Any ideas for keeping a 100 year old engaged in some activities when he has poor eyesight, doesn't hear well, and has mobility issues?

Let him sleep, “perchance to dream.”

There is nothing terrible about slowly winding down, content to have lived a full life.

Babies need a great deal of sleep. Very, very old people do, as well. Let him be.

My suggestion is to let him be, at 100 he deserves to do whatever he wants to, if it's nothing, that's ok too.

Living to a 100 is a miracle into itself! Let him be, you can enjoy your life while he sleeps.

My Mom is also approaching 100 in a few weeks. She can’t see, can’t feel the tips of her fingers, and worries about EVERYTHING. But she's still quite sharp in her thinking. I kind of wish she would sleep more. Anyway, if you or he or someone you know is at all up on technology (a big ask, I know), there’s streaming audiobooks and podcasts that he may enjoy. He could use speech recognition to text or email friends and family. Getting out and about is problematic, he may or may not enjoy things like shopping or dealing with other old people, especially if they’re not as “with it” as he is. My mom will never go to a day care, they’re full of old people.

Oh my goodness, he’s earned the right to spend his time sleeping if he likes!

No matter how intelligent and educated, we need more sleep as we grow old. Leave him alone and live your own life. If I were a hundred years old, I’d be annoyed if my spouse wanted me to go to day care and bat balloons around a table or something equally stupid. I’m sure that what’s going on inside his head is way more interesting than that.

Your husband is 100, not 60 or 70, so let the poor man sleep all he wants, as he's earned that right. Plus I can only imagine that at 100 years old that he is beyond tired. I know I would be if I get to live that long.
He's lived his life the way he wanted I'm sure, so let him now leave this life for the next in whatever way he sees fit. And if that's sleeping the better part of the day, so be it. You can turn on his favorite music(up loud if necessary)for him to listen to while he sleeps if you feel you must do something.
But please don't put your unrealistic expectations on him. Just let him be.

My experience in ‘entertaining’ very elderly people was doing a monthly ‘read aloud’ session at our local NH. I found that what I read aloud had to be short (for short attention spans) and preferably well known. These very old ladies didn’t want to ‘learn new things’, but really enjoyed hearing again things they remembered from their past but had not heard for a long time. Successes included poetry they learned in school, Bible stories they had heard as children, and also new stories if they were only three or four pages long and easy to relate to. Sometimes I talked through the words of songs from the 50s and 60s, especially if I could attempt to sing a verse or two. They remembered the tunes, and we all laughed a little about my voice! Dean Martin and Doris Day are a good start, but you know your husband's preferences.

They liked a gap after each one to think, and perhaps a little discussion about it, or a few comments from me. I read the whole of the Sermon on the Mount and what we thought about it now. I brought up the comments on divorce, with which I disagreed, but said that in those days for people who weren’t wealthy, divorcing a woman usually condemned her to destitution or prostitution. I remember well a couple of the group reacting that it was really good to be treated for once as experienced adults! However including bits of old children's books as part of the mix, is NOT treating them as children!

Perhaps it would work if you (or someone else) could read a little, then leave a gap to let DH think and reminisce, then let him drop off to sleep for a while. If he has a good idea about the story and the words (especially with poetry), he could fill in the blanks if his hearing skips a bit. It could keep the past fresh for him, and keep his mind working at a pace he would enjoy. Worth a try?
Lots of love, Margaret

Everyone: thank you so much for your suggestions and going to the trouble of giving them. After we return from the holiday vacation we are taking, I am going to definitely look into many of them. Both of us are technically challenged, but I'm sure we could get help with podcasts, audio books, radio shows, headphones, etc.
My spirits have been lifted by so many ideas and possibilities.

Happy holiday and the best for the New Year to all of you and your families, and especially to the ones who drive us crazy ......

Is he bored ? Or is he content ? If he doesn’t like daycare , don’t force it. At 100 it may be too much of an effort to get out . I like the audio books idea if he can hear .How about music as well ? Listen to pod casts ? Does he have hearing aids?
He is likely to need to sleep a lot at his age .

I suggest having a couple of over the ear headphones available that are stored in a heavy duty, large, clam shell type box.

Write his name on each of them if he’s in a nursing home. I have three different sets of EarPods that I keep charged and rotate easily. I keep them in a little mesh type zipper bag where everything stays together. The charge lasts about four hours, or so, but having more than one set will be very convenient.

I agree with you that your husband is far too intelligent to be left to sleep all day. Are there any senior activities available to him? It sounds like he may live at home, but how about doing some physical therapy with him while sitting in a chair? Chair yoga, perhaps? Something that you can easily do together, to bond, but that is very gentle on his body and yours too.

Bless you for taking such care for his mind. He needs mental stimulation which is so very helpful for an intelligent man. I would suggest gardening but I’m not sure that would be attainable. Can you move him outdoors to enjoy the breeze, or the cooler weather? Depending on your geographic location, of course.

I suggest chair yoga one last time. You can find videos on YouTube or buy a couple of dvds to have on hand, switching them out every now and again.

Good luck to you! Please let us know how your proposed activities work for both of you. 😉

My mother had the same issues. She was a big reader (six books/week), a librarian and an artist, and she developed macular degeneration, so you can imagine how her world just shrunk to nothing. She also had dementia, mobility problems, and severe hearing loss.

She too, slept all day, and I always suspected much of the reason was boredom. Sure enough, when she went to memory care, she stayed awake most of the day, because she was AROUND activities and other people even when she couldn't fully participate. She'd have rather stuck needles in her eyes than play bingo, but she did seem to enjoy being aroud others who were playing it.

For her, music therapy was where she really brightened up. They had endless sing-along sessions at her place, and she loved them. They cranked up the volume, and she could hear that well enough.

It's tough to find enough that's stimulating for a person who's home and not around others, but you might try playing music, books on tape with headphones, and just plain conversation.

The key is to mix things up each day, because I think a lot of what gets older people hung up is the incessant routine of their days.