Here is a mind map listing 22 different things you can do at little or no extra cost as you go through your normal day. As someone with dementia, making myself get up out of the chair to go to the post office for stamps is a three-day fight with myself and an anxiety-causing hassle. I have 150,000 digital pictures and no photo albums (and little ability to organize the pictures in logical ways or even to delete the out-takes). The weekly trips to COSTCO or Walmart to buy basic staples for the house at huge discounts are something in my past ancient history (6 months ago) and if you are going and can bring back a 12 paper towel pack and 3 of those 48 can cases of diet soda and giant bottles of dish detergent, laundry detergent, and dryer sheets that would be a huge savings for me and life help. I’ll give you plenty of money to cover the things I would like with enough leftover to buy your kids pizza on the way out. How about taking my iPhone for 30 minutes and getting rid of the extra junk on it and also setting the system defaults so that recurring event reminders don’t wake me up in the middle of the night.

Most of these 22 things would just require some brief communications between us if you were going to the post office or COSTCO or near a pharmacy I need to go to, I’d greatly appreciate it if you would ask if I’d like a ride over there (I’ll get myself home on Uber or a bus).

Little things are big when you have dementia. Just being able to save $10 on a bulk pack of paper towels would bring a smile to my face.

Some concrete suggestions that would be great for people in early and mid-stage dementia who are still working hard to remain independent. Any help is greatly appreciated.

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