Remembering Album - Alzheimer's Disease & Dementia Message Board

angel_bear · 03-09-2005, 08:43 PM

Just a thought to share with everybody.

For MIL's birthday, I made her a mini photo album. I got a 9cm" x 9cm scrapbooking outer cover, and bought the inside sleeves that turned it into a little booklet. On the outside I decorated it with some of my quilling flowers, and put alphabet stickers on it saying "MY ALBUM" ..

When she opened it up, on the left was more stickers saying Happy Birthday" and her birthdate. On the first sleeve, I put a piece of paper with a photo of her on it, and the word stickers saying "MY FAMILY" ... as she turned each page, there was a family member ...

I used scrapbooking embellishments to decorate each page in something that had something to do with the person. EG: FIL and niece were BIG into hockey, so they had hockey sticks and puck's adorning their page. I like cats, so mine had cats' on it .. for those I didn't know, they got flowers, cause MIL likes flowers. I managed to put 17 photo's of family members in that album!!

I'm going to do another one of further away family and best friends ... because she now carries that little album around with her CONSTANTLY!! She's very very proud of it!!

So .. perhaps you could do that for your Loved One .. a Remembering Album.

Cheers
Sally

BarbaraH · 03-09-2005, 09:08 PM

Hi Sally -

Excellent idea!! It's wonderful that she loves it so much and that you thought to do it. The extra touches you added make it extra special.

There may come a time when an album of her childhood family will make her happy if she remembers that time in her life as current like my mother did.

Hugs - Barbara

angel_bear · 03-09-2005, 09:47 PM

There's the problem .. no photo's of growing up .. her parents died when she and her brother were very young, MIL had to fight Welfare in England to keep her brother with her.... There's very little to go by, and of course, when I find a picture, she can't tell me who it is .. *insert frazzled look here*

But that's a good idea for others who have history !!

Hugs
Sally

Martha H · 03-10-2005, 12:55 AM

Sally, I congratulate you. In the midst of being abused and overworked and frazzled, you had the love and kindness to spend hours making a beautiful scrapbook for MIL, rememering her as Doris, your wonderful mother in law, not 'the Imposter.'

I am beginning to think people in ancient times who believed in demonic possession were only using a metaphor they could understand to explain Alzheimers and other mental illnesses .. which were obviously prevalent even then. "The things she does cannot be my real mother, so she is 'possessed' by some evil spirit." Now we have a medical explanation, but are no better off! Well, maybe some of the drugs actually work (huge skeptical look) ..

This is Day Zero: Mom goes off on her trip. I kept the suitcase and carry on in a corner of my room. In the night she was in my room with a flashlight, looking at them. I said, Mom that is your luggage, I will put it in the living room when I get up - just didn't want it to 'be in the way' this evening ...She went back to bed. This morning she had put her old toothbrush in a plastic bag, near her jacket ..forgetting that on Monday we packed a whole cosmtic bag with new toothbrush etc,

It's now around 3 AM. Bill comes at 9 to take care of her until her flight leaves at 2:45. I leave the house ar 6 .. so in 3 hours her life for the next 20 days will be in someone else's hands. I am both apprehensive and relieved. Sometimes I think the AD that runs in families isn't genetic but 'caught' like a bad cold ...

Love,

Martha

SusanNYS · 03-10-2005, 05:18 PM

A memory book is a great idea! In addition to photos, you can put in magazine pictures of things your loved one used to enjoy - foods, hobbies, movies, etc. - with a narrative of each. Hopefully, it will ignite some old memories!