jeannegibbs Asked October 2015
Who has had experience with life-like dolls for persons with dementia?
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Mother was looking through a magazine the other day and showed me an ad for a baby doll. Isn't she beautiful!, she said. I agreed. I asked her if she thought she'd like a doll like that, expecting to get her "I'm not a child" disdainful reply. But she said, "Of course. But I know it would be too expensive."
hmm ...
I've read lots of anecdotes in catalogs, but I'd love to hear from people with first-hand experience.
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I visited a memory care once. It was in a huge Victorian house and the memory care floor was decorated to suit the Victorian period. And like Sunnygirl said, this memory care also had baby dolls and changing stations with diapers and bottles and pretend food, blankets and cribs. I saw several women interacting with the baby dolls.
It made my heart ache but in a way it was beautiful the way these women were so caring and loving with the dolls and I just knew that they had been young mothers once with kids of their own. All these years later and destroyed by dementia that mothering instinct was still in these women.
I think anything that provides comfort to our loved ones with dementia is worth looking into. If you get the doll please come back and let us know how it's going.
Later she seemed to lose interest in the doll and now it sits on her bed most of the time.
I would invest in an inexpensive doll to see how your mom likes it. I know the lifelike dolls can be quite expensive.
One Memory Care facility that I visited had a baby station. It was very nice and included a crib, changing station, several dolls, bottles, etc. They said some of the residents really enjoyed it.
They also had a bridal area set up too. It had a veil, hair brush, flowers, etc.
My mother had mentioned a few times that she and her siblings never had dolls because their parents were too poor to buy them.
So after Dad and Mom were married, she enjoyed collecting little dolls from a series offered by the now defunct A & P stores. Each doll was costumed in an outfit of a different country.
She also bought a few of the either sewn or crocheted dolls that cover toilet paper - this was also a time when people used doilies and dresser scarves so they were in keeping with decor of the time.
Another one she bought was a larger doll with a full skirt and partial overskirt, with the top skirt sectioned off in sections which each could contain 1 set of silverware place setting. She used those for outdoor gatherings we had.
They really were quite pretty and eventually I may just save them as they remind me of Mom.
Mom really enjoyed her dollies. There was one that was very special that Dad bought for her in Mexico, so we put it in her casket with her.
So if your mother likes the doll, I'd say buy it for her. There may be some childhood memory that, as for my mother, is underlying her desire for the doll.
As to not being a child anymore, adults collect dolls; I'm sure some are in fact collectibles and traded in those circles at cost levels of dolls none of us would be able to afford.
You can tell her you found a way to get the doll she admires at a discount and just make up a reasonable sum. That way she won't feel as if she's caused a financial expenditure that's unaffordable for you.
I've emailed all my sisters why I want to get Mom a doll and inviting them to be included IF they want to.
I've picked out a doll. I'll wait a bit in case my sisters want to help pick out a doll, and then I'm ordering one.
(I'll instruct family to save that doll for when I'm gaga. Or maybe even if I'm not. :)
I rotate pictures that I put in my cousin's room in Memory Care. She really loves cats, so I hung many of those photos, but I also ran across some horses in a calendar. I have found that calendars have lovely pictures that she can enjoy. She loved the horses and now she talks often of her boyfriend coming and getting her on a horse and taking her on the horse to her doctor's visit! She says he takes on the horse for dinner as well. It seems to bring her great pleasure.
I don't know how attached she will become. I can tell this already, though, she is going to get a lot of attention if she brings it with her out of her room! Aides and residents stopped at her table today to tell her how pretty her doll was.
She and the ladies at her table talked about naming it. One lady suggested Susie and she said "I have a Susie. I don't want my other daughters to feel jealous." I got close to her and said privately, "How about Eunice?" All she said to that was "NO!" (That was her given name. She changed it.) Mom said, "I have too many names in my head now and they are all mixed up. I need a list!" So I wrote down all the suggested names. She picked "Penny."
She held it a while wrapped in the blanket, and we took it for a BRIEF walk outside (it is really Fall here now.) I also brought a a little seat that slips onto a table, so the doll could be with her without holding it.
The lady who was with Mom when I brought out the doll was thrilled with it. She must have asked me 12 times where I got it and what brand it was. I answered the same and politely each time. Mother sometimes repeats a question, but not that bad, and not as severely as her dear sister-in-law did. That constant repetition can really wear a caregiver down! (My husband, Coy, had very little of that symptom, thank goodness!)
So it remains to be seen how the doll will work out in the long run, but Mom sure enjoyed it today.
Oh well, not the first time. I'm ordering a doll. Stay tuned for the next installment (if you are interested.)
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