Brain games for elderly

While working through the first year of counselling studies I am also helping out at a local care home/residential village so some of my listening skills can be put into practice there. But it works the other way around too: a lot of what I do there results in great learnings. Recently I was asked to run a Brain Games activity with a complete carte blanche – I can design it myself. I looked at various aspects of brain games for this age group and studied its benefits (although those are pretty obvious to me) and concluded that I will probably focus on fun and socialising aspect of the activity. I want to include a bit of technology too and here I think Lumosity will come handy (I know they have struggled with proving the benefits of their product, but if we take it lightly as fun and something new, something different, I think it’s OK). I will at the core of the Brain Games activity use storytelling with the help of “Once Upon a Time” card game – why? Because it’s fun! It is easy to play. It is engaging. It leads to amazing ideas, regardless of mental abilities of players and I think it will work really well for us. I am not sure how much of the results I can share, but I will take my learnings and apply them to my work in therapy too. I think storytelling can be really powerful in fun activities but also as a core form of therapy (narrative therapy).