Asking again: can you help a frail, elderly lady?

I don't care about points. Have you considered having someone with a turntable & recording equipment burning a CD with the music from some old 78rpm records. The sound of those old scratchy records will sound like crap to you, but will bring back some fond memories for her...guaranteed. If she has some old ones packed away, ask her which were her favorites & have those recorded (burned) to a CD or a cassette take. It might cost you 50-150 dollars to have this done, but those old sounds will bring tears of joy to her eyes. Ahhh, the good old days when times were so much easier, yet so much harder in some ways! She's a lucky woman to have someone so thoughtful in her life. I wonder if I will be as lucky as she is! Losing your health is the worst part of growing old. Not having access to familiar objects is another.

All of the ideas I've seen so far have great merit and here's another.

Being frail brings a whole different set of lifestyle difficulties and there are a lot of things that cannot be done in the same way that they were.

Let me suggest this, my late Aunt loved this and she was extremely frail due to osteoporosis, among other things. The best thing that you probably can do for your Mom is get a light-weight wheelchair and get her out of the house and into the world around her. These wheelchairs are called Transport Wheelchairs and they cost quite a bit less than the conventional heavy ones. Or perhaps, you could find one at a yard sale or thrift store. You could line the seat with a blanket or a pillow to make it more comfortable for her.

Then, start an adventure. Go to a park, or to a mall, let her see people and hear them. Bearing in mind that her sight and hearing are impaired, she will still get something uplifting from the trip. If she's up to it, go get a milkshake or a sundae. Or how about a Hamburger. I took my Aunt to the Hairdresser in her wheelchair and stayed to help when she needed it. Mind you, she was 83 years old and weighed all of 97 lbs. soaking wet.

It's great that your Mom can still do most of her activities of daily living. This is a blessing in itself.

God bless you for taking such good care of your Mom.

I have heard pets are a wonderful idea as well. Maybe someone that has an interest in knitting as well, can visit her, talk to her about it, ask her questions, or ask if she has any ideas or helpful hints she can share. If she is a reader you might check into some books on tape. My thoughts and prayers are with you, and if I think of anything at all I'll post it here. Good Luck and give you Mother a big hug from a Texas Gal !!

Bless your mom & bless you for wanting to make your mom's life more enjoyable. Is it possible for someone to come to her home & read to her daily, such as the newspaper, Reader's Digest, etc. Would your mom enjoy going for a ride several times a week, just to get out of the house? I think your mom may enjoy visitors, especially if they can speak of the good old days. Does anyone from her church come to visit? Maybe they could keep her informed as to what's new within the church, in that respect. Is it possible for a beautician to visit your mom weekly to do her hair? When was the last time your mom received a floral bouquet? Perhaps someone coming to visit, could bring her some. You know more about all these things than I do, but these are just some ideas I have. All the best to your mom & you. :)

If you can afford it a laptop (or desktop) with a webcam can be used to show a magnified view of things. Mount the camera pointing down and she can put books under it to read enlarged on the screen.

You can get recorded books from many libraries , she could just listem to them instead of reading.

Some knitting charts you could maybe photocopy larger, it would take several pages for each page of the original pattern .

Since she is elderly she may remember the soap opera type programs on the radio. I'm not sure if that is what they were called but I remember my mom listening to and enjoying them. My point is that she may enjoy books on CD. I'm not sure what there is available in her area but it may be worth checking into. Bless you for being with her and loving her because there are so many mothers that are put in seniors homes and forgotten about. I'm sure the best thing in her day is just having you and your family spend time with her

Would your mother enjoy a manicure? My mother-in-law lived to be 92 and always liked to have me give her a manicure. I soaked her hands in warm water, gently cleaned her nails and trimmed or filed them. She picked out the color of nail polish... usually bright red. After the polish was completely dry we finished with hand lotion gently massaged on her hands. It gave us some pleasant time together even after she had a hard time carrying on a conversation. The sense of touch is an important way to communicate.

God bless you for helping your mother.

I have seen these magnifying screens advertised in magazines and on tv. Maybe she could use one of those to see better. She might like her own laptop computer if she could see well enough. She would have hours of interesting fun. You could teach her how.

They have the bible on dvd and great stories so she could listen to them and music and invite her friends to chat with her as when my Mom was very ill the hearing is the last to go,,God Bless you and good Luck,,,I miss my Mom so much she was my best friend and my compass to life.

You know, what a waste it is to put elderly people away from society because they are old. From your description of your mother, I wish I were able to know her, because she seams to know a lot and have a wisdom she can share- that's a gold mine. Spend as much time with her as possible.