Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Busy, Busy, Busy

Some of us are dealing with friends and family with Dementia and Alzheimer's Disease.  Some of us will be victims later in our lives.  Some of us remember the first time they saw a friend cry because her husband kept playing with his zipper.  And some of just want to help both the patients and caregivers to make their lives a little better.

One of the side effects of these diseases is described as busy hands.  Fiddling with a zipper, buttons, pockets, shoe laces, towels etc. etc. etc.

To help keep busy hands busy and to help the patients with a sense of accomplishment someone came up with the brilliant idea of creating Busy Aprons.  Essentially a busy apron is a butcher's style apron that has been embellished with simple activities and interesting textures.

It will be the next activity for the once Upon a Time Bee and I made up a sample the other night.  Here is what I came up with:

On my apron I included chunky buttons, a Velcro key tab, a key ring, a tassel, a sideways pocket, a pocket held together by a ribbon bow, a big pocket, a bit of toweling, a chunky zipper with a ribbon pull tab, all with rick rack and other trims for more texture.  I have space to add more things but for now I'm calling it done.

Other things I could have included were:  shoe laces pulled through shoe grommets for lacing, a see through pocket for family photos, a key to something innocuous like a treasure box, big beads and cording for stringing, a soft toy tethered to a pocket, pompoms, ruffles, pockets for washable markers and a coloring book, laminated family pictures to dangle from a key ring, beads and sequins, all kinds of trims, a bow tie or regular tie to tie, cords/yarn to braid ... I think you get the idea. 

Several web sites have more information on practical solutions to busy hands.  Here are some that focus on Busy Aprons - 
Time to get busy... after I turn off the soaker hoses which may have flooded my yard by now!
  

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