Middle NZ: Working on our wuzzles

Solving puzzles is a great way to exercise your brain. Photo / File

OPINION

I had the day off on Monday and took the opportunity to catch up with my school friends.

Out of the "Famous Five" one couldn't make it so three of us took it upon ourselves to descend on the fourth one's lovely property to sit in the sun and drink coffee.

Secretly we all chose her home because she's the best baker. I did offer to bring sausage rolls but she said "don't worry I have some home made ones in the freezer. Score.

When I arrived the smell of home baking hit me at the door and in the kitchen cooling on a tray I spied chocolate chip biscuits. Double score.

However, I'm jumping ahead of myself here. I tend to do that when there's food involved.
I was running a bit late before I left home for our coffee date and was thinking ahead about what I had to do later in the day.

I reversed down the driveway, turned on to the street and a thought popped into my head.

"Did you lock the door?" I was sure I had, but that niggly voice in my head wouldn't stop.
So I parked on the side of the road and went to check. I had locked the door.

I don't now how many times I have done the same thing when I am heading to work. "Did you lock the door?" Park the car and back I go.

It's really annoying and the problem is the older I get the more questions I ask myself.

I must ask myself 10 times a day, as my fingers pause over my keyboard, "what's your password" even though it's been the same for the past four weeks.

I know I'm not alone in this.

Linda Hall

In fact when I was relating the story to my school friends we all had a similar story to tell.

But then one of them, a nurse, said "well I have just the thing for you all" and out of her bag she pulls four sheets of paper.

"Now this is going to help you with your memory and because I knew you would all try to get out of it with any excuse possible I also brought pens with me."

She promptly handed out the sheets of paper — a bit like a teacher really. The entire page was covered in, and these are her words, cognitive stimulation therapy, "wuzzles".

She held on to the page with all the answers.

We groaned, we moaned, we said we weren't any good at stuff like this. But she was having none of that. " It's so good for you to do these things. It stimulates your cognition. "

She has worked with many Alzheimer's patients so she does know her stuff.

So we stared at the wuzzles, making wild guesses while she nudged us in the right direction. It sure makes you think hard and we eventually got there.

It was fun — I think — not as much fun as eating the sausage rolls and biscuits though.

The irony of it was I got a message from the wuzzle bringer yesterday to say that we needed to think of something to help with her cognition because "I couldn't find my keys last night — guess where I found them — in the vege bin in the fridge."

Think I need to find her some wuzzles.

* Linda Hall is assistant editor at Hawke's Bay Today.