Dementia-Friendly Christmas Gifts

She’s now at the stage where she is finding it difficult to read, write and understand a lot of basic conversation. Each day is presenting a new challenge, so we are constantly having to try to find ways to communicate with her and ways to soothe her.

She is a lot more anxious now and she can confuse people, or not remember some at all.

She used to love knitting, reading and watching films but sadly she no longer does any of these things.

So Christmas gifts are really hard to think of this year. You can get dementia specific gifts, such as blankets with various straps, buttons etc that they can fiddle with, but I don’t think my grandmother will engage with any of these things at present.

Whilst she has a lot of dementia-typical behaviours, I don’t think she is quite at the stage of benefiting from those gifts, so I have had to try to think outside the box.

I tend to get some personalised gifts each year for my mum, Chunk’s dad and family, such as photo keyrings, magnets and canvases, so whilst I was browsing Snapfish to buy some I thought about creating a photobook.

Personalised Photobooks by Snapfish

You can use various templates and can adjust them to your own requirements. I wanted to put old and new photographs in the book along with names, dates and places to help remind nan about special memories.

I included photos of her children when they were younger alongside their dates of birth, I put her wedding photograph in, and I showed all of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

I also included some of my favourite photographs in case they help her to recall certain memories.

I feel that this may help her when her memory of people continues to decrease and she may find it comforting to keep flicking through the images.

If you have any other great dementia-friendly Christmas gift ideas, please comment below!