8 Indoor Activities for Wheelchair bound Elderlies

8 Wholesome Indoor Activities for Seniors on Wheelchairs

During our weekly date with my parents, I would usually bring them the park for Vitamin D sunlight, shopping or meals at random restaurants.

Since I become a trainer 2 years ago, I make an effort to plan engaging wholesome activities for my parents. I try to include activities which stretch their brain cells and practice their fine motor skills while we spend quality time together.

Both of my aging parents require wheelchair to move around, hence the activities selected have to take this in consideration.

I find that it is easier to plan indoor activities for mum as there are more varieties of sit-down activities for females. Ladies can do flower arrangement, sewing, origami, beading, cake decoration, art and crafts... The list goes on... but there are limited tools for our elderly men. This is especially obvious when they are not highly educated. Sudoku, crossword puzzles or learning a new musical instrument would be tougher for them.

For my father, I chose items which are not kiddish, feminine or western; so he would feel comfortable using them. The following are some of the suitable tools which keeps my retiree dad occupied at home. They prevents dementia or degenerative aging. Some of these games are fitting for elderly ladies too!


1. Memory Game

A very simple memory game to play with old folks.
 

I bought it from a push cart.

2. 3D Model Building

Building a cool Jeep gives my dad a great sense of accomplishment.
Planes, tanks and architecture models are available as well. Very affordable.

We intend to paint it together one of these days.

 

3. Tangoes Game

Dad gets creative as he think of ways to form the shapes with limited pieces given.
Solutions are provided in this booklet.

This game set is suitable for the elderly as it is thick enough for adults to hold and
magnetic features to prevent the Tangoes from dropping. Brilliant for long-distance travelling.

This game can be played when the senior is alone.

4. Wooden Block Puzzles

The pieces are labelled with numbers.

5. Building Game

Plastic construction toys that joined by magnets.
Fun way to get the mind and hands working!

6. Coloring

Retro-themed coloring activity book "My Kueh Lapis". 

7. Calligraphy

Dad practicing Chinese calligraphy using papers that can be reused.

I intend to introduce western calligraphy to him.

8. Mahjong

All time favorite social strategy game!
My mother-in-law plays Mahjong with her siblings weekly.

There are definitely many more ways to maintain an active healthy lifestyle, feel free to share additional senior activities ideas to me. 😊

ADA Cafe

ADA Cafe Singapore

ADA cafe is set up by Alzheimer's Disease Association, Singapore. It is one awesome cafe build with love! Located at the sparkling new Agape Village, the menu is very affordable! The friendly team here serves western food. Let's give them the love and support they need! :)

A fatherly waiter took this photo for me

Tasty Ebi Prawn Pesto Pasta

Cheerful air-conditioned cafe

Western set lunch that cost less than S$10!

Address: 7A Lorong 8 Toa Payoh #01-01 Agape Village Singapore 319 264.

Opening Hours:
Mondays-Fridays: 8.30am- 5.30pm
Saturdays: 8.30am- 2pm.

Ambience: 9 out of 10.
The ambience is quiet, bright and cozy. Suitable for business meetings.

Cleanliness: 10 out of 10

Remarks: For those who are driving, park at Agape Village.

Parental Matchmaking Singapore 2017

Parental Matchmaking is a session for family members to network with each other, and exchange details of their single children (Singaporean or Permanent Residents only). 

To increase the likelihood of finding a good match for singles, family members are encouraged to provide as much information about the single as possible. Some helpful information to provide would include photos and a profile consisting of the single’s name, age, educational qualifications, occupation and hobbies, as well as their contact details such as email address and mobile number.

Date: 8 January 2017, Sunday, 3.30pm to 5.30pm.
Venue: 51 Cuppage Road #10-08, Singapore 229469 (near Somerset MRT)
Price: $22 each. Price includes GST, networking and a 15min talk about parental matchmaking etiquette (in Mandarin / English) and 1 drink.

Looking forward to meet the parents and share tips on Parental Matchmaking session tomorrow!

Clique2click also run variety of singles events regularly. Check them out at www.Clique2click.com

Sunset Marriage

Morning Interview at 958 radio station on
Parental Matchmaking & latest marriage statistic in Singapore.

I was invited for an interview on 95.8 Mandarin radio station on the topic of marriage among the Singapore elderly. Based on the recent Singapore statistics, we see double the number of marriages in people aged 60 and above compared to a decade ago.

Statistics from WHO ranked Singapore number 4 in terms of life expectancy. Most Singaporeans lived beyond 82 years old. As Singaporean singles are living longer, what better way to lead their lives in the silver age than by developing a deeper relationship with someone that they like? Greater awareness on the benefits of emotional health also motivates singles in 60s to find a life partner.

During the interview, the DJ asked if having offspring is the key motivation for my Parental matchmaking participants. From the interactions with the parents that I met in my Parental Matchmaking sessions, surprisingly, their first concern is finding their single adult children a companion; I have not heard any parents mention about getting grandchildren. These parents found happiness in their marriage and sincerely hoped their kids would be able to find love, find someone to take care of them and settle down— just like themselves.

I am very heartened these parents and silver newly-weds see the importance of love and companionship. They didn’t give up searching despite their age. I encourage the silver singles to continue enlarge their social circle so as to meet someone suitable, caring and trustworthy.

We are conducting an event for singles age 35 and above on 15th December 2015. We welcome singles of this age range to join us! Our participants are Singaporeans, Permanent residents and Employment Pass holders. Please click here to find out more!

 

First Muslim Parental Matchmaking

First Muslim Parental Matchmaking in Singapore

After running 4 sessions of Parental Matchmaking for the general public in Singapore. I decided to  organize a similar session for Muslim parents who are concerned about the marital status of their single children.

This is the first time we are conducting this for the Muslims. Based on my research, no one else has done this on a corporate level. I find a need for this session as Muslims are open to the idea of parents introducing potential life partners to them. Very excited to be able to help my fellow Muslim friends. Straits times featured about this event today.

These parents are comforted to  find
fellow parents who could identify with their feelings.

 

The next Parental Matchmaking for general public will be on 30th June, Tuesday, 7pm-10pm at Thr3e Bistro, 6 Raffles Boulevard Marina Square #01-07/08 Singapore 039594(Near City hall MRT). Price is $28 (Price includes GST, facilitation and a 15min talk about parental matchmaking etiquette)

Parental Matchmaking

Took a quick photo at Singapore Turf Club before the parents come

Parental Matchmaking (家长相亲会) is a session for family members to network with each other, and exchange details of their single adults family member. It is up to the singles to follow up and develop the relationship from there. 

When running the 4th Parental Matchmaking session today, I received a pleasant surprise! An elderly lady gave me a big mama hug. Aw... So sweet of her! Ultra encouraging to feel appreciated and loved.

Another beautiful thing about this lady is – her daughter. She signed her parents up to attend today's Parental Matchmaking! Cool eh! Unlike some singles, this eligible bachelorette is very open to her parents joining this event. She is an established busy career women with limited singles in her social circle and industry. And she is more than grateful that her mother could network on her behalf! What a blessed, appreciative and confident lady!

Having ran Parental Matchmaking for years, it is always very heartwarming to see parents enjoy strong ties with their adult children. These wonderful parents could relate so well with their children, that their adult children could entrust them to help enlarge their social circle and hopefully find marital bliss. During the first 3 sessions of the Parental Matchmaking, some of these singles even attended with their parents.

Before this elderly lady left, she has asked me to keep her updated of my singles events so that her daughter can join. Totally adore her loving, positive and proactive attitude!!! She is happy to be able to help her daughter meet more friends. I wish to meet more supportive folks like her.

Recycle Wheelchairs

The screws on my mum's wheelchair were rusty and loose. We wanted to buy her a new wheelchair and wondering how to dispose the old one when my resourceful sister told me about this organization.

Their office at a voideck of HDB

Mobility Aids Services & Training Centre
Address:  Blk 254 Tampines Street 21 #01-464 Singapore 521254
Tel: 67839023
Website: http://kampungsenang.org/

Opening hours:
9am to 5.30pm (Monday- Friday)
9am to 1pm (Sat)
Closed on Sunday and public holidays

Mobility Aids Services & Training Centre at Tampines is a charity organization that collects used wheel chairs, commodes, walking aids or hospital beds.  They even offer to collect these equipments from your home (within Singapore).

The room that used living aids are given  facelift

Mobility Aids Services & Training Centre will repair and refurbish the donated mobility aids/ hospital beds so that it is working well before they rent it out. In our aging society, organization like these serves 2 important purposes of defraying the cost of living aids for the needies and recycling to protect our earth's resources.

Many models to chose

We are for recycling. We gladly gave Mobility Aids Services & Training Centre Mum's old wheel chair so that they could revitalize it to be usable again.  They have a huge collection of living aids, some of them are relatively new! We decided to rent one from them instead of spending a few hundred dollars on a new one. The fee for renting a wheelchair is S$80- S$100. There is no time limit to the rental of their equipments. Excellent for folks who are terminally ill or immobile.

Mum's new horse

Mum tried on a few wheel chairs and selected this one which suits her height and lifestyle.

Thank God for organizations like these, they have to receive donations to support their operations. On this season of giving, let's donate to them (via their website) or share this post to create awareness about their services so that more can be blessed.

Parental Matchmaking

As a singles event planner, whenever I meet parents with adult singles children, they would not hesitate to share with me 3 common things.

1. How worried they are over the future of their middle aged kids and how they wish their children would be able to find someone to take care of each other.

2. How their kids seems too busy or disinterested to look for a life partner, even though they have the intention to settle down.

3. How they wish their children would be more proactive in their search for a life partner. 

Their children are usually white collar workers with established careers. They spend a lot of time at work and taking care of their parents. They are confident, filial and wonderful people, but just lack the opportunities, time and energy to meet other singles.

Most of these parents are retired and have more time on their hands. They wish to do something positive to help their children suss out compatible friends. 

My company– Clique Wise has conducted 3 Parental Matchmaking/Parental Connections sessions so far. The most recent one was held at the Singapore Turf Club on 2 Feb 2013.

Parental Connections/Parental Matchmaking is a session for family members to network with each other, and exchange details of their single children. It is up to the singles to follow up and develop the relationship from there. To increase the likelihood of finding a good match for singles, family members are encouraged to provide as much information about their single children as possible. 

Every event, parents would thank us sincerely for running the Parental Connections. They are grateful that they could do something for their children's happiness through our events. These parents simply wish happiness for their beloved kids. Some children prepared a neat resume for their parents to attend this session. 

I'm especially delighted to see parents attending this session with their single children. It shows that they have very close kinships. They value each other's opinion in the search for life partner. 

During the last 2 Parental Matchmaking, I gave a short seminar to manage the expectation of the parents on these sessions. I shared that the objective of these networking events is to assist the singles to enlarge their social circle, not for parents to find their preferred daughter-in-law or son-in-law. Ultimately, the singles are the ones who make the chemistry sizzle and the commitment to be together. I also touched on tips to enhance relationship between parents and adult children.

We sincerely hope the singles children will be more open-minded to meet new friends and proactive to follow up with one other after these sessions. Why waste the kind efforts of the elders? If friendship blossoms to marriage, it's a bonus! If not, they gain new friends!

Cooking Lobster

Grilled cod fish at Cornerstone. Must try!!!

Cornerstone is a new restaurant in tranquil Bishan Park. The garden concept makes it an ideal place to chill out and dine with loved ones. What impresses me is the owners put an extra effort to make this place elderly, kids and pets friendly. As such it is an ideal place for gatherings.

Successful, young and diligent chef Yeo Kian Tong

Owner, chef Yeo Kian Tong, graduated from Le Cordon Bleu Culinary Arts and is a winner of Gourmand World Cookbook Award (Best Chinese Cookbook Singapore). He is the pride of Singapore and believes in serving quality western food at affordable price. We have known each other for years and always wanted to run a cooking class together. Hence Clique Wise had a Lobster Bisque cooking class at Cornerstone today.

I am a soup person and hopes to cook Lobster bisque. Lobster bisque is a complicated and delicate dish to prepare. The thought of handling the lobster is enough to scare most of us. But chef Albert Ryan of Cornerstone made it easy for novices like us to learn.

In this video, he demostrated how to cut the lobster with great ease. By cutting the lobster across, we could retrieve the flesh for frying, or just grill, bake and steam it like this.

Chef Albert Ryan taught us how to cut lobster.

Chef Albert Ryan has appeared in many cooking programmes,
he shares his knowledge generously.

Mothers Day

Besides the usual feast, I have been wondering how to celebrate Mothers Day creatively till I saw this video. My mum looks like the lady in this video. I showed it to her and she roared in laughter. Mum has a good sense of humor, her joyful laughter meant more than anything!

To all the mummies out there, Happy Mothers Day! May joy be with you always!



Just for laughs!

Chess

After running an international chess workshop for Clique Wise today, I realised 5 benefits of this age-old game.

Marco, from The Chess School, was explaining the game rules and strategies.

Benefits of Playing Chess:

1) Brain Health
Mental exercise is as important as physical exercise. Playing chess stimulates thinking and stretch our brain muscles, thereby improving our memory and helping us to be mentally alert to make decisions better and faster. Unlike mah-jong which has the risk of losing money, chess is a wholesome game to protect the mental faculties of senior citizens from degenerating.

2) Learning abilities
Research has shown that playing chess enhances learning development of kids. This game cultivates analytical reasoning ability and problem-solving skills; which is especially useful in mathematics and science.

3) Concentration
Build mental endurance as the game requires the players to stay calm and focused over long period of time.

4) Understand other's character
As we observe our opponent's facial expression and body language during the chess game, we get to know them more, as such we could manage the relationship better.

5) Social
Research has shown that playing chess fosters confidence, self-esteem and social skills. With healthy brain, we are able to establish more meaningful relationships.

Chess is a brilliant, interactive and fascinating game that enriches the mind and our social experience with people. A well fought game can be a fulfilling experience. Hope more will pick up this game, enjoy and favour from it!

My second game of chess. Thanks to all the coaching, White won.
To make the learning more interesting, I challenged the trainers to help Black win.

Rediffusion = Porridge

3 Cs why Rediffusion is like Teochew porridge:

Culture - reminds Chinese of our rich heritage and Singapore’s history, keep us connected with our roots. Essential for continuity of Asian tradition.

Comforting - reminds us of Ah Ma's cooking, warms our soul with love. Brings our hearts closer to home.

Colourful - great variety of dishes to cater to different taste.

Teochew Porridge at Cheong Chin Nam Road

Like Teochew porrridge, Rediffusion is enriching our lives and would be dearly missed if it is gone.  I wish the flavours of this station would be retained.

Rediffusion

Rediffusion will be going off the air come April 30. Rediffusion is a subscription radio that has a long history in Singapore. Since 1949, Rediffusion served the community, providing news, information as well as quality listening entertainment.

Their audience are mainly dialect speaking Chinese age 40 and above. I am honoured to have the opportunities to be interviewed during the VIP programme last December and this year's Valentine’s Day. I used Hokkien phrases freely on air and spoke about how parents could play a supportive role instead of pressurizing their children to get married.

Lydia outside the studio

Between the interviews, Teochew songs were played. The DJ and I casually chatted about the issues that old folks face in Singapore. We agree that Singapore has evolved so fast over the last 15 years that the illiterate folks find it tough to keep up with times.

My relatives in their 70s feedback why they feel cooped up at home. There have been so many new buildings and roads that they are afraid to get lost. They could not take public transport as they do not understand English, neither are they tech-savvy to use maps or GPS.  The safest way for them to commute alone out of their area is through taxi; which may be pricy for some of the retirees. As such they spend most of their time at home listening to Rediffusion.

While their kids and grand-kids are busy with work and school. Rediffusion has empowered these old folks mentally and emotionally. The dialect language is something they can relate to and it comforts them. If this radio service is gone, they will feel more lost, lonely and detached from society. Sincerely hope this station will be kept to accompany the old folks through their sunset years.

If it is not sustainable to keep Rediffusion due to commercial reasons, maybe MCYS can consider collaborating with Mediacorp to fill in this gap — a dialect radio station to meet the needs of the illiterate folks and senior citizens. It will be an avenue for youngsters to pick up their dialect and communicate with their grand parents too. There are more than 10 radio channels in Singapore. One dialect station will not dilute Mandarin or English language abilities but enrich Singapore's culture and make Singaporeans feel more connected to our roots.

A Simple Life

Movie Review from a caregiver's perspective

A Simple Life/桃姐/Sister Peach
Starring Andy Lau & Deanie Yip
Language: Mandarin with English & Chinese substitles

This reality of old age and death is something that glamour addicted silverscreen movie goers should avoid. Even the award-winning movie The Green Mile only manages to brush the surface on this subject. But in A Simple Life, director Ann Hui explores this subject subtly with depth and pockets of humour. It is quietly touching yet powerfully real… so real that the melodramatic scenes expected in a typical commercial film is unnecessary.

The only good thing about Tao-Jie’s stroke is bridging Roger and her closer. Without domestic help and a nagging voice at home, Roger learnt to be more appreciative of Tao-Jie. In the process of taking care of her, it strengthened the affinity between them. In fact, he was more attached to her than with his own mother. Tao-Jie is blessed to have Roger to cushion her sunset days with kindness, financial support and humour.

I could so empathise with how Roger the caregiver felt. My mum and I became closer when she suffered a stroke as well. After the stroke, mum was hospitalised and was unable to speak for weeks. I visited her in the hospital almost daily, applied moisturizer on her hands, lip balm on her dry lips caused by the air-con and prayed with her. She couldn’t speak then but look at me with gratitude. Mum has since recovered and is back home, she is able to speak and walk a little. Now, my siblings and I made regular effort to bring my parents out for dates. We appreciate every moment spent with them. Sincerely thank God that mum does not have to stay in the hospice like Tao-Jie.

I didn’t cry during the movie, but teared on the way driving home. In hind sight, I felt it must have been really tough for the caregivers to shoulder this burden, especially alone. They have to cope with stresses of career and family, bring in the dough to foot the medical bills and face the fear of losing their loved ones. In addition, it can be frustrating when dealing with old folks’ stubbornness— mainly caused by their inability to verbalise their vulnerability, pride and hopelessness. The old, invalid and sickly can be refered to the professionals, social welfare and charities for help. But who can the caregivers turn to for emotional support? For caregivers who are single, what happens when their “baby” is gone (death or senile)? Deep down, they must have wondered who will support them when it’s their turn to face the solitude of declining years.

This is a thought-provoking movie that resonates with people with aging, dependent and ill family member; it tacitly unveiled social issues of baby-boomers and the truths of Hong Kong hospice services. Definitely deserves many awards!

Date-friendly:
Although the movie is pleasantly filmed, this topic might be a little too heavy for first 3 dates.

Tips:
If possible, catch the Cantonese version as the essence of the Hong Kong culture will be better captured.

Lydia's Ratings:
8 out of 10 stars.

Release Date:
Singapore - 8 Mar 2012, Thursday

Trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMCoxooxQoI