Your brain keeps you contented and happy throughout your life, and as you advance in age, your mental health should help you live independently in Los Angeles. To ensure your brain is active and functions properly, you should challenge and exercise your mind daily. Fortunately, stimulating your brain can be easy and fun. Thanks to activities, tasks, and games that any person can enjoy. Read on to find games that can improve your cognitive skills regardless of your physical ability.

 

 

 

Sudoku Puzzles

Sudoku is like a crossword puzzle, except that it uses numbers. It is logic-based and does not require any mathematics.

To solve the puzzle that uses numbers that range from one to nine, you will fill in empty spaces with numbers that:

  • Every row, block, and column of nine has every number once
  • The sum of all numbers in all columns and rows adds up to 45

As people age, they tend to value simple pleasures in life. Sudoku is a popular game for senior citizens because it brings a sense of accomplishment and order. It is satisfying to work through a puzzle from start to finish, filling in the empty spaces and creating a completed grid.

Trivia Quizzes

Trivia is an effective way of tricking the brain into learning and increasing the capacity to remember. Playing trivia games is a mentally beneficial and fun pastime. The excitement that comes with competition, the ability to outperform other players, and winning are gratifying. Answering questions correctly in a competitive environment produces dopamine in the brain. 

Creating teams adds competitiveness, and you can reward winners. Choose whether answers are written down or called out depending on the seniors’ ability. 

To make trivia quizzes fun, you should mind your audience (you should use trivia relevant to the times that seniors relate to the most). Some of the topics your mother/father will love include:

  • Musicals
  • Previous TV show
  • Literature
  • History
  • Current affairs
  • General knowledge

Learning a New Language

Learning a foreign language at an older age reduces the risk of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia and can slow down brain deterioration in seniors with dementia. 

Depending on your parent’s mental and physical health condition, there are numerous methods of learning a new language, including: 

  • Online
  • Mobile apps
  • Enrolling in a local community center for the language classes
  • Audiobooks and books from a local library

Playing Chess

Playing chess often improves IQ. It can also prevent Alzheimer’s disease and dementia in a senior citizen. According to the New England Journal of Medicine research, persons above 75 who participated in a mentally engaging activity like chess were less likely to develop dementia than older adults who did not play. Chess encourages the brain to make a responsive pattern for calculated moves, resulting in victory and boosting memory growth. 

On top of logical growth, playing chess increases creativity. The game exercises all brain hemispheres, boosting originality by requiring your brain to decide on different chess positions and the competitor’s moves. Planning moves in the game boost your loved one’s problem-solving skills. 

Grocery List Game

A grocery list game improves memory function. The game involves the players forming a circle and the first individual beginning with, “I want to go to the grocery store and purchase….” Every subsequent individual should add an item(s) to the sentence’s end. This game aims to recall every item in the correct order. Any person that cannot remember any item or messes the order loses.

The grocery list game is ideal, especially when not having cards or board games. All you require is a few players. The game expands the brain’s capacity to recall, improving memory.

You can make your game more challenging and personal by replacing your initial sentence with any subject, like “My favorite TV show is ….”

Playing Concentration

Concentration is a board game for individuals across all age groups. Although you can purchase physical cards for the game, you can also use a deck of cards.

To play the game, you lay your deck of cards down. Then, every player turns over two cards simultaneously until they find a matching pair. Players should keep all matching pairs they find, and the winner is the person with the most matching pairs.

Playing concentration boosts your parent’s memory. Additionally, it can assist them in growing stronger connections.

Jigsaw Puzzles

Dementia is prevalent among the aged and can cause your loved one’s personality and mood to change. Initially, the aged person can experience rational thinking and memory loss challenges. Later, disruptive conduct can start.

One way to assist in treating or staving off the condition is by giving your mother or father a sense of what is familiar. Giving them valued objects stimulates their brain and slows the disease’s progress. Jigsaw puzzles can help keep familiar people, things, activities, and places in their minds.

How Jigsaw Puzzles Aid the Brain

A jigsaw puzzle engages the brain to retain information on colors and shapes, allowing the player to select pieces that fit together correctly. The search for pieces requires the player to remember how all pieces should look to complete images. Doing this often boosts memory.

Moreover, jigsaw puzzles promote a balance between the right and left parts of the brain. The left brain is objective, sequential, rational, problem-solving, and searches for parts. On the other hand, the right brain is subjective, intuitive, wants randomness, and sees the big picture. These puzzles bring the best of the brain hemispheres, enhancing your parent’s ability to recall, understand, and learn.

Every success with the jigsaw puzzle encourages dopamine production, a neurotransmitter that regulates mood and affects your elderly parent’s motivation and concentration.

Selecting Jigsaw Puzzles

When choosing jigsaw puzzles for your parent, consider the factors below:

  • Avoid children’s puzzles with big pieces that are simple to complete
  • Also, avoid puzzles with few colors or that are complex
  • If your parent has arthritis or experience difficulties picking up tiny pieces, consider that when choosing the puzzle
  • Set up the puzzle station in an area with sufficient light and where the senior citizen can sit safely and comfortably
  • Choose a puzzle with pleasant pictures or that can evoke your loved one’s memories

Playing Scrabble

It is time to win the triple letter score with the social senior brain game. You have played the game at one point, and it always presents a challenge. Scrabble requires you to scratch your mind’s depth to develop as many words as possible. It also encourages you to be strategic with your next move if you want to score many points.

Scrabble is played in groups, leading to social benefits. Other benefits of scrabble include:

  • Enriches vocabulary (playing can teach you new words)
  • Improves memory
  • Assists in releasing of endorphins
  • Teaches tactics and strategies

Classes and Crafts

Starting a new hobby effectively develops new skills, stretches the brain, and enhances hand-eye coordination.

Although it does not sound like a game, seniors can enhance their mental and physical health by taking a class or picking up a new craft. Check bulletin boards at local coffee shops and libraries to see if residents offer new classes.

Additionally, your elderly parent can take a class or pick up a hobby online. Below are some ideas:

  • YouTube
  • Udemy
  • We Craft Box

Counting Backwards

You do not have to be good at mathematics to play this game. All you need is to know how to count and perform simple subtraction.

You can count backward from 300 and subtract ten from each number (300, 290, 280). Then try counting backward from 120, subtracting three from every number (120, 117, 114). 

Remember to keep this consistent. It is an impressive start for memory advances through exercises.

Also, always change the game’s rules to challenge your parent’s brain.

Card Games for Seniors

Card games are exciting and encourage socialization since they involve multiple players. Cards are pocket-friendly and do not require extra equipment or tools. Many generations celebrate card games for their ability to facilitate pressure-free social gatherings, memorable conversations, and recreation. Card games stimulate seniors' brains by testing their strategic skills.

Some of the card games worth playing include:

  • Uno — Players should match colors, words, or card numbers until only one card remains.
  • Gin rummy — Arranging cards into sequences or groups of the same rank before your opponents.
  • Old maid
  • Pinochle
  • Spades
  • Cribbage
  • Canasta
  • Snap
  • No Thanks!
  • War
  • Phase 10
  • Crazy eights
  • Go fish
  • Bridge
  • Rummy
  • Solitaire
  • Poker
  • Lowdown
  • SkipBo

Consider Bingo

Bingo is an easy and fun activity that you can play in small or large groups. While it is common among seniors living in assisted living facilities, you can replicate it in your home. Typical benefits of bingo include:

  • Boosts social engagement — Generally, seniors struggle with isolation; they have lost their loved ones due to distance, engagements in life, and death. Additionally, they are less active than before, making it difficult to leave their home and engage in social activities. Bingo can allow your aged parent to interact with others and obtain fresh air. Since the game occurs at the same time in a week, it can become a routine.
  • Improves your parent's cognitive function — Most brain games assist aging people to remain sharp and tackle everyday tasks. Many seniors can play bingo irrespective of their mental health stages. Bingo is repetitive and essential for people who cannot learn new skills and rules.
  • Allows recalling and remembering — Your elderly parent has many experiences that make bingo entertaining for them to play. After noting down the similar things they have done on a bingo card, the caller can say them to the group. Your loved one gets an opportunity to reminisce and laugh about their lives, allowing them to interact with seniors with similar experiences.
  • Improves hand-eye coordination — As human beings age, bodies lose coordination skills. Since your aged parent should quickly place chips on their card in bingo, it is a great way to improve hand-eye coordination. It can allow them to engage in grooming, cleaning, and cooking tasks.

Brain Yoga

While brain yoga is an easy physical activity, it is mentally challenging. You do not require any equipment and can be done at any place.

Brain yoga stimulates the brain and improves motor abilities and hand-eye coordination, increasing mental abilities.

Below is an example you can try:

  • Make a fist using the right hand, raise the thumb and hold the position
  • Make a fist using your left hand and extend the pinkie finger
  • Then alternate between hands

While these steps seem simple, they can be tricky. They stimulate your brain’s gray matter and boost memory by doing this with different body parts.

Identifying Plants

It is essential that your elderly parent spends time outside of your home, whether shopping, visiting loved ones, attending a religious event, or exercising. Nevertheless, if your loved one can leave the house, you can spend time in your garden identifying plants. Fresh air stimulates the brain, positively impacting their mental health.

Art and Craft

Have you ever been so involved in a piece of art that you do not notice your thoughts or what is happening around you? The focus is instrumental to mental health and a pure form of happiness. When mentally engaged, the body lacks the processing power to think about your physical feelings like negative emotions or hunger. 

Additionally, engaging in an art and craft activity can boost creativity and improve problem-solving and visual-spatial processing skills. 

There are various cost-effective and easy to put together crafts that your elderly parent can enjoy, including:

  • Baking
  • Quilting 
  • Scrapbooking
  • Knitting
  • Woodworking
  • Beading 
  • Painting and drawing
  • Ceramics

Contact a Compassionate Living-in Caregiver Near Me

Like all body parts, the brain should stay active to remain healthy. Games exercise an aged person’s mind, stimulate mental activity, and improve memory retention. For many years Los Angeles families have relied on Mom’s Home Care to offer the assistance older adults require to live comfortably and safely in their homes. We understand every older adult has unique needs, and when you call us, our friendly staff will schedule an initial consultation with you and your parents. During the consultation, we can develop a customized care schedule and plan. Our holistic care is designed to assist your parents in paying attention to a healthy lifestyle and brain-stimulating activities that can delay the onset of dementia and stave off cognitive decline. Please contact us at 323-244-4789 if you seek home care services for your aging parents and learn how we can help you and your elderly parents.