It’s autumn and that means it’s time for pumpkins, apple picking, orchards, and a host of wonderful family activities that will be coming soon. It also means that it could be time for leaf cleanup, depending on where your elderly loved one lives. When it comes to senior care, leaf cleanup can be a fun activity, a way to get outside and enjoy the crisp autumn air.
It can also be a great way for seniors to spend some time with their favorite people: their grandkids.
If you have an elderly loved one who requires some level of senior care services, and they live in a house where they need to have the leaves cleaned up at the end of the fall season, you should recommend a day where the senior can get outside with senior care services and have a little bit of fun outside, playing with the leaves.
This doesn’t mean that the senior is going to be raking the entire property and moving the massive piles of leaves onto a tarp and dragging them away. It also doesn’t mean that you’re going to have the senior care service provider cleaning up the leaves for them. That’s not their job.
However, if your loved one is physically capable of getting outside, even if they require the assistance of a walker or wheelchair, the simple act of moving through the leaves or brushing a few off of the patio with a broom, can bring back a wealth of memories from their youth.
What can make fall leaf cleanup even more enjoyable for everyone involved would be if their grandchildren or even great grandchildren could be invited over and they can all play in the leaves with the wild abandon that only young children possess.
Depending on the type of property and its location, there may be a large amount of leaves on the property, or just a few. No matter how many leaves there are, there’s always a great opportunity to have a wonderful, relaxing, and fun afternoon outside, basking in the fresh air and hearing the unique and widely recognizable sound of those leaves moving and crackling beneath feet, rakes, and even wheels.
Senior home services might not recommend these kind of activities because they are outside the normal range of activities, but you know your loved one best, so if you think that they’ll enjoy this activity, recommend it and help out. It could be an afternoon that provides wonderful memories for years to come.
Ed Hayden’s life-long vocation in human services spans over 40 years.
