hopefully, no matter what their situation.

Mike: Remember, if there’s any topic you’d like us to talk about, do an interview about, let us know, Parenting Aging Parents.