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Puzzles To Remember

PUZZLES TO REMEMBER is a 501(c)3 organization that provides puzzles to nursing homes, veterans facilities, and other facilities that care for Alzheimer's and dementia patients. Puzzles To Remember was founded in 2008 by Max Wallack, who recognized the calming effect of puzzles and many other benefits on people suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Max graduated from Boston University, Summa Cum Laude, in 2015, and from Harvard Medical School in 2020.

Beginning in 2020, Hailey Richman is the Executive Director of PuzzlesToRemember. Since 2011, Hailey has been distributing puzzles to nursing facilities around the globe. Hailey also spends time doing the puzzles with nursing home residents. She always brightens their days.  Hailey is also the founder of KidCaregivers.com, where she provides advice for children dealing with dementia in their family members. Hailey has begun a program called PuzzleTime which involves volunteer students going to nursing facilities and doing puzzles with their residents. Max serves as a mentor to the KidCaregivers program.

If you have puzzles that you would like to donate, please contact us at Puzzles2Remember@gmail.com and we will find a location near you where you can bring your puzzles. We can also provide you with a donation letter so that you can claim the value of your puzzles as a tax deduction.

To see a short video from WCVB Ch. 5 "BOSTON STRONG" about Max's efforts on behalf of Alzheimer's patients, click here.

To see a short video about Hailey's Puzzle Time Program, click here.

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Alzheimer’s Program in San Diego

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By Max Wallack
Puzzles to Remember
The University City Older Adult Center, in San Diego, offers a great day program for older adults. These adults have the opportunity to meet new friends and enjoy good conversations in a friendly environment.

Here are some of the benefits of this program:

Professional, caring staff 
Social, educational, and recreational programs 
Nutritionally-balanced kosher lunch 
Excellent exercise classes 
Sing-a-longs, dances, and live entertainment 
Four hours of meaningful and enriching activities for older adults 
Appropriate for older adults with early stages of dementia and Alzheimer's 

This program operates, at a reasonable fee, on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from 10 am to 2 pm.

PuzzlesToRemember recently supplied two of the Springbok PuzzlesToRemember to this program.

Here is the reaction from their activity director:

"The puzzles are terrific, the size, colors, and themes are extraordinary."

Of course, a picture is worth a thousand words, so here is a picture of a gentleman whose reaction says it all:

:

Max Wallack is a student at Boston University and a Research Intern in the Molecular Psychiatry in Aging Laboratory in the Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics at Boston University School of Medicine.  His great grandmother, Gertrude, suffered from Alzheimer's disease. Max is the founder of  PUZZLES TO REMEMBER. PTR is a project that provides puzzles to nursing homes and veterans institutions that care for Alzheimer's and dementia patients.

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Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Can Aerobic Exercise and Environmental Enrichment Slow Alzheimer's Disease?

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By Max Wallack
PuzzlesToRemember

The benefits of aerobic activities for those with Alzheimer’s has been accepted for some time. Improving oxygen flow to the brain is good for us all.

Bob DeMarco, editor of the AlzheimersReadingRoom,  has told us many times how much more alert and “more there” Dotty, his mom, was each time she emerged from the gym, even though Dotty had never gone to the gym until her late 80’s.

A new research article (Li et Al, 2013) is showing that, perhaps, Dotty improved so greatly from her trips to the gym were not despite the fact that she didn't start until her late 80’s, but because of that fact.

In this study, scientists who were already providing wild mice with a running wheel for exercise, decided to add a novel toy or object to explore to their cage each day. The results were amazing. While the mice doing aerobic exercise were less impaired when injected with amyloid beta from Alzheimer’s patients, those mice who were given the novel toys each day were significantly less impaired than those with the aerobic exercise alone.

Could it be that the novelty of going to the gym every day had a significant effect upon Dotty, above and beyond the exercise factor?

It looks like that is a very real possibility. We all know and have accepted the fact that following a familiar routine is best for those with Alzheimer’s disease. However, research shows that it is also important to add something novel to the daily routine.

Dotty’s trips to the Banana Boat were even more than getting into the bright light and socializing with those she knew. Meeting new people may have also been very good for her.

Now, I think back to our many trips with Great Grams. We took her everywhere with us. It was as if we continued to live our lives normally and included her, even when she was greatly impaired. I never really considered the fact that our trip to Hawaii, where she was amazed seeing, for the first time in her life, pineapples and bananas growing, may actually have slowed down her disease a bit. Perhaps my own life, bringing her along to weekly taekwondo sessions, provided beneficial novel experiences for her.

In the research paper, it states that “environmental enrichment” stimulates the hippocampus, the same area that is most impaired by Alzheimer’s disease. This meshes well with my convictions that puzzles of various kinds can be therapeutic.

So, along with a predictable, daily, comfortingly familiar schedule, we should also try to work in at least one novel experience daily. It can be a puzzle, a trip, a new story, coloring, or painting. It doesn't matter. What matters is the new experiences. And, of course, adding it to an aerobic activity reaps the most benefits.

Have your worked aerobic exercise into your daily caregiving routine? How about "environmental enrichment"?

What are you doing that seems to make the person living with dementia "more there", or happier?

Please tell us about it.
Max Wallack is a student at Boston University and a Research Intern in the Molecular Psychiatry and Aging Laboratory in the Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics at Boston University School of Medicine. His great grandmother, Gertrude, suffered from Alzheimer's disease. Max is the founder of PUZZLES TO REMEMBER. PTR is a project that provides puzzles to nursing homes and veterans institutions that care for Alzheimer's and dementia patients.

Read More....
PUZZLES TO REMEMBER was founded in 2008 by Max Wallack, in memory of his great-grandmother, Gertrude Finkelstein, who died of Alzheimer's disease in 2007.
Puzzles To Remember is registered in Massachusetts as a public charity. Contributions are welcome, and are tax deductible under sec. 501(c.)3 of the Internal Revenue Code.

For more information, write to us at Puzzles2Remember@gmail.com